MATT SHEAHAN

RACE BOAT COLLISIONS WITH MARINE WILDLIFE HAPPEN BUT ARE RARELY TALKED ABOUT Ð PERHAPS THEY SHOULD BE

Offshore sailing’s elephants in the room are the mammals in the sea. Isn’t it time for a discussion about how we can avoid hitting them? Unsurprisingly, those who have been involved in a collision with a big fish prefer not to talk publicly about their experience. It’s hardly surprising; it’s a touchy subject.

As our offshore machines get faster, so the risk to those on board increases if they hit anything, especially when you consider the number and orientation of appendages that are now slung beneath a modern race boat.

From IMOCA 60s regularly maintaining speeds in the mid 20s to the blistering pace of the Ultime class where cruising at 35 knots and bursts well into the 40s is commonplace, a collision is going to be messy.

The current trend for huge scythe like T-foils, L-foils, twin rudders and deep canting keels means that the underwater frontal area of a modern racer has increased significantly and therefore increased the potential risk of hitting something too. It is only surprising that there haven’t been more serious injuries when boats have been stopped in their tracks. And plenty have.

The recent round of winter offshore races in the Atlantic delivered plenty of structural problems following collisions with underwater objects. Not all were necessarily fish, but talking to crews, some clearly were.

The problem is not just reserved for high speed offshore machines. Recently, a cargo ship arrived in Portsmouth with a Rorqual whale impaled on its bulbous bow. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Sadly, there is nothing new in ships colliding with marine mammals either. The problem has been known about for some time yet so far there are no clear answers other than keeping the two apart.

But what does surprise me is that a long, sluggish and noisy cargo ship, (when compared to a super sleek foiling racing tri with just its foils in the water), is still not loud or threatening enough to scare a whale out of its path, assuming that it was alive when it was in the way.

The obvious answer would seem to be to use some form of sonar. There are plenty of forward facing echo sounders on the market. But the answer is not as simple as that.

“The first thing to consider is what a sonar system could achieve. Are we talking detection or deterrent?” said acoustics expert Ed Clarke of Clarke Saunders Acoustics.

“If you take the case of detection then you have to consider how much time is required from identifying a problem to then take avoiding action.”

It’s a good point. How long would it take to alter course given that offshore boats are usually on autopilot and are not known for being the most manoeuvrable of machines when the foot is flat to the floor?

At 30 knots you’d be travelling at 15.4m/sec. Assuming you’d need say 30 seconds to respond and change course, the sonar would need to see 450m ahead. That’s quite some distance, even if you’re looking straight down. At 40 knots you would need to see 600m ahead.

“The issue with seeing that far ahead is there’d be a lot of noise near the surface of the water,” continued Clarke. “Just as ground radar is challenging, sonar has a similar problem with clutter.”

So, if detection is a problem perhaps a deterrent could be the answer. But what kind of noise would alarm a whale sufficiently for it to want to get out of the way?

Some experts have made a connection between the beaching of whales and loud sonar activity from naval vessels that has caused their tragic behaviour. So maybe there is a noise that scares whales – finding one that doesn’t harm them might be a starting point.

But some of the same reports also point to the fact that other species of whales that were in the same area were unaffected.

It appears there are few solutions but hopefully by raising the issue we’ll hear from those who have some ideas of how you could fit a sonar transmitter into a foil sufficiently far below the surface to sound an alert or detect hazards ahead.

In the meantime, the only suggestion for sounds I have is broadcasting the theme tune from ‘Titanic’ – or anything else by Celine

Dion. It clears our house every time.

‘If detection is a problem perhaps a deterrent could be the answer’