Here is another report from Jill Nickerson at the European Championships. This is pretty terrifying!

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From Jill Nickerson
Suncoast Sailing Campaign

In the pre race day of the European Championships tragedy strikes the Tornado Fleet. During the practice race, the German team of Jo Jo Polgar and Andrew Landenberger were practically killed and their boat destroyed after one of the race committee boats hit them broadside and RAN OVER them.

The accident happened half way up the first windward leg. A race committee boat was taking pictures of the Australian team going up wind when they suddenly turned off, and sped broadside into, and over the German Tornado. The boat hit the German team from the leeward side at a 90 degree angle while the team were both trapped out on the wire. The power boat proceeded to go right thru them, the boom, the sails and the mast before coming to rest on the windward hull (the hull on the opposite side of where they hit). Jo Jo, crew on the boat, said "we were yelling and yelling at the boat while it was going in the same direction, about 20 meters away, as they were far too close, then all of a sudden, they went even faster, turned, and came right at us". Both of the team members went flying and Andrew grabbed Jo Jo and tried to cling on to the rudder of the Tornado to try and protect themselves against the high speed propeller of the motor boat. Andrew ended up dislocating his shoulder and the two fortunately suffered only minor cuts and bruises. The only thing both Andrew and Jo Jo could keep saying was it was unbelievable to think that someone involved in the race could be so careless.

After the collision, the 3 people in the powerboat were a bit in shock as they tried to sort the pieces out. A second boat came to the rescue of the two boats. It took quite a while to get the wreckage under control where they could be towed in. Once into the beach, Andrew was able to pop his shoulder back into place with some help and work was frantically begun to try and salvage the wreckage and put a boat back together for the start of the first race in the morning at 12PM. It will be a race against time as there is much work to do. The hull will need to be repaired, mast replaced and re rigged, boom built and re rigged, sails dramatically repaired, since the power boat went thru the window of the main sail and wounds healed.

The driver was unavailable for comment but I do not think he will be operating a vehicle during the race. The police came to the boat park but with the language issues, we are not sure if this was related to this incident.

Michael Grandfield, class president, was quite disturbed and was last seen heading to the race office to have a bit of a chat, to say the least, to address this issue as well as the issue of multiple power boats on the course.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident in this fleet as well as other fleets. The 2002 Pre Olympic test event was marked with tragedy when a US wind surfer was hit by a power boat and very seriously injured. She has still not totally recovered and her Olympic dreams crushed. The 2003 Miami Olympic Classes regatta had a tourist cigarette speed boat, fly thru the course and run over the back of Roman Hagara, 2000 Olympic Tornado Gold Medalist, fortunately not resulting in any bodily injury, but damaging the boat. In one of the most tragic collisions, Brazilian Tornado sailor Lars Grail was struck by a speed boat during a training session and had his leg severed just below the hip, nearly killing him and ending his chance at a Gold medal at the 2000 games.

We hope this is the last tragedy we have to report from this or any other event, but hope that stories like this one, drive the point home to regatta organizers how serious race management needs to be. It is imperative to have responsible and knowledgeable race committee on the water to serve and protect the racers on the water. It is very important to have a clear understanding of the speed and closing speeds of the boats on the course and be able to anticipate movement if you are doing race committee work with in the course.

Best regards,
Jill Nickerson
Suncoast Sailing Campaign

Sometimes I wonder about powerboaters. I think they assume that because we don't have the convenience of a propellor, we are slow enough to avoid.

I think that its not pure coincidence that the incidents mentioned above took place with high speed sailing machines and not your average flying scot.

Glad everyone is ok.

(I have no idea what the circumstances were in the above incident – I just wanted to comment on a related subject.)

