| For most of my life I believed that the most frightening | | | | cabin ceiling, not the floor. Instead of climbing up the |
| thing that could happen on a yacht would be a major | | | | companionway steps you would have to hold your |
| fire. And I certainly don't wish to downplay the | | | | breath and climb down them to reach the cockpit. Of |
| seriousness of having to deal with a fire onboard. | | | | course the cockpit is no longer a safe haven but |
| However a boating accident some years ago made | | | | another trap -- with swirling sheets and halyard tails |
| me rethink. | | | | ready to catch your arm or leg. Again, you'd need to |
| I now believe that losing the keel is the one nautical | | | | dive down to escape. |
| emergency that nobody can plan for. The most | | | | The chances of survival are clearly with those people |
| worrying aspect about being on a yacht that's lost its | | | | in the cockpit. But one simple fact could save the lives |
| keel is how little time there is for people on deck to | | | | of those below. If the keel bolts have only bent the |
| understand what is happening. | | | | holes through which they go would still be blocked. This |
| At first it must seem as though the rig is absorbing a | | | | would mean that air inside the boat would escape |
| wind gust. It would only be when the angle of heel | | | | much more slowly that if the bolts had gone with the |
| became completely out of proportion to the wind that | | | | keel. This would buy time for the trapped people. |
| suspicions would begin. There could be only a few | | | | In fact in one example in the current Vendee Globe a |
| seconds at most to realise -- probably when the mast | | | | competitor was able to survive for nearly a day |
| was about to hit the water -- that the keel was no | | | | because air was trapped in the bow of his crippled |
| longer balancing the rig. | | | | boat, preventing it from sinking. |
| There certainly would not be time to warn people | | | | The best one could say about the sort of disaster |
| below. | | | | we've discussed above is that acknowledging its |
| Imagine what it would be like inside a yacht that's | | | | possibility and envisaging what it would be like below |
| upside down. Everything that wasn't locked in place | | | | might increase one's chances of survival. |
| would fall down. And you would be walking on the | | | | I hope none of you ever have to do it. |