USCG Cancels Ocean Races

[SchoonerRat]

Anybody think this is a proper response?

[Ian McColgin]

Always nice to know, rather than guess, what someone is referring to. My bet is this, from Latitude 38:

In an unprecedented move, Captain Cindy Stowe, USCG Captain of the Port for Sector San Francisco, has temporarily suspended all marine event permits for offshore races in the wake of April 14's Full Crew Farallones Race tragedy in which five sailors perished. According to Laura Muñoz, executive director of the YRA, Stowe plans to bring in US Sailing to determine if safety regulations for offshore races need to be changed. The investigation, which is expected to be announced by the Coast Guard later today, should take about a month, which means this weekend's OYRA*Duxship Race and May 12's Singlehanded Farallones Race will be affected. "She hopes to have it completed by Spinnaker Cup on May 25," Muñoz said.
Muñoz was surprised by last night's call from Stowe. "Honestly, I was blindsided. On Tuesday we had a very productive, three-hour meeting with the Waterways Division of the Coast Guard, the department that oversees our offshore permits. We left the meeting feeling there were no problems with the Duxship this weekend." As it stands, the YRA*is frantically trying to determine if they should just cancel the race altogether or run an alternate version, which would allow racers to go as far as Mile Rock before turning back to the Bay. "It's hard to put together a race in 48 hours," Muñoz said.
UPDATE: OYRA Director Jim Quanci just sent us the following note: "We will have an ocean race this Saturday.*The sole ocean mark will be the Bonita Channel Buoy - sticking our nose back out into the ocean and then back to the Bay, finishing at Encinal YC - which the Coast Guard has 'just' approved. There will also be some sort of social activity after the finish, likely along the lines of a pot luck.
"The OYRA board believes a gathering of ocean sailors - many of whom were out there two weeks ago - is a good thing. *With maybe a toast or two to our lost comrades.*The last thing the folks on Low Speed Chase (alive and deceased) would want us to do is not go sailing."
Never before has the Coast Guard canceled permits after an ocean tragedy — not after the infamous 1982 Doublehanded Farallones, in which four racers died; not after 2008's Doublehanded Lightship in which two men aboard Daisy died; not after the J/80 Heatwave lost her keel in 2009's Doublehanded Farallones, leaving two men clinging to the hull until they were rescued. The action is especially puzzling this time around, considering an independent investigation by the SFPD determined that there was no evidence of negligence.
Undoubtedly many sailors are wondering why they shouldn't just get together for a nice long daysail out to Duxbury Reef this Saturday, coincidentally leaving around the time the race would have started. "We would need to not know about that," noted Muñoz, explaining that the YRA*can't run a race that doesn't have a permit. We would suggest that everyone take a deep breath before getting too riled up over the situation.
- latitude / ladonna


But it makes sense to reserve comment till we divine whatever the OP had in mind.

[Uncle Duke]

Thanks, Ian - always nice to know what the h*** the original post is about

[SchoonerRat]

Thanks Ian,

I forgot to include a link.

BTW, I don't think it was a proper response to the tragic loss of life on the Farralons.

[bamamick]

Wow. Just wow. I never heard of this being done before, but with the loss of life, and the expense to the taxpayers, I don't guess it should surprise us.

Sailboat racing is a game. Sure, it's a game with deep roots but it's still a game. And with more and more races featuring boats that push the limits on speed we are going to have more and more need for emergency response, and quite frankly, the taxpayers aren't going to like it.

What if the Volvo race was told that they couldn't sail unless they supplied their own emergency response ships, helicopters, and personnel? Well, it wouldn't happen, would it? But we, the taxpayers, DO supply those things for these races, and it costs into the millions sometimes.

I have raced offshore. I have raced sailboats all of my life and I can't imagine a world without it, but I can see this part of it. I really can. We are asking the government of our countries to pay a lot of money and risking the safety of a lot of men and women so we can do these extreme offshore races. Sooner or later the piper is gonna have to get paid.