You're right. I think most boaters whether it power or sail, (because I’ve had run-ins with mono-hulls at mark roundings) do not realize just how fast catamarans can be.
There are also those sticky situations that may arise due to different points of sail or getting hit by a gust downwind with a spinnaker flying.
Power boaters have to know what they are doing when out on a race course and they need to have experienced people on board who can keep an eye on boats nearby while they are maneuvering around the course. Especially at high speeds.
I’ve often expressed my concerns on the notion that any boat/skipper/crew will do to serve as a committee or mark boat. I understand that in these days finding help on the water to run a race is very difficult; but you simply cannot throw anyone out there who happens to own a powerboat. At the very least you need to have one person onboard who has served on a chase boat before.

Tracie

What amazes me is how anyone can make a course change without looking around and getting a feel for where the others around them are and going. Secondly how do you miss the 31' mast and sails and drive right over it???

Be careful out there
Mike

One of the problems seems to be photographers on RC boats trying to feed our need for phantastic photos. It sounds like that was a contributing factor in this case. And there seems to be some evidence that a photographer on a powerboat may have been a contributing factor to a major collision in the Alter Cup regatta.

I don't think photographers should be out there within the race course. Let them get their pictures from the mark boats on the outside of the course.

Just bumping this up, so people know that Dean's post is the same story. I'd rather keep any replies all together in this same thread.

It can be the competitors as well who do not keep a good lookout. On Sunday, during our Western Championships, I was slowly moving towards the start line on starboard, with over three minutes to go. There was another Spitfire below and forward of me. I watched a Tiger coming towards me on port. He suddenly decided to gybe around before he reached me. He hit the other Spitfire broadside at speed. His starboard hull hit the rear crossbeam end on, and drove up over it. The open end of the traveller track sliced a 2 foot strip of glass and resin from the bottom of his hull. His spinnaker pole hit the mainsail at what would be head height if someone was standing on the tramp. There is a black line right accross the Spitfire mainsail showing where it hit. The mainsail was eased out, so the pole did not go through it. The Tiger rode right across the back of the Spitfire and slid off over the rudders. A slightly bent tiller cross bar was the only damage to the Spitfire.
The crew who who had their backs to the Tiger were lucky, because they saw the Tiger in time and rolled out of the way. If the Tiger had hit them further forward, a spinnaker pole or a hull in the back, or back of the head could have been fatal.

I think I have told this story before, but a similar thing happened to my father and myself back in the mid 1970's. We were sailing a 16-foot Sizzler at the time (had one because I worked for the factory). We were on our way out to the race course area on starboard tack. Along comes a Tornado going like a bat out of hell, on port tack, also on the way to the race course. We started yelling "Starboard," but he didn't hear us. He also didn't SEE us until he was on top of us, and then you should have seen the look on his face! His port hull came all the way up and over our trampoline and stopped at the far side of our boat (starboard side)right between my father and me. We had not even moved from our positions, and it was just sheer luck that the hull did not hit one of us. His starboard hull broke one of our rudders. The Tornado skipper said, "Oh, I didn't see you." He didn't even apologize, and he never offered to pay for the damages to our boat. I think he was kind of annoyed that we were in his way.

It's not like this was a novice sailor, either. He was one of the top Canadian Tornado sailors at the time.

Ever since that incident, I have been a little paranoid when I am on a race course with boats of widely varying speeds -- especially when I am on one of the slow ones.

Probably everybody who races for many years will get into a collision eventually, but some are more potentially life-theatening than others. That's why it is so important to have your head out of the boat and be aware of everything that is going on around you, whether you are racing or cruising.

the latest blog on US Sailing's website says that the regatta is being handled very poorly, with races being held in winds above class rules. People are getting hurt, boats are being destroyed and so forth. Top US Team - 11th.
http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/SailingMedallist/03vol6/page7.htm

Sounds like a sloppy regatta either way you look at it.

oh? What was his name?

The Tornado Europeans in Sardinia run until the 14th June.
That report is about an old event.

Really? because the date on the top of the page says June 2003.

I kind of wondered what you were talking about, Maugan, because the report I got from Jill about yesterday's races said everything has been going fine and weather is great, etc.

that it does

Well, at any rate, I'm assuming that this picture is from the event, considering its from the Calgari Yacht Club.



Love the paint job.