Jump to content

Vestas collision


JK

Recommended Posts

They do have form (for collisions).

 

How do you tell when a boat is cursed?

 

Not so many superstitious sailors around these days, but sometimes you have to ask the question.

This one is the old Alvimedica (source SA)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Have to feel for them.  Without knowing exactly what happened, it's pretty easy to imagine coming into HK being a wall of lights, and doing 20+ it being pretty easy in the dark to not see a small dark shape or even a lit shape with a huge cities lights behind it.  

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Read somewhere that Franck Cammas has commented that they had to slalom their way through the final stretch into Hong Kong. I can’t find the article, but he says along the lines of they were coming in at 20+ knots with water over the decks and there were boats all over the place, which they had to avoid in the dark.

Very dangerous.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Found it.

“We were in the middle of countless fishing boats. There were two areas previously that were just as dense. This was the last area before we got to Hong Kong," the 45-year-old, who skippered the winning Groupama IV in the 2011-2012 race, told AFP.

 

He added that these kinds of accidents were "extremely rare" because vessels usually have equipment on board to help spot other boats.

 

"We had to slalom a little bit... We were almost at the boat's maximum speed, around 20 knots, with boats where everyone is concentrating on controlling the sails, with a lot of water in your face too, so it's going fast, and there's a lot of noise."

Link to post
Share on other sites

understandable it might be, but after last time. you'd have thought they'd have learned that safe navigation is of primary importance...

 

And the local fishermen like have zero experience of yachts that do 20Knots plus, and are likely to underestimate their speed...

Link to post
Share on other sites

Interesting comments about this and the VOR in general in this mornings Herald.

 

Volvo Ocean Race organisers reported very limited information about the incident,

which killed one man, and reportedly excluded questions of the crash during their

recent press conference.

 

Ehman claims that not one crew member or representative from Vestas was present at the Hong Kong press conference, and the mainstream media were excluded to ask questions.

"They had the press conference with no mention of Vestas, no Vestas representation and Andy Green, who was the moderator, was the only one asking questions," said Ehman.

"They issued afterwards, long afterwards, a statement but only with quotes from the other six skippers."

Ehman claims "many people" now believed that organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race were concealing information and potentially match-fixing the event in the interest of maintaining positive publicity for their core sponsor, Volvo.

Link to post
Share on other sites

If there is not some sort of cover up regarding the Vestas incident, there is certainly the strong smell of a PR shutdown, or just a complete lack of leadership from race management. Remember the CEO, Mark Turner, quit on the eve of the race start. Whoever is in there now certainly wasn't head hunted for the position.

 

On the fixing front, hard to understand how you can fix a race like that.

But I still don't understand how Skallywag can almost run into a reef, loose 50 miles, when they were already at the back of the fleet, and in a one design fleet somehow go on to win the leg into their home port...

Not to mention the time the last recovering their MoB on this leg, two f*ck ups and still win?

 

Must have amazing luck.

Link to post
Share on other sites

As it is an ongoing investigation I think it make sense to wait for the findings to be released before the organisers make to many comments.

 

Re Scallywag if you were watching the tracker you would have seen how it happened, basically everyone was well north chasing breeze and Scallywag (in last place with nothing to lose) took a punt and made a hard left which paid off big time.

No massive conspiracy there. Ehman is just a sh*t stirrer of the highest order.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yep that was exactly what happened with Scallywag and how they got ahead.

 

I don't agree with some of the way it's run, but I don't believe for a second that the results are rigged.

 

Scallywag are actually leading this leg at the moment too.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...