The direct cause of this catastrophe is clear. The reason why most of the damage in the race occurred to smaller boats was not that they were smaller, but that they happened by bad luck to be concentrated in this particular area during the worst of the storm.

Almost half the boats in the race were at some point knocked flat in the water or almost flat and one-third were knocked down beyond horizontal or rolled right over through 360 degrees.Įven the largest boat in the race, Jim Kilroy's Kialoa with an overall length of 79 feet, was knocked flat and she was not at that time in the area where the most vicious seas developed, namely a circle with a 40-mile diameter centered 70 miles west Northwest of Land's End. More astounding still, of the 180 yachts under 39 feet in length, only 13 finished the race, 144 retired and 23 were abandoned or sunk. In the 55-year history of the Fastnet race there had been one previous death - 48 years earlier. Less than 40 people have died in ocean racing in a total history of over 100 years. Nothing remotely comparable had ever occurred before in the more than 50 years of popular ocean racing. Out of 2,700 crew members 15 were lost, and 136 were saved from sinking yachts, life rafts and the sea itself. In all 303 yachts of between 28 and 79 feet overall length started the race: 85 finished, after 194 had retired, 19 had been abandoned and five had sunk. The Fastnet course runs 600 miles from the Isle of Wight in the middle of England's south coast, round Land's End at the southwestern tip of England, up to the Fastnet Rock off the southwest corner of Ireland and back round the Bishop Rock, off the Scilly Isles, to the finish at Plymouth on England's south coast. What happened on that terrible night - and the present reviewer, who witnessed it from the comparative safety of a small Irish harbor six miles from the Fastnet Rock keeping anxious anchor watch in wind speeds which consistently exceeded the 60-knot maximum reading on his boat's anemometer, will never forget it - can now be starkly summarized. Roger Vaughan's book, though containing some-indulgent, autobiographical and slangily written to be appreciated by anyone reared in the best tradition of nautical writing, which prefers bald accounts, understatement, simple prose minimal 'philosophy.'

Although the material is badly organized, jumping suddenly from anecdote to analysis and back to anecdote, it is written in the good muscular style of a competent journalist with all the necessary sailing experience and specialist knowledge. John Rousmaniere's book is a useful, readable and throughly sane introduction to the basic facts, individual experiences and underlying issues of the 1979 Fastnet disaster. The primary document remains for the moment the report of the inquiry into the race conducted by the Royal Ocean Racing Club and the Royal Yachting Association, published last December. John Rousmaniere's and Roger Vaughan's studies of the race and storm are only two of the many books the disaster will produce. The turmoil of that night of August 13/14 has left three questions which sailors and experts will be debating for many a long year: what happened why did it happen and what could have been and now should be done about it? THE GREATEST disaster in ocean racing history occured last summer when a severe storm struck the more than 300 yachts competing in the bienial Fastnet race, the crowning event of Cowes Week, the premier event of British yacht racing.

Sailboat anemometer