Yachting

Safety first at sea

John Groser

Seven years ago this month, while i was writing a history of the 'Observer Singlehanded Translatlantic Yacht Races', I talked with Blondie Hasler about safety at sea. One year ago this month, Edward Heath's Morningcloud was tragically lost off the coast of Sussex. The two facts are not unrelated. For while in four solo Atlantic races not a single

life has been lost, two (almost in sight of Brighton) were sacrificed in last September's offshore disaster.

Morningcloud was a highlY tuned, well-equipped racing machine. She was fully crewed. She hit bad weather. Back in 1968, for example, yachts of similar size,

tuned for ocean racing, but manned only by one yachtsman (and in one case a yachiswornan) hit much worse weather, and caused considerable controversy about offshore racing and safety standards. But nn one was drowned.

A Frenchman, Joan de Kat, was shipwrecked in his bizarre and Oa my mind) totally unseaworthY trimaran Yaksha. The German girl, Edith Baumann, abandoned her rather more solid (it had anti-whale bars) trimaran, Koala. De Kat was miraculously spotted by an RAE

Shackleton and was rescued. Fraulein Baumann (and her dog "Schatz") were picked up by a French research vessel.

The purists protested. Not only were multihull yachts unsafe for offshore singlehanded sailing, they

were unsafe full stop. Then came the Sunday Times Singlehanded

Round the World Race, and Donald Crowhurst was sadly presumed drowned it sea.

So back to Hasler and safety. His view, as befits the "Cockleshell Hero", was that it was impossible to

have success without failure. 11 men (and women) were to be allowed to try and prove sometly ing, then it was inevitably that occasionally they would fail and that there would be disasters.

Even so, and especially after the Morningcloud tragedy twelve months ago, people insist that ocean racing serves no useful purpose. They say it is dangerous and costly. They cannot see that it IS a form of endeavour no less demanding or worthwhile or exciting or dangerous than, say, mountaineering — though there are some of course who would argue that Climbing a mountain serves no useful purpose.

The astonishing thing about Ocean racing and the challenge of the sea is the effect it has on those Who answer the challenge. A mountain climber conquers his mountain — he fights it, he struggles with it, he is cowed by it, but in the end he vanquishes it and is Pictured, arms akimbo or flag aloft, bestriding it triumphantly, the victor.

Offshore sailors give no such impression. There is always a boat that takes line honours, of course. But there is never any talk of conquering the sea. For the sea is not something that you master. Racing yachtsmen give only the impression of having arrived in a spirit of almost profound humility. There is certainly personal satisfaction, of a job well done or a race well won. But there are no arms akimbo, no flags aloft.

Boat builders, sail makers, the manufacturers of navigational equipment are all trying constantly to make the sport safer. It i9 amazing how much faster offshore yachts sail now that just five or ten years ago. But even with your Sparkman and Stephens hull, your Hood sails and your Loran to help you navigate, human judgment must be the ultimate factor. Too often, sadly, that factor is not equal to the quality of the equipment or the demands of the situation.

John Groser is the author of Atlantic Venture and other books. He is also Consumer Affairs Correspondent of The Times.