In the Round the island race on Saturday (1533 entrants) in the UK the yacht belonging to the commodore of the club that host the race (he was not on it) ran aground on a sunken wreck and sunk

This is a known obstruction and competitors often sail near it to shorten the course

Video of the sinking here iwradio.co.uk/2016/07/04/dramatic-footage-shows-alchemist-boat-sinking-at-round-the-island-race/

and a thread from a UK forum discussing it here forums.ybw.com/index.php?threads/the-ss-varvassi-claims-yet-another-victim.459808/

Interesting reading and watching

Regards Don

It was reported they hit the wreck of the SS Varvassi.

i think the wreck is off the point in this time lapse.

www.facebook.com/VisitIOW/videos/10201312547006135/

Rant coming.
Bunch of tossers. If winning a race is that important do your own rescues. They have no right to expect others to come to their rescue when they take such stupid risks.

MorningBird said..
Rant coming.
Bunch of tossers. If winning a race is that important do your own rescues. They have no right to expect others to come to their rescue when they take such stupid risks.

I believe they have a rescue boat stationed there during the race

Regards Don

Guitz said..


..........instead of the rescue boat....Doh!......a simpler solution would be to drop a buoy just out from the furthermost hazard and make them sail around it.

And then where we would we get threads like this one ..... Doh!

just goes to show how quick the crew would need to be deploying the life raft !!

Donk107 said..

SandS said..

jut goes to show how quick the crew would need to be deploying the life raft !!

Once it started to go it didn't take to long before it was under

the rescue crew had dry suits , i wonder how long the the rescued crew would have lasted if they had ended up in the water .... 5- 10 min maybe

I copied this post from the UK forum and i think it is a sensible assessment of the situation

"Maybe I'm having a sense of humour failure, but has anyone who has hit the wreck while cutting the corner on RTIR ever complained about either its continued presence or the lack of individual marks on the boilers? I've never heard such a complaint. Everyone knows the risks and decides accordingly, and if you hit it then the consequences have to be quietly accepted. The only people who seem to be complaining are cruising folk who all claim to never cut inside Bridge anyway, so surely a moot point?

You could argue knowingly sailing towards such dangers is taking advantage of the safety cover provided on the day, and I guess that's a fair point.

There seems to be a lot of anti-racer sentiment in this thread. Of course cutting inside the wreck is a risk that a cruising boat would never take and I don't think any of the skippers who do it on RTIR would argue that it constitutes 'good practice' for general sailing. At the end of the day the RTIR is part of life's rich tapestry, a splendid spectacle and brings lots of enjoyment to sailors and landlubbers alike, not to mentions tourism revenue to the island and south coast. Would you really want to get rid of it, or dumb it down?"

Regards Don

Hi Morningbird

Do you think that if there wasn't rescue boats stationed there the skippers might think twice about sailing over the wreck

Regards Don

Toph said..
The video has been removed by request... My cynical mind wonders if there is more to the story

Removed from there but still on here www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2016/07/04/video-sinking-alchemist/

Very strange

Regards Don

Donk107 said...
Hi Morningbird

Do you think that if there wasn't rescue boats stationed there the skippers might think twice about sailing over the wreck

Regards Don

I think so. If the rules allowed for the rescued to be liable to pay for the rescue behaviours are likely to change. The organisers would need to have insurance or have participants pay a fee to cover rescue efforts.
I got a lot of satisfaction conducting SAR in most cases. People got in trouble for all sorts of reasons and it was rewarding to be able to help out. I got angry when called in off leave to go look for idiots. My logbook reminds me of one in the 1977 S2H for the yacht Penando (from memory as my logbook is in storage for our removal). They were 50nm east of Point Perpendicular when they tacked and started taking water. We had two aircraft out all night looking for them. They had managed to get into Ulladulla before we had even got airborne. They went to the pub and didn't tell anyone they were safe. We heard later from the police the crew thought it a big joke the south coast were searching all night.
I have had sailors at the CYCA tell me the rescuers are paid to be on call to look after them. Putting a price on rescue would help stop it.