Mickey Lake

[orbb]

I have raced offshore. I have raced sailboats all of my life and I can't imagine a world without it, but I can see this part of it. I really can. We are asking the government of our countries to pay a lot of money and risking the safety of a lot of men and women so we can do these extreme offshore races. Sooner or later the piper is gonna have to get paid.

Mickey Lake

Congress can enact legislation making it illegal for the Coast Guard to rescue sailors involved in these races. That way, the CG would have no discretion, and those who choose to race will know that if they get in trouble, they will likely die. Clear rules make for clear choices.

[wizbang 13]

Then will they make controls on cruisers?
I think cruising is safer than racing, but it is still dangerous.

[callsign222]

With media attention full-on disaster mode all the gddnm time this might make sense, and this is just to let the storm blow over. Cancel a few races for a few weeks, let the hubbub die down so the media magnifying glass focuses on something else that the talking-head can shake his/her head at on the TV, distract the Monday-morning quarterbacking finger-wagging, do some talking, maybe make a few recommendations quietly re-enstate racing and away we go.

Time will only tell, of course, if this hypothesis is correct. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but we are all pansies who want to be coddled at home and protected from dandelions, dangerous ants in our house, and the creepy guy down the road who likes to go sailing when it's less than 75deg outside.

Don't get me started.

[Y Bar Ranch]

I read this article

"This temporary safety stand-down from offshore racing will allow the Coast Guard and the offshore racing community to further our common safety goals."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/nationa...#ixzz1tGcWZyKy

In the military, you hold a safety standdown when there is a pattern that leads you to believe there's a systemic issue at hand that needs to be addressed. So I'm betting there's more to the story than just this one incident. May some close calls? Tip of the iceberg and all that.

[bamamick]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Australia still have to go save someone not too long ago after specifically saying they would not do that any more after that incident in the BOC awhile back? iirc the bill for that rescue was well over a million dollars.

Mickey Lake

[Bob Cleek]

I think there are a lot of issues that really ought to be addressed. I've seen too much of this in what is going to soon be fifty years of sailing. I'm not an avid racer, but I've done my share. I've chaired race committees and laid out courses. I've sat on protest committees. I have to say, without any reference to the specific loss of life in this incident, that there are way too many people who "push the envelope," if not throw caution to the winds, when their competitive juices get flowing. The sailing culture on the Bay has changed radically in recent decades. It's no longer a world where everybody knew everybody else and most all started sailing as kids racing dinghies and pursued the sport as an avocation from there on. Now there's a lot of young people with a lot of testosterone and the "new money" to put it to work who simply buy hot boats because "yacht racing" is oh, so much more macho than golf. (A lot of this new "sailing culture" has been fostered by publications like "Latitude 38" and "Sailing Anarchy," not that I fault them, but they are at the core of the phenomenon.) These "hot shots" hire "professional" helmsmen and tacticians (all "self-qualified") to drive their boats so they can recount their "victories" back at the yacht club bar. Races are scheduled without regard to the weather. The last thing a race committee wants to do, or will do, is "wimp out" and call a race due to heavy weather. Indeed, on and about SF Bay, the weather can change from mild to "survival mode" in a matter of hours, after a race has started. If you drop out of a race because it gets too rough, you get a DNF, not a trophy. Real men don't wimp out, neither on the course nor back at the yard and the sail loft when they get the bill for the broken gear.

Waves that can smash a twenty-five or thirty-five foot boat to pieces aren't uncommon out there around the Farallons. They aren't uncommon anywhere along the California coastline when the weather kicks up. These so called "sneaker" waves aren't really "sneaky" at all. It isn't the wave's fault. It's the fault of the victims that don't see them coming. The wave didn't sneak up on them. They just weren't paying attention. We lose many people that way, most frequently fishermen and abalone divers on shore who just have to stand out on one rock too far out.

