The stranded yacht of Team Vestas Wind, the day after it ran aground
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
From Yacht by Lars Bolle
Ten years ago, Team Vestas Wind ran aground on a reef in the Indian Ocean.
The dramatic images of the rescue went around the world.
The night Team Vestas Wind struck the Cargados Carajos Shoals
remains one of the most dramatic nights in The Ocean Race history.
On 29 November 2014, a serious accident occurred during the Volvo Ocean Race when the participating yacht "Vestas Wind" ran aground on a reef.
The crew salvages the equipment over the destroyed sterngrapher: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
The accident and its circumstances
In the middle of the Indian Ocean, around 200 nautical miles north-west of Mauritius, the blue yacht of the Danish team "Vestas Wind" is sailing at a speed of 19 knots with slightly shrouded sheets, operated by just two men.
The helmsman on the windward wheel and the trimmer on the grinder are chatting.
They are obviously worried.
The trimmer runs to the helmsman, returns after a moment and asks something into the companionway.
The answer apparently comes from skipper Chris Nicholson: "We're passing some shallows now, 40 metres deep."
"Oh yes, I can see the line exactly," is the answer, probably from the helmsman, who is the only one looking to windward at this moment.
He has probably seen the surf line of the reef directly ahead.
A person comes out of the companionway, apparently skipper Nicholson, calmly pulls on his oilskin trousers and then looks to windward together with the trimmer.
There must be something there.
But the helmsman continues to hold course.
The blue yacht was pushed over the reef into the lagoon by the surf
Photo: NCG Operations Room – MRCC Mauritius
Then there's a bang.
Suddenly, out of nowhere.
First briefly, sharply, almost like a gunshot.
The lowered leeboard is sheared off.
This is immediately followed by a second, bursting sound, accompanied by strong vibrations.
"There's a big rock here! There are rocks here! Come on, hoist the sails!" shouts the trimmer to his mates pouring out of the companionway.
The yacht has run aground.
The unthinkable has happened.
A high-tech yacht with world-class sailors has hit a charted reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean at full speed, square-rigged and unbraked.
It is nothing short of a miracle that nobody was injured.
The force of the impact pushed the yacht far onto the reef.
The fact that it did not immediately fall apart completely is due to several circumstances.
The boat was in a very favourable position immediately before the collision.
As a result, the keel fin was almost horizontal in the water and hardly formed any resistance on the reef.
Instead of stopping abruptly, as would probably have happened with a fixed keel, the impact energy was dissipated much more slowly.
Driven by the surf at the edge of the reef, the yacht then turned 190 degrees around the keel bomb, which apparently sheared off in the process.
In the end, the fatally wounded boat lay in the shallow lagoon with its bow facing the surf.
This was the only reason it did not sink.
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
The incredible documentation
On-board reporter Brian Carlin has the presence of mind.
The Irishman, who is responsible for the reporting, presses the crash button.
It is only thanks to this action that the rare and highly dramatic video footage is saved.
Normally the recording runs in an endless loop, only the last few minutes are saved, the rest is continuously recorded over.
The accident button, however, activates all cameras and stops the dubbing function.
The images are black and white, with a ghostly greenish tinge.
The camera at the stern of the blue boat is in night vision mode.
"I've never seen Brian Carlin do what he did," says race director Knud Frostad later on, himself extremely experienced at sea.
"He did his job first instead of putting on a survival suit.
He really wanted to save these pictures."
Carlin films himself.
In a gloomy scene below deck, he describes the situation: "We've been sitting on the reef for five hours now, the bow section is still intact, which is more than I can say for the stern.
We've just heard this cracking sound behind the bulkheads, there's nothing left behind them.
The rudders are broken off, the entire stern is destroyed.
But at least everyone is okay and we'll hang in there."
The remains of the shipwreck are collected on the beach
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
Securing the crew
The top priority during these first few hours is to secure the crew and the boat.
"There were great dangers for the crew," says skipper Nicholson later.
He had "feared the worst.
There were a hundred things to do at the same time.
We had to close the hatches of the watertight bulkheads, grab the safety bags with the essentials, put on survival suits, take care of the life rafts and the personal locator beacons.
So much was happening at once."
The crew is preparing for the worst-case scenario: abandoning the boat.
"We're checking the tide table now," says Carlin, "because at high tide it's safer to leave the boat via the stern.
Getting out via the bow and swimming through the breaking waves is too dangerous." The area is said to be teeming with sharks and barracudas.
Navigator Wouter Verbraak (l.) and skipper Chris Nicholson discuss the choice of course
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
This is another reason why skipper Nicholson wants to delay going into the life raft until daybreak and has the manoeuvre practised around 20 times in the meantime.
But about two hours before dawn, the deck begins to break.
The yacht became too unsafe and the crew went to the island.
In the first light of day, the full extent of the shipwreck becomes clear.
The yacht is lying high on the reef, the mast has been left standing, the stern partially torn off.
The crew paddles with the life raft to a sandbank, from where they are rescued by a small fishing boat and taken to the relatively safe southern island of the atoll.
Everyone is safely on solid ground.
The crew salvages everything that can be saved
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
The crew holds out on the sandbank in the middle of nowhere for three days.
At low tide, they can wade through the knee-deep lagoon from the beach to the boat, and a few fishermen also help with their boats to salvage anything useful.
All removable parts are dismantled, environmentally harmful liquids such as diesel or hydraulic oil are secured along with their tanks, as are all the lines and sails.
