Report highlights nav errors
CLIPPER RACE YACHT GROUNDING LEADS TO DEMAND FOR INCREASED SAFETY MEASURES
An official report has been published by the UK’S Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) following its investigation into the grounding and loss of the Clipper yacht CV24 Greenings, at Cape Peninsula, South Africa, on 31 October 2017.
It follows other high profile ocean race groundings including the Volvo 65 Vestas Wind, which became stranded on the Cargados Carajos Shoals, 240 miles northeast of Mauritius in November 2014, and the Clipper 68 yacht CV4 Cork, which ran aground on the Gosong Mampango reef in the Java Sea, Indonesia in January 2010.
Avoidable errors
The MAIB report found that too much pressure was placed on the skipper, the only qualified professional member of the 18-strong Clipper race yacht crew at the time, and it identified that some fundamental yet avoidable navigational errors were made. It concludes with a recommendation to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to provide safety management guidance to Clipper Ventures Plc, together with recommendations to the Clipper organisers to improve the safety and navigation standards within its fleet.
The loss of CV24 took place during Leg 3 of the Clipper race from Cape Town to Fremantle, Australia. After a 1400 race start, CV24 sailed west from Cape Town before gybing south, intending to clear the cape. When the wind backed from north-east to northwest and increased – which the GRIB files show it was predicted to do – the yacht began heading closer and closer inshore, the crew endeavouring to keep their asymmetric spinnaker flying.
At 2100, some 23 minutes before the grounding, the skipper decided a gybe would be necessary. He repeatedly had to go below to the nav station to check the course then return to deck to monitor the gybe preparation. The skipper had not appreciated the yacht’s continued slow turn to port, the report explains, an alteration of course that effectively halved the time available for the gybe.
The skipper handled the main and preventer himself and when the yacht eventually gybed it was less than 0.3 miles or 450m from the beach. The yacht grounded softly then abruptly. The crew tried to re-float it using both the engine and staysail to help induce heel. The race director was called via satellite phone 20 minutes later and the rescue authorities were subsequently alerted.
Tricky rescue
A National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) lifeboat was on scene in less than an hour, and all crew were evacuated. The port hull was badly damaged and within two days CV24 Greenings washed onto the beach. The stricken yacht was cut up and removed with no environmental impact.
It is sobering to read how seven other Clipper yachts followed similar tracks to CV24. A spinnaker line in the water reportedly delayed the gybe aboard CV31 until the point when crew felt several impacts to the hull or keel – and gybed immediately. The tracker shows CV31 sailed even closer to the shore (just 140m off the land) than CV24 and only slightly further south.
The Clipper race instructions