I've read the statement from a survivor of this most recent tragedy. As I understood his statement, they were racing and rounding the islands, which were the windward mark. They were staying outside the line of breakers (i.e. cutting it as close as they dared) when a huge wave "came out of nowhere" and broke early, right on top of the boat. Everyone on board were wearing required flotation gear and harnesses. None (except perhaps one, IIRC) were "snapped on" because they didn't think it was "that rough." All but one, as I recall, were washed overboard by the wave. (News reports that continually stated that the boat "grounded on the Farallons were inaccurate. It was washed ashore after the wave broke on it.)

I will never criticize anyone on that boat. There but for the grace of God have gone I many times over. Whether that sort of racing is prudent remains an open question. I, for one, am rethinking my position. You start to see things differently when you get older.

One guy had the cojones to post the truth in the "Sailing Anarchy" forum (which I rarely read... somebody sent this to me.) If he posted it under his real name, I'm sure his name would be Mudd right now, but he's damn right and I admire his courage to speak the truth, particularly when everybody is spouting BS about how "they'd all want us to keep racing" in the face of the Coasties' "enough is enough."

From Sailing Anarchy:

I don't post on this forum often; but I see lots of argument about whether Low Speed Chase was too close, and what should have been done, what equipment should be worn, etc. I'm going to go on the record here and say that everything I have read and seen about where boats were on the Crewed Farallones tells me that ALL of the boats that transited the area were in too close and that LSC got caught in a large set. I hate to burst bubbles about what people think is safe, but I think this tragedy should burst a few; and hopefully the skippers who go racing there next time will consider what I am going to say here before they also decide to round the windward side of SE Farallone two to three waves away from the break.

I'm going to say this once. It is the responsibility of the skipper of a vessel to ensure the safety of the vessel and her crew. Regardless of what happens; or how it happens. It makes little difference if the wave was 'freak' or larger than average. It is still the responsibility of the skipper to ask himself "WHAT IF". With regard to the LSC tragedy; the WHAT IF should have been asked about the possibility of ANY FAILURE or sea condition that would put the boat into the danger zone. This question was not asked by the LSC skipper AND THE BOATS HE WAS FOLLOWING. Everyone else got lucky that a big set did not arrive and smash them into the shore.

The NW end of SE Farallone is a reef. Anything 10 fathoms or less is "reef depth" and a potential break zone. The topology of the break zone is similar to the Mavericks reef. On days when there are large seas; this area would look like a big day at Mavericks. If the seas are 12-15 feet, large sets of waves that are 20-25 feet should be expected. In normal offshore sailing conditions these swells are noticed but not dangerous. When they run up onto a reef (a shallowing zone) they turn into 30-40' monsters. They break much further out than the 'normal' break zone. These waves are not uncommon and they are not to be 'unexpected'. Based on photos and looking at charts; being 125 yards outside of the break zone would put the LSC and other transiting boats in a depth of 30-40 feet. It's too close to a lee shore/reef with large breakers. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is. Mistakes were made by the skippers who sailed through the area in those conditions. We all need to accept it and learn from it; and stop bickering about what people don't want to accept (that the skippers who sailed through that reef were all doing the wrong thing).

Waves of this magnitude put all bets off in terms of survivability on the boat, tethered on, or off. The three that survived were lucky. Everyone onboard were in grave danger before the wave broke. In a breaking surf wave, jacklines, tethers, and harnesses, will snap like weak rubber bands. They are not designed to withstand these types of loads. If they did stand up to it the forces on the human body would be deadly. While I agree that staying onboard is paramount to crew safety ("don't fall off the boat"); there is another cardinal rule that supersedes it. It's "give lee shores a wide berth". If that had been done we would not be talking about what the sailors should be wearing. If change is to come from this (and it should) it should be for a call from within the racing community for racecourse laylines/waypoints or off-limits depth contours.

I'm pretty sure the USCG suspended racing so the racing organizations can get their **** together and come up with some 'lessons learned' mitigation for this tragedy; so that public outcry can be tamed. Otherwise expect the USCG to be up everyone's ass who goes racing; especially racers going outside of the bay.