An interesting comment fron one of the entrants from another forum

As can be seen from this photograph the gap is approximately 10 boat widths, say 40m. On a reasonable day, it is hardly unreasonable, unseamanlike, unprofessional, and all the other critical terms that have been used, to sail through a 40m gap. There are many smaller gaps around !!

For the record, I have been through there on the last four races, two on my own boat and two as a commercial skipper, including last weekend. You have to assess the risk on the day - how rough is it? what's the tide doing? How many other boats are doing the same thing? I had also been there on a RIB 2 days before hand to refresh my memory.

I feel absolutely no guilt at trying to give my clients the best possible race result, which they were expecting, in a professional way.

Regards Don

twodogs1969 said..
It would be a simple fix and rests with the race committee.
Simply make an exclusion zone where the wreck is. Caught going in the zone disqualified.
while it is permitted to go through the wreck skippers will. How many owners have we heard of or known that in the chase to improve their boat have stripped so much out to minimize weight have had a boat collapsed.
it's nothing to do with knowing that rescue is at hand it's more winning is the only thing.
For what it is worth the mentality of rescue will be there would be more prominent in cruisers imho

the last thing we need is more dumbing down of yacht racing i think the nanny state is out of control now with ocean races being called off in 35 knots what ever happened to enter race at own risk build a yacht capable of handling the conditions even if that includes the odd grounding ( sail in morteon bay and theres a grounding nearly every race )

Donk107 said..
An interesting comment fron one of the entrants from another forum

As can be seen from this photograph the gap is approximately 10 boat widths, say 40m. On a reasonable day, it is hardly unreasonable, unseamanlike, unprofessional, and all the other critical terms that have been used, to sail through a 40m gap. There are many smaller gaps around !!

For the record, I have been through there on the last four races, two on my own boat and two as a commercial skipper, including last weekend. You have to assess the risk on the day - how rough is it? what's the tide doing? How many other boats are doing the same thing? I had also been there on a RIB 2 days before hand to refresh my memory.

I feel absolutely no guilt at trying to give my clients the best possible race result, which they were expecting, in a professional way.

Regards Don

That photo is just crazy.

It is like four rugby football teams trying to get through one door at the same time.

Obviously nobody is travelling at sufficient speed to make bumping the rocks a calamity situation.

sirgallivant said..
I am outraged reading MorningBird's inflaming, inhuman, inconsiderate comment!

I am entirely on the side of Donk and the other racers who commented and try to keep racing safe from the interference of the 'regulation brigade' of our softening modern age. Regulating every humane activity for regulation's and their own sake.

Think about F1, MotoGP, track racing, crossing oceans by sixteen year old children, roving or swimming channels, speed record chasing by Bert Munroe, Campbell, boat design, the developement of new technologies or the Apollo program going to the moon and all other activities where pushing the boundaries of humane activity is concerned.

Racing sailboats was, is and will be inherently dangerous, no matter what. See the accident on the Pittwater last season.

The risk taking is part of the equation - reckless or not - and all efforts should be used to help and rescue the persons brought close to peril.

The comment l am so upset about is akin to the thinking of a Bolshevik or Nazi not a sailor who is otherwise we'll respected not just by me but everyone on this forum.

Morning Bird please put your thinking cap on and reconsider! Please!

Just to clarify my position

I always err on the side of caution when i am sailing my own boat and in the aerial photo i would be a mile to starboard out of the photo, but the skipper i crew with would be right in amongst the rest of the pack and have a big smile on his face, but he has years of experience, confidence in his ability, is willing to take calculated risks and is prepared to but his boat in places that I would never go

I started this thread to see what others thought and the feedback so far has been interesting

Regards Don

After reading "Fatal Storm" about the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race, I am of the opinion that, even though it may be given, no one should ask or expect rescue crews to do was was done then. That's like saving it okay if soldiers get shot or killed because that's what they are paid to do.

I mostly sail by myself and if I get in the $hit, then it's my problem, not someone else's. I carry an EPIRB (well 3 actually) but it would be an absolute last resort before activating it.

I still can't see a problem with what Morning Bird posted.