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Mac Race Tragedy

Seth

Sustaining Partner
Folks,

For those interested, US Sailing has released the detailed anaylis and report of the Wingnuts Mac Race fatal accident. This weekend I attended the Mac Race awards dinner in Chicago, and a good amount of time was spent on this and many awards and accolades were given to the crew of Sociable, the Beneteau 40.7 which performed the resuce of the 6 survivors of Wingnuts, and searched for another 3 hours on-site until diverting to Charlevoix to get the survivors some needed medical attention. We should all be thankful that there are boats with the courage and skill displayed by Sociable out there in case they are needed, and we should all make a committment to be able to do the same thing if called upon to do so.

The report can be found by pasting this into your browser. Sobering reading, but accurate and valuable.

Sail safe!

http://media.ussailing.org/AssetFactory.aspx?vid=16940


S
 

Grizz

Grizz
Lessons Learned

Fascinating reading, including the Appendices, which has helped fill in a ton of blanks that previously existed. As a rookie skipper in this Mac (Cruising Section) and sailing with a 'Mac all rookie crew', we've all been affected and touched by this experience and this report has helped shed light on some components and decisions we will change next summer.

Except for the circumstances, it's almost humorous to read the 1 skippers reaction of "we should have taken the spinnaker down earlier", as one of our collective memory as a crew is witnessing a vessel (name unknown) screaming under white spinnaker about a 1/4 mile off our port stern, visible to us in almost daylight conditions, the result of the wall of lightning all 'round us. Less than 3 minutes later 'The Bomb' hit, which we kinda knew was coming, but no one knew it would hit with Joe Frazier Force*! And the duration of 'The Bomb's' intensity was shocking to all on board, leading to the inevitable "when will this friggin' blow end?" question.

We believe there's no way that kite survived. We know there were no distress calls from our patch of the lake, which was @ 16 +/- nm NE of Wing Nuts location. We were ecstatic that we weren't on approach to Gray's Reef, I can only imagine how that would ratchet up the degree of difficulty and simultaneous 'Pucker Factor'.

Thanks for sharing. Lessons learned. Take care.

*- timely, since it was announced that Joe succumbed to cancer today @ 67 years...
 
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Seth

Sustaining Partner
Wingnuts

Grizz,

Tell us about your boat and how you managed the storm. I can tell you that my approach on Karma was to monitor the speed and direction of the leading edge of the cells and watch the local weather to validate this. We knew it was moving ESE at about 30 knots and was about 15 miles wide, which meant we knew we were in for about 30 minutes of severe weather.

We were running in about 18 knots of True wind with our .5 oz spinnaker (normally carried to the mid 20's when sailing very deep). When the storm was within 10 miles we plugged the #4 jib into the headfoil and got the sheets properly led. When the breeze hit 20 knots we hoisted the #4. At 23 knots a few minutes later we dropped the kite and continued for another few minutes like this. Our plan at about 25 knots was to drop the main entirely and proceed with just the #4, but the breeze built from 23 to the high 50's very quickly, so as soon as the big gust hit we bore off to a very broad reach (knowing what was coming we had worked a bit West of the course to make sure we had at least 10 miles of room to run East during the storm).

Getting the boat to a deep angle and running East was key, as the boats who did not get down to the deeper angles were laid flat and by then could not bear off if they wanted to. Most just laid over with sails luffing until it passed, and many suffered major sail damage.

We ran East at 15-16 knots under a full main and saw the breeze peak around 64, but by having a couple of very good drivers and keeping the boat at a manageable sailing angle we ended up about 8 miles East of where we were when it hit with no damage at all. I agree with Grizz that had we been in the approaches to Gray's Reef things would have been different and we would not have been so bold.

Our lesson would have been to get the main down earlier, and in fact we now practice doing a "quick burrito"-meaning a drill to get the main down and secured very quickly when a storm approaches. Luckily, things worked out very well for us, but had we had any more wind it would have been a real problem (BTW-I do not recommend sailing downwind with a full main in 60+ knots of breeze; we were lucky to pull it off!). We pushed harder than we maybe should have becuase we were leading our fleet, and fortunately kept that lead through the storm..

I would also not bother to reef in this situation. It would have made no difference-the correct thing is to get the main down entirely. Shortening sail by 15-20%is not going to do the trick in a storm like this, so skip the reef and get it down early.

Who else wants to chime in???
 

Grizz

Grizz
Ignorance can be blissfull, until you learn what almost hit you!

Seth, your commentary reads like a passage from the book "A Voyage For Madmen", with Karma residing towards the high skilled & techno end of the spectrum and us on board Shoe String towards the sufficient skills and 'just enough' technology end of the spectrum.

We had no wind speed read out, it reverting to 'dock speed' (0.00) within 1 hour of our start. We had a chart plotter, a hand held GPS & VHF, mast-head VHF, paper charts and 2 Smart Phones to paint the track of the ominous reds and purples of the storm bearing down on us. We knew where we were, what was closing in, who was around us (kinda, between blinding flashes) and as a crew talked through (actually, shouted through) options, variables and 'what ifs'.

I guess we unknowingly enacted a partial 'Quick Burrito' at what turned out to be the right time (see 'Ignorance is Bliss' reference above), "partial" used 'cuz we shrunk the main to the 2nd reef and furled the headsail to (perhaps) a #4. Hard to say for sure, I know we did not re-run the sheets through the forward cars. Waaay too much activity, especially with 2 up on the cabintop, securing the 'Burrito'. The bomb hit within 15 minutes of this activity. Wow.