[Breakaway]

^ +1

[wesnbetsy]

How about this solution. The problem is the islands and rocks aren't bouyed so racers must use judgement on the rounding and in the conditions in that area ( which I know well) it is frankly unsafe to approach closely. The race committee should place two boats well outside the rocks northwest and southwest of the islands on about the 10 fathom line with gps coordinates well advertised to allow racers to find them in foggy or rough conditions. The committee boats would be able to monitor the situation and know when enoughs enough, and that should satisfy the USCG concerns. anyone who has rounded those rocks racing in the normal 20+ knots conditions knows it isn't a great idea.

[Tom Lathrop]

So right Bob, and the guy in Sailing Anarchy has got it spot on. Good for him. If a temporary buoy can't be used near the Farallones then we now have the technology to plot the course of every boat very simply. Mark roundings are the place where racers engage each other like no other and I also hit a rock "rounding" a lighthouse too tight and with too much testosterone when I was young enough to have a surplus of it. I've only been by the Farallones in a destroyer eons ago but can see that having them as a "mark" to be rounded invited situatons such as did finally occur. I'm an enemy of the nanny state but there needs to be some rational thought to these issues.

[James McMullen]

So the drug narcs are all of a sudden concerned about boat safety again? Who woulda thunkit? Typically heavy-handed of them, still.

[Canoeyawl]

Cleek has it, but sometimes you need that fifty years of experience to explain it. I have a young grandson that participates every weekend in the very active San Francisco Bay yacht racing scene and I hope he is taking notes. Bob's comment on the comparisons to playing Golf are spot on...
I'm not sure how I feel about the actions of the Coasties... pretty much the way James does. The Port Captain is likely taking some heat for this and is overcompensating.
The typical American way of locking the barn after the horse is stolen.
After all, they are "Homeland Security". Perhaps they will promote a Transportation Inspection Agency to search the boats before they leave the slip.

[crawdaddyjim50]

What is next? A boat safety officer with the power to over rule the Captain. Of course this will only shift the burden of safety away from the Captain to the govt. And then you will get bathtub racing at its finest. Sad that they had to die for their Captain's hubris, but it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that pushing the envelope is dangerous. Just ask Senna of F1 fame.

[BrianW]

From the previous thread...

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...t=#post3380012

Should the race committee be responsible to pay for the SAR costs?

This event is a sport, much like ice fishing.

"Should the race committee be responsible to pay for the SAR costs?" [#5]

NO.

If they were specifically told to not go, than they should volunteer to cover the costs. No one should be forced to though.

Add in some rude remarks about "drug narcs" and Homeland Security" and it seems some want the Coast Guard to do nothing more than pull their silly sailing asses out of the water when they do something stupid, such as racing their boats in rough seas.

And, they want it for free, unless told not to go out.

Well, the Port Captain gave them their wish, and told them not to go out.

Hope they are happy.

[Reynard38]

Seems like anytime you add the word "race" to something it gets a lot more expensive and risky. A friend of mine when I mentioned I wanted a bigger sailboat down the road talked about how expensive it was when he was a part owner of a 45 footer in Chicago. I asked him what was so expensive? He then told me about the 2 collisions he had while racing. One holed the hull and the other destroyed the mainmast.
When racing the red mist rises it overrides otherwise good judgement. Also the more $$ one has to blow the worse thier judgement becomes. I saw this racing cars, obviously it applies to sailing as well.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Oh Dear........ oh dearrie dearrie me...

You allow a coastguard the authority to close down all ocean racing.

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Have it printed on a T-shirt - the copyright expired some time back.

