An Awesome Warning From The Sea

The Fastnet, Britain's classic offshore yacht race, had a proud history of safe accomplishment stretching back to 1925. In 27 races the only fatality had been a middle-aged sailor who suffered a heart attack in 1977. The 28th Fastnet was tragically different. On Saturday, Aug. 11, 306 yachts flying the flags of 20 nations set out in early afternoon from Cowes, the venerable sailing town on the Isle of Wight, tacking down-tide in a light westerly. Their destination was Fastnet Rock off Ireland's Cape Clear; their final port Plymouth on the Channel coast (see map, page 19).

By last weekend, fewer than 88 yachts had finished the race, 23 boats had been abandoned, 136 competitors had been plucked from the sea or their boats in a massive rescue mission—and 15 sailors were dead, 12 Britons, two Americans and one Dutchman. In addition, three men and one woman, who were following the race in a trimaran, also died, bringing the toll to 19.

On Monday evening, Aug. 13, a wind approaching hurricane force had sprung up from the west, and the great fleet, without adequate warning, was caught at its most vulnerable, stretched between the Scilly Islands, off the western tip of England, and the Irish coast. Winds gusting to 75 knots had wrought more havoc than in all previous British offshore races put together. It was the worst disaster in the expanding sport of ocean racing, and newspapers worldwide were quick to batten upon it.

Indeed, there was much to report: boats with a dozen and more men aboard were sledgehammered down into the sea and rolled through full 360-degree turns; solid green water slammed across decks; men jumped from disabled boats, hoping to be picked up by helicopter; sailors drifted for hours in life rafts scanning the horizon for help.

Few could have had a more harrowing trial than Britain's Simon Fleming, 26, and his fellow crewmen aboard the 37-foot Trophy. "All eight of us took to the life raft," he said. "The waves were like mountains, up to 40 feet high. Four times in the early hours, the raft turned turtle, and each time all eight of us managed to scramble back. Then we were hit a fifth time and two of the crew disappeared.

"The raft took such a bashing that it split in two. I was on one part, the others on the other part. It was bitterly cold, and as dawn broke one man died on board the raft."

The Fastnet has always been a favorite of those who would test themselves against the sea. Even if the winds are light there is a pilotage problem down Britain's craggy southwest coast and around the jutting headlands. Strong tides squeeze and swirl here. Competitors must decide whether it is better to head out to sea to find more wind or stay close to the shore and cheat the east-running flood tide.

The true ocean race begins at Land's End. One hundred fifty miles northwest across the open sea, 10 miles off the Irish coast, stands the target, the Fastnet Rock, shaped like a hat, its lighthouse tucked into one side like a feather. This is the lee end of the Atlantic, where the depressions and the fogs fetch up. From the Rock back, the course leads outside the Scillys, marked by Bishop Rock. Finally comes a hop to the finish in Plymouth that, though short, can sometimes take days because of the powerful tides. Total distance: 605 sea miles.

In recent years—in 1973, '75 and yet again in '77—the race had disappointed those who sail for the hell of it. The Fastnet, they felt, had gone soft. Sailors reminisced about the 1957 race, generally reckoned to be the toughest of them all. Forty-one boats started that year and 29 had quit before Land's End, outward bound. The American yacht Carina II won (she would again in '75), though frames in her wooden hull cracked and the crew had to man the pumps all the way around the course. When she crossed the finish, skipper Dick Nye removed the cigar from his mouth and said, "O.K., boys, you can let her sink now."

Nye and his son, Dick Jr., were back for the 1979 Fastnet with another Carina. They finished 22nd this time. "The 1957 gale was on from the start and blew till the finish, so it didn't catch anyone out," said Dick Jr. "This time the storm came suddenly, and it came so quick the seas didn't have time to grow big and even. They were square and they gave us a shaking."