Alt håp ute for savnet seiler

Et døgn etter at britiske John Fisher (47) falt i vannet fra "Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag" har laget gitt opp letingen og satt kursen for Usuahia. Det var storm og grov sjø i området. 

Mannskapet har utstedt denne rapporten om hendelsesforløpet:

• On Monday, 26 March 2018, "SHK/Scallywag" was racing in Leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race from Auckland, New Zealand to Itajai, Brazil, approximately 1,400 nautical miles west of Cape Horn.

• Weather conditions were 35-45 knots with 4 to 5 metre seas with showers reducing visibility. It was 15 minutes before sunrise.

• The team was sailing with a single reef in the mainsail and the J2 jib. The Fractional 0 (FR0) sail was hoisted but furled.

• At roughly 1300 UTC SHK/Scallywag surfed down a large wave leading to an accidental crash gybe.

• John Fisher was on deck, in the cockpit. At the time, he was moving forward to tidy up the FR0 sheet and had therefore unclipped his tether.

• As the mainsail swung across the boat in the gybe, the mainsheet system caught John and knocked him off the boat. The crew on board believe John was unconscious from the blow before he hit the water.

• He was wearing a survival suit with a wetsuit hood and gloves and a lifejacket.

• The JON buoy and the horseshoe buoy were thrown off the back of the boat to mark the position.

• It took some time to get the boat under control and motor sail back to a position near where the man overboard occurred.

• At 1342 (UTC), the team informed Race Control, by email, that there was a man overboard and they were returning to the MOB position to start a search pattern.

• With input from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre and Race Control in Alicante, a search and rescue operation was carried out for several hours but there was no sign of John, the horseshoe buoy, or the JON buoy.

• With weather conditions deteriorating, a difficult decision was taken to abandon the search and preserve the safety of the remaining crew.

Båten seiler nå med kurs for Chile der seilerne vil søke havn og foreta en debrief før de beslutter hva de vi foreta seg videre.

Ikke første gang

Det er ikke første gang det er en mann overboird situasjon fra "Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag". 14. januar, på den 13. dag, 4. etappe fra Melbourne til Hong Kong, ble Alex Gough skylt overbord under en seiloperasjon da har befant seg på fordekket uten flytevest eller sikkerhetsline. heldigvis var det dagslys og moderat vind,15-20 knots, og det øvrige mannskapet hadde øyekontakt med Gough. Det tok syv minutter fra han falt overbord til han var tilbake i båten, men hendelsen burde ha vært en lærepenge for laget.  Se video. "Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag" var raskt tilbake i regattamodus og vant etappen.

Brunel er i tet

Den nederlandske båten ventes å passere Kapp Horn ved middagstider idag, 29. mars

 Leg 7 – Position Report (19:00 UTC)

1. Team Brunel (NED), Bouwe Bekking (NED), 2256.6 nm DTF

2. Vestas 11th Hour Racing (DEN/USA), Charlie Enright (USA), 72.6 nm DTL

3. Dongfeng Race Team (CHN), Charles Caudrelier (FRA), 88.5 nm DTL

4. MAPFRE (ESP), Xabi Fernández (ESP), 93.8 nm DTL

5. Turn the Tide on Plastic (POR), Dee Caffari (GBR), 115.0 nm DTL

6. Team AkzoNobel (NED), Simeon Tienpont (NED), 125.5 nm DTL

* Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (HKG), David Witt (AUS)