[Dan McCosh]

I'd agree with young Mr. Cleek in the appraisal of what happened. Dunno about the CG canceling all "ocean races", or what that entails. It seems ill thought-out, as there doesn't seem a connection between racing around a lethal mark and the others affected. The course itself appears idiotic, but not unprecedented, in that it effectively means a missed turning mark quickly turns to tragedy. Quite a lot different than hitting an inflated plastic bag with your boat. There is a similar situation waiting to happen in the Mackinac course, where the main turning mark (often done at night in bad weather) is a buoy marking the windward side of series of reefs. Race committees tend to ignore these things until it is too late, IMO, and afterwards there is a lot of backpedalling with lawyers involved.

[David W Pratt]

You need an "event permit" to go sailing?!

[rbgarr]

I think there are a lot of issues that really ought to be addressed. I'm pretty sure the USCG suspended racing so the racing organizations can get their **** together... and come up with some 'lessons learned' mitigation for this tragedy....

Bob,

I've not heard of ocean races requiring a permit as described in the announcement, but I've been out of racing for decades, and am on the East Coast anyway. Perhaps one is required for events like the Bermuda Race.

The crewman's description of the sailors' harnesses not being clipped on was telling and I wonder if that was a violation of the permit in some fashion. In any case, I was impressed by his honest description. Things happen fast even in good weather and mild sea conditions just as he said. A lobsterman got caught in his trap line here on Sunday and was pulled under. Beautiful day out, 77 years old. Very sad.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

You need an "event permit" to go sailing?!

I thought it a weird concept.......but:
http://homeport.uscg.mil/mycg/portal...geTypeId=16440

Fans of the twilight zone might like to compare and contrast
http://www.shipcanal.co.uk/assets/pd...structions.pdf

[Captain Intrepid]

...it seems some want the Coast Guard to do nothing more than pull their silly sailing asses out of the water when they do something stupid, such as racing their boats in rough seas.

And, they want it for free, unless told not to go out.

That's awfully presumptuous of you.

[Y Bar Ranch]

You need an "event permit" to go sailing?!

No

http://law.justia.com/cfr/title33/33....1.7.46.0.20.7

[Ian McColgin]

The issues are different with different sorts of races. For example, some classic regattas end up with a competing boat skippered and crewed by charterers who really don't have the skills to handle their boat much less understand what the others will do. Cat boat regattas have some fiercely competative racers but most such started as children and get it about the special risks and right-of-way issues caused by the huge booms. Some ocean races, like the Bermuda, have a pretty good system for qualifying that keeps complete incompetants out.

And many races that run in difficult or congested waters have particular instructions to lower the risks. For example, the Moffett Cup instructions include the commandment to regard all navigation marks. As in don't cut inside the West Chop buoy. And don't even make commercial traffic nervous, as in if the RC thinks you cut too near a ferry, you're out with no appeal.

Racers always like to take the shortest line and race directions that just say leave the island to port (or whatever) really won't do if that island has unbuoyed reefs. While I don't feel the RC should be subject to an ex post facto ruling that it is responsible for a competitor's seamanship error, it is clear that the USCG was right to put a hold on organized races that don't consider defining safe rounding. I'm not convinced that placing a couple of committee boats out to define a rounding makes sense - pretty miserable and tricky duty holding a station like that - but there's no reason the RC could not redefine the course. I think. Gonna look at a chart just for fun.

[Bob Cleek]

I see where three were lost on the Ensenada Race this weekend. God rest their souls. Apparently from initial reports, they were run down by a tanker in the shipping lanes. The Ensenada Race (San Diego to Ensenada) is a "milk run," actually, unlike the offshore races farther north. (For those on the Right Coast, where the world is compressed, San Diego is 500 miles south of SF)

This thread might be appropriate for a "sticky." This whole issue bears examination. The traditional wooden boat community, while we aren't generally "racers," has a lot to say to the larger sailing community about these issues.

We have the same problems. As far back as the mid-seventies, we have had our own problems in this regard. At that time, I was the vice-commodore (and one of the first board members) and race committee chairman of the Master Mariners Benevolent Association running the Master Mariners race for classic boats on SF Bay out of the St Francis YC. Although we has spent long hours trying to lay out courses that were safe and favorable for traditional vessels, with some fifty or sixty boats ranging in size from 20' to 80+', dismastings and collisions marred ever race, or so it seemed. Since then, vessels in this race have been sunk and people injured, although, knock on wood, that hasn't gone beyond broken bones.