We knew we were in for a bit of hell, but had no idea how much and for how long. The good news is we knew we had room to run before the thin water became a real problem, our estimate after the fact was 10-12 miles.

I handed off the wheel to our #2 Helm just before the bomb hit, necessitated by the hallucination of seeing a full size 3-drawer chest of drawers floating just off our starboard beam, lit up during an extended lighting flash. I could sketch the image, it burned so fierce, but it wasn't real. Time to get off the wheel, which I did, and went below and blew chunks. Not seasick chunks, stress induced chunks. My #2 confessed, later, to having the same reaction after the event. Unreal.

We ran on a very broad reach, traveler down, mainsheet eased, upper part of main pressed into the lower spreaders. Nothing could be done at that point 'cept hang on. Our boat speed readout did function, with 1 crew member calling out increasing rates of speed, 10.2 being the highest seen. This probably occurred after we scalloped off a wave crest and surfed down towards the trough...to be repeated again and again and again.

And then it was over. Your 30-minutes sounds about right. Wish we'd known! 'Cuz the world became quiet, you could hear yourself think, again. There were still waves making slapping sounds, but nothing like it was just minutes before. There were still remnants of the lightning show, but just remnants. And it felt like there was absolutely no wind.

We checked our location and cross checked it several times to be certain. The storm had pushed us directly towards the approach of Gray's Reef, less than 2-hours away at our current rate of speed.

My #2 and I handed off helm and navigation to the crew, we passed out immediately (another symptom of stress) with instructions to be awoken before we entered the Reef, which occurred about 2 AM CDT.

It was only then that bits and pieces of the Wing Nuts mayhem began to trickle in. And we still had another 8+ hours in light air before we crossed and docked, not fully aware of the full magnitude of what we'd just managed.

Not sure if this sheds any light for you, but it's a fair account of our experience, which for us will be easily remembered when asked "what year did you do your 1st Mac?"
 
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Mort Fligelman

Member III
Mac Rememberances

Seth and All:

I read through just about 51 pages of the report......it mentioned Ted Turner in the 1970 Mac.....and how he stated that he would never refer to Lake Michigan as a millpond......one of the famous quotes a crew member of his told was that in the height of that storm the mast on American Eagle was Titanium and cost 250 Grand and was not insured........BE CAREFUL.....So much for the "Mouth from the South"....

At that time there was very little radar.....none of the fancy forecasting gear of today.......the wind was building steadily through the day, and into the night and we knew we were in trouble when we saw a huge White Line across the horizon and then all hell broke loose......the Pearson 33 that I was on had the newest Kenyon Instruments, and the wind dial went up to 70 KPH.......and the needle climbed past the 70 and on the way to the zero and then went completely dead......a light up the mast showed that the anemometer cups had blown away........

The waves were huge, and each one we hit moved us back......we had to fall off and go deep to quote Seth, and we wound up trying to reach Algoma, but the wind just would not free and we wound up along with many boats in Sturgeon Bay.......we later learned the 83 out of 160 boats did not finish.

There was much to be said for the overbuilt and well ballasted Pearson, centerboard and all......we came off of one wave and the head broke four half inch bronze lag bolts that it was fastened into 3/8" of fiberglass, and 3/4" plywood........lucky the all of the seacocks were closed......

In all, IMHO I really think that with all of the past history of storms on that lake that Wing Nuts should never have been allowed in the race.....but they did it several times before, and this time their luck ran out......

I sailed that race from 1967 to 1979......there are many war stories to be told, but there is no substitute for a solid well found boat.....

Just the musings of an old sailor
 

Ericsean

Member III
Distance Race Safety

Reading the report definetly is eye opening. Certainly going to utilize new tethers, with clips on both sides, as recommended and now required! The accounts of this race are quite contrary to the relative cruise that we had on the Around Long Island Race this past summer. Never saw winds above 18kts., and never below 10.
Seth, I'm wondering what kind of boat you were on flying along at 18kts!
 

Seth

Sustaining Partner
Mac Race Con't

I was on the Beneteau 36.7 "Karma" (my Mac ride for the last 7 years). We did not see any 18's, but were in the mid 15's most of the time (around 15 minutes).

There will certainly be some enhanced safety requirements for the next race-I met with the new Race Chairman last night. This is not to say that the race did not have good manegement or safety requirements in the past, but the tragedy did bring out some things which can be improved on.

My guess is that in addition to some upgrades in personal safety gear requirements, we will see pre-race inspections of first time competitors, and stronger enforcement of post race inspections.....although I am not directly on any committes-this is my speculation...we may see a return to life rafts being required also, but not the first year-we may see a phase-in of new requirements like this over time.

The biggest lesson is that we learned is the importance of being self-reliant. Even though this is a coastal race, we learned that even with the Coast Guard generally no farther than 60 or so miles from any point on the lake, the weather conditions which created this event also prevented the Coast Guard from launching a helicopter and it took well over 90 minutes (don't recall the exact time) to get the CG on the scene-so despite the proximity of CG stations, help was not readily available.

We all need to remember that safety is ultimately the responsibility of each skipper, and we cannot count on getting bailed out when things go wrong.

Safe sailing and happy holidays!

S
 
No main, big gain

A few summers back, after getting skunked with no wind for consecutive Thursdays, we (myself and a crew of one) went out and sailed around Tampa Bay in squalls with winds topped at at 45 knots. We got soaked. But with no main and just a working jib the boat was manageable all the time. It was an E-27. Fast sailing and a lot of fun. We never even took the mainsail cover off. Not using the main was the difference between having a good time and total chaos.
 
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