Posted on 11/11/2019 2:40:34 PM PST by ransomnote
The Ragamuffin 100 racing yacht Scallywag had a near miss earlier this week (December 13) during the warm-up for the Rolex Sydney Hobart regatta.
The 14-mile SOLAS Big Boat Challenge is traditionally used as a shakedown for the main event and it almost turned sour when a maritime patrol boat and a spectator vessel got a little too close to the action, as this dramatic aerial footage shows:
VIDEO: Close Call as Scallywag Near-Collision With Traffic Patrol Boat During Race
The powerboats failed to give way.
An entire gaggle of power boats - just stopped as the big sailing boats came down on them. Wrong.
Just dead wrong to put the racers aimed at the crowd and the harbor boat. But I do like how she came right to push the stern over, then flipped the rudder and forced the stern the other way to get by the second powerboat.
Can you explain this? I know nothing about sailing, as I will immediately demonstrate. But I would think a course would be cleared and marked, and that powerboats should never have been in that area, period.
Basic rule of the road in boating. These sailboats are cooking right along, not typical.
Hope that idiot tour boat captain got canned for that stunt. No doubt the owner guaranteed a close view of the racers.
A “open ocean” (big sailing racer) is moving extremely fast, and yet still has the problem of poor maneuverability since they are, after all, using the wind to make each leg of a triangle or double-leg specific course.
So, unlike a “harbor” or inlet, they have to go in straight lines across known points - that IS the race course.
The failure, as I see it, was in the gaggle of small power boats right at the turn point or finish “line” of the harbor control ship. THAT is abysmal course and race planning: Assume it is the finish point - though I don’t know that is the case. “Everybody” wants to be close to finish, but the racers are going fastest to keep the lead/gain the lead on the last straight run.
They CAN’T stop on the finish line but must pass, then turn, slow down, go on another tack, avoid racers ahead of them and racers behind them.
The race planners MUST keep the gaggle out of the way, and MUST provide a turning area and a “slow down” area so the race sailing ships are not hitting each other, hitting shallow water, hitting the patrol boat, or hitting commercial traffic even larger than they are.
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