What was the cause? The problems arose when the race became very popular and winning a matter of great prestige. At that point, we found some boat owners were crewing their boats with hot shot crews from the racing fraternity. Those guys, while expert racers, had no experience whatsoever with the limitations of traditional craft. Sometimes, they'd never been on the boat before the race day. It wasn't until they reached a windward mark with a six knot tide setting against it that they realized that a fifty foot full keeled wooden retired ocean racer wouldn't spin around the mark like a lightweight fin keeled plastic racing sled... with disasterous results. Some, used to one design racing, failed to appreciate that sailing up close into the lee of a large gaff schooner can stop a smaller boat in its tracks with the resultant loss of control on the helm. And so on...

Over the years, I've watched sailing on the Bay grow from a rather small and fairly esoteric pastime to a very popular activity. The average age of racers has dropped significantly. Time was, even with younger crews, owners/skippers were most all in their forties and fifties just because it took that long to be able to afford a boat of any size. Along the way, they'd cut their teeth on the smaller classes, beginning with El Toros and working up through the "dinghy" classes into Lightnings and so on. Not so today. I think it started about the time the J-24's became popular. These were relatively affordable pure racing machines and the "newbies" embraced them enthusiastically. Along with the times, anybody with a credit card could be out sailing the next day. This isn't to say the problem was solely economic at all, but I do think easy credit popularized boating generally and I base this on my experience as a yacht broker at that time. It was not at all uncommon to show boats to customers who knew nothing more about seamanship than that they "wanted a boat." Knowlegeable boat buyers were far and few between, comparitively, and when they came calling we knew them as friends by their first names and they knew exactly what they were looking for.

Since then, technology has only exacebated the problem. Just as the advent of VHS eroded the self-reliance of weekend sailors, the advent of GPS freed them from any real need to learn to navigate, even on soundings... or so they think. Note that there is only one company, Ritchie, any longer manufacturing compasses in the US. In recent years, I have been on a number of boats, some racers, that carry no compass at all. One newly minted club racing skipper told me she doesn't see any need for a compass because "I have GPS on my cell phone." Needless to say, she had no idea what a radar reflector was. On SF Bay, most all of which is criss-crossed with some of the busiest shipping lanes around, the fog can roll in within minutes, leaving you in a fifty or one hundred yard envelope of zero visibility. Anyone who has ever experienced that knows how completely disorienting that is. While a cell phone might be of some help, I think leaving the dock without up to date charts and a properly adjusted compass under such conditions is grossly irresponsible. Many of the new crop of boaters think I'm an old foggey.

Someone above indiciated that he hadn't ever heard of a "race permit" before. Indeed, any race on SF Bay has long required a permit. Our pilots do not want to be bringing a Pannamax container ship through the Golden Gate onlly to run right into the middle of a fleet of racers! That said, there is no way a race committee can really vet the qualifications of a racing crew. It wasn't unreasonable for the SFYC's race committee to assume anyone entering that race was competent to sail the course. I doubt there would be any way to devise a test of such qualifications anyway. Time was, anybody who undertook to sail out and around he Farallons would know what they were doing. Today, though, just being able to sail a boat isn't any guarantee someone is competent to take it offshore in what may turn out to be survival conditions.

Bottom line, I think technology, whether it be GPS instead of a magnetic compass and a paper chart, stainless and plastic snap shackles instead of the right knot for the job, or any number of other similar things, has in the minds of the younger generation of sailors erased the formerly obvious skill set the sea demands of us all. I don't know how we protect people from their own ignorance and imprudence, or whether we even should, but I am afraid we have reached the point where the sponsorship of yacht races is becoming an unintended invitation to tragedy.