The crew could even have left the atoll a day earlier, but were determined to take more expensive equipment such as the satellite system with them.
In the end, a fishing boat took the crew to Port Louis on Mauritius, from where they flew on to Abu Dhabi.
The torn-up boat on the coral.
The surf rolls over the edge of the reef at high tide
The surf rolls over the edge of the reef at high tide
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
Causes and error analysis
How could this happen?
How could a professional team, whose eight sailing members have taken part in this race a total of 14 times to date, run onto a reef?
How could the Dutch navigator Wouter Verbraak, then 39, who was taking part in this ocean classic for the third time, miss this reef?
And what role did the Australian skipper Nicholson, then 45 and taking part for the fifth time, play?
On the same day, an astonishing number of experts were guessing at a seemingly absurd explanation, which, however, turned out to be correct.
Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker, his counterpart Charles Caudrelier from the Chinese team Dongfeng and the German navigator Boris Herrmann all suspected a navigational mishap.
A little later, the unlucky skipper Nicholson announces: "We made a mistake."
On the same day, an astonishing number of experts were guessing at a seemingly absurd explanation, which, however, turned out to be correct.
Abu Dhabi skipper Ian Walker, his counterpart Charles Caudrelier from the Chinese team Dongfeng and the German navigator Boris Herrmann all suspected a navigational mishap.
A little later, the unlucky skipper Nicholson announces: "We made a mistake."
A comparison between the detail
shown on Expedition/C-Map used on Team Vestas Wind racing boat (Level A/0 1:3.3 million)
and UKHO
Chart 4702 Chagos to Madagascar 1: 3.5 million
In an initial interview, Nicholson tries to explain the stranding:
"It was human error. On the electronic chart, on the first or second zoom level, you could only see that it was 40 metres deep.
It went from 3000 to 40 metres, and that was the depth information he (navigator Verbraak, ed.) gave me. That's what we assumed. A simple mistake. You would have had to zoom in a few steps further to see that there was actually land there."
It went from 3000 to 40 metres, and that was the depth information he (navigator Verbraak, ed.) gave me. That's what we assumed. A simple mistake. You would have had to zoom in a few steps further to see that there was actually land there."
GeoGarage animation with official ENCs
Navigation on these boats is carried out solely on electronic nautical charts, as is the case everywhere in regattas today.
The teams only have large-scale charts on board for emergencies.
Nicholson is vague on the question of blame: "The skipper is of course responsible. But there are also crew members under him who are responsible for their own areas. And that's where this mistake happened. As skipper, you can't be 100 per cent involved in everything. You also have to trust your people."
So was it all Verbraak's fault? Firstly, the navigator takes the blame.
In a post on Facebook, he writes: "I made a big mistake. I checked the area on the electronic charts before lying down for a break after a long day. All I saw were depths of 42 and 80 metres."
The navigator deserves credit for not trying to blame the electronics, such as an alleged power failure or similar.
Although that would also have been difficult.
Because since the boats are all the same, a system failure on Vestas Wind would have meant that the same thing was highly likely to happen on the other boats.
So the way out is blocked by the excuse, and Verbraak becomes the whipping boy.
The comments range all the way to "boundless stupidity".
The teams only have large-scale charts on board for emergencies.
Nicholson is vague on the question of blame: "The skipper is of course responsible. But there are also crew members under him who are responsible for their own areas. And that's where this mistake happened. As skipper, you can't be 100 per cent involved in everything. You also have to trust your people."
So was it all Verbraak's fault? Firstly, the navigator takes the blame.
In a post on Facebook, he writes: "I made a big mistake. I checked the area on the electronic charts before lying down for a break after a long day. All I saw were depths of 42 and 80 metres."
The navigator deserves credit for not trying to blame the electronics, such as an alleged power failure or similar.
Although that would also have been difficult.
Because since the boats are all the same, a system failure on Vestas Wind would have meant that the same thing was highly likely to happen on the other boats.
So the way out is blocked by the excuse, and Verbraak becomes the whipping boy.
The comments range all the way to "boundless stupidity".
Photo: Brian Carlin/Team Vestas Wind/Volvo Ocean Race
Consequences for yacht and crew
Wouter Verbraak was fired.
The wreckage of the "Vestas Wind" was salvaged and the yacht was repaired so that it could take part in the race again towards the end.
Many had not thought this possible.
Skipper Chris Nicholson took part in further ocean races in the following years.
Wouter Verbraak was fired.
The wreckage of the "Vestas Wind" was salvaged and the yacht was repaired so that it could take part in the race again towards the end.
Many had not thought this possible.
Skipper Chris Nicholson took part in further ocean races in the following years.
Links :
- GeoGarage blog : After crash in Volvo Ocean Race, a team shifts its focus and ... / Independent report into the stranding of Vestas Wind / Questions about electronic charts in a twenty-first century ... / Questions asked about Volvo Ocean Race boat grounding
- Wired : Why the World's Best Sailors Still Hit Reefs in Open Water Races
- The New Yorker : A twenty-first century shipwreck
- RedBull : Volvo Ocean Race : the terrors of hitting a reef
- Sail-World : Volvo Ocean Race- Navigator comments on error aboard Team Vestas Wind
- Yachting World : Volvo Ocean Race – how could a yacht bristling with technology hit a known reef? / Comment: How the Team Vestas Wind crash really happened, and the crucial things we can learn from it
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