Volvo ocean racer abandoned on reef Nine crew rescued

All aboard OK, boat not so much.
http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/video/31334_Inside-Track-Special-Team-Vestas-Wind-Runs-Aground.html

Navigator, Tactician, state of the art electronics... weather above average with 15 knots of wind, hard to understand such a huge error. They did not clip a point of the reef or got too close they hit it dead center.
I wonder if their electronics require zooming in to see the detail of the reef or island behind it.
Glad everyone is safe.
Coming into Winyah Bay from the ocean last year I was maybe two miles from running up on the submerged (at high tide) south jetty. Initially coming in from the sea buoy did not seem necessary. As i got closer I zoomed in on the plotter and YIKES!

They get time given to them, often quiet generous. The problem is you feel a little less racey after an incident like that, after all everyone else has shot off without you at race pace.

This edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, unlike the previous ones, is an one design race. Same boats, same sails, same electronics, same software, same weather data. The VO65 are as similar as you can make seven boats, and the race shows it. No external routing or help is allowed, all communication is monitored by race control.
There are some differences but they are not related to performance aspects. Which food (but not how much), what media equipment for the on board reporter (but not how heavy), which office software if any, ..., and to on and so forth.

Team Vestas Wind hit the the St. Brandon archipelago squarely shortly after local sunset while in 5th position. Team Alvimedica (6th) got diverted by race control. Team SCA (7th) was not required on scene and was told to continue racing.

Given that evacuation via life raft is on a reef problematic at best the plan was to stay on board and evacuate at daylight. ~2h before dawn the keel bulb broke off, the boat shifted and disintegrated further loosing the stern. The crew evacuated into the prepared rafts and then tied to the reef where they were collected at dawn by a RIB from a local CG station.
Other than the interview with Skipper Chris Nicholson there has been no further public information after Team Alvimedica left the scene. As per the interview the boat is a total loss and has been stripped as far as possible by the crew to reduce environmental impact.

Putting their published track on satellite images their track ends in breakers on the rim of the archipelago. There is the question of chart accuracy. A screen capture from a Alvimedica video showing the maps has the reef in the exact same location. - Which could be the result of some chart correction the Alvimedica crew did, but I guess we would have heard about that.

So as far as I can tell Vestas did the equivalent of a controlled flight into terrain.

A problem is the way the vector charts apparently work. Several people posted screenshots using the available software and maps. In at least one of them just one zoom level out the whole 50 by 5 kilometer archipelago is just an at least 20 meter deep shoal. - Which is the reversal of the restaurant placemat navigation incidents. Would not have happened with the (singular) Africa page of my old school atlas...



Redress will be awarded to Alvimedica by an international jury based upon the time spend. Since this is sail boat racing there may be additional allowances for weather the have missed. .

Team Vestas Wind has issued a statement that sums up the situation thus far:

This happened Saturday 29th December 2014 - In the future?

Makes you wonder about the details in the rest of the story doesn't it? Something lost in the translation.

Attention to details is definitely lacking.

I'm sure they meant November 29.

Kinda obvious that that the incident happened in November, not December.

Edit: And because that would make a boring post, an interview with their shore crew manager about the challenges so far.

Given the pounding a VOR boat would habitually take when racing through the Southern Ocean, the strength of the rig is hardly surprising. 50+ knots of wind, surfing down waves half as tall as the boat, crashing into the troughs at high rates of speed is all pretty normal for them.

Consumer version of the crash (first 2 minutes)


Uncommented long version, daylight footage in the second half