sailing drama

Between the hours of 04.45 and 06.30 GMT this morning a dramatic rescue operation took place in the treacherous icy waters of the Southern Ocean. Devastated solo sailor Alex Thomson (GBR) abandoned his yacht HUGO BOSS, after it suffered severe structural failure to the keel, and dramatically transferred via life raft to Mike Golding's yacht ECOVER. Thomson and Golding (GBR) both highly experienced yachtsmen and fellow competitors in the VELUX 5 Oceans race, carried out the rescue operation with the utmost caution. It took four attempts to get Thomson safely onboard ECOVER and the transfer took one hour and 45 minutes. from the velux5oceans website.

the double reality of sadness and heroics involved in this rescue has not been well reported by radio4. they talk about it as a capsize, which is only partly true, if the velux5oceans website is right. rado4 gives a picture that is open to speculation as to why hugo boss is being abandoned, whereas the cause is clearly gear failure of the swinging keel coming apart. this is not difficult to get right from a reportage perspective, so why not get it right? sailors all over the world will be annoyed at the amateurish attempt by the bbc in its coverage.

below is a very clear and well-presented precis of the situation from one of the competitors, the legendary sir robin knox-johnston, reported on the velux5oceans website: "The news that Alex Thomson has had to abandon his boat Hugo Boss in the Southern Ocean is only relieved by the fact that he is safe. His boat was one of the best prepared for the 2006 Velux 5 Oceans race, and the fact that he has suffered a mechanical failure is a tragedy. This was not a new or experimental boat. It is a well tried one with plenty of miles beneath its keel, so for a major mechanical failure - either something was slowly weakening or there was a sudden abnormal strain - but we may never know the answer to that now.

"It comes at a time when the IMOCA boats had had a very good safety record in recent years since the rules were tightened after the Bullimore keel failure, and members were congratulating themselves that they had not had the sort of problems that were experienced by the Volvo fleet last year. The IMOCA 60 boats are probably the most tested yachts before they can receive their certificate and take part in an event, so a structural failure like this may need some hard thinking about, to avoid such problems in the future.

"This also means that those of us at sea in the race are looking at our own keel arrangements and just wondering how secure they are, but few of us can give an answer. We are seamen and sailors, not engineers and designers, and not qualified to say whether what we have is safe or not. We take to sea what we are given but at the back of our minds is: 'What happens if?'

"This is not the first rescue of this type in the race. In the first event in 1982 Tony Lush was picked up by another American between Africa and Australia, and on the next leg Englishman Richard Broadhead beat back for three days to rescue French Navy Commander Jacques de Roux whose boat had been holed. This was the incident that led to the adoption of compulsory watertight doors for this race. In 1990 Bertie Reed picked up fellow South African John Martin after his boat had hit an iceberg.

"It is an axiom in these races that the nearest assistance will probably come from another competitor, apart from some excellent exceptions by the Royal Australian Navy. The good news is that Alex is safe and it won't be long before he is out racing again."

congrats to mike golding on his skill, courage, and exemplary effort in keeping the code of the sea in going to the aid of a sailor in trouble. i know what its like to be passed by when i've been in trouble (albeit nowhere near the scale of this one!)
and commiserations to alex thomson on having his race end in such a way.