EarthRace 2006

Hmmm, not good. A flashing light could have been a hovercraft or a submarine as well as somebody that wants attention. I think boats under 7m at anchor doesn´t have to use anchor lights either if they are not in a traffic zone...? Whatever, if I see a light in front of me I stop before doing anything else. Seems as this venture has been followed by bad luck...

That is a darn shame. These guys were working hard trying to get through this and set the record. Also shame that a life was lost, but this was at what, 12:30 AM?
AMG, you had the right idea. Hovercraft has to display all nav lights plus an all-round yellow flasher.

I would have thought that any kind of light (out of the ordinary) at sea would have the alarm bells ringing...

For a fishing vessel that size it was pretty far offshore though.. I think it was said they were 22km off the West coast of Guatemala

Oh, I agree. The press release stated the person on watch went to check to see what beacon it was and then hit the boat. But I guess they never expected anyone out there, much less in a 15 foot boat.

It is easy for us to judge now, but since they have put the pressrelease out everybody will have opinions. I am surprised that they couldn´t see any of the fishing boats on the radar under these calm conditions? Perhaps the radar wasn´t on or the watch was not familiar with it? I use to be able to separate a seagull from a swan on my radar...

Yes, very easy for us to judge from the comforts of home. The day or so leading up to the event were eventful for the team, with the oil leak, slow speed, etc. And by the looks of the interior, these are not the creature comforts of a fine yacht, and I have to guess some of them are sleep deprived. Just glad to see that they did assist in the rescue and saved those two guys. From their accounting, they did what they could do. There will be other times for reords.

Very sad. Hope that all works out well. At least the crew is being confined to the boat instead of the usual Guatemalan onshore "official" hospitality.

Another more lengthy version of the events leading up to the accident...this time in the captain's blog.

http://www.earthrace.net/index.php?section=41

New Captain's Blogs on the Earthrace website. Post-accident repercussions, and as if things aren't bad enough for this crew, a nasty sprained ankle has to be added into the mix. These poor b*stards.

Captain's Blog

Don't want to seem negative but having been through this area reciently I have to ask why would you not change course immediately on seeing a light on the bow regardless of if it was flashing or not. There are literally hundreds of Pangas fishing off this coast every night and yes they do not necesarily display correct lights, if any if they even have one. Now not wanting to get into a full legal argument but I do believe that a vessel 7 m or less only needs to display an all round white, which at night in even a calm sea with a couple of guys actively fishing may appear to be flashing. And to the designers and budding designers reading this take note about tinted windows and ease of access for the watchkeeper to see whats going on around him as well as listening .......... refer to rule 5 ( LOOKOUT ) in colregs

Sure, now this is a very special boat and it actually had both radar and a night vision system. Seems as the watch was not on high alert and the fishermen was said to be asleep in their boat, making no effort to move.

As always, accidents are the way we learn to avoid them in the future, so the more we will know the better for all.

No doubt about it being a very special boat, I think it's pretty awsome myself however when looking at photo's and video of the boat I wonder if these issues were thought about. Having in the past driven boats that had poor visibility, having had heavily tinted windows and had scary incident that thankfully had a good ending I can safely say that some designers need to think more deeply about these issues, and so do a few captains. And sometimes just when you least expect it Murphy shows up.

Well, it seems that they are comming to a settlement..which is good and according to the Blog, the screws appear to be fixed. DO you guys think the race is still on? more likely not but..hey you never know.

For the time being there has been a second update for the 23rd in the Captain's Blog..
http://earthrace.helloworld.co.nz/index.php?section=41

They canned the engineer too...he was at the helm when the accident happened. They put him on shore with the ground crew. There's an engineer opening if anyone's up for it.

Engineers Wanted

Yea, i realised that they were advertising for an engineer..They are fairly desperate right now..
There are some more updates from yesterday..
http://earthrace.helloworld.co.nz/index.php?section=41

Looks like they are on the move again.
http://www.daestra.com/tracplus/earthrace/index.html

Oh, well that is pretty good but i think that they spent too much down time in order to sufficiently beat the record.

Nothing new in the blogs from what I can see but when you click on the icon of Earthrace it shows their last position was taken 3/28 at 4:40pm UTC and traveling at 30km/h so I guess you're right Codger.

Nothing about their intentions on the site.
If they really haul tail they could still beat the record. Doing the circumnavigation with that platform and running that fuel would still be a laudable goal.