America's Cup: Andrew Simpson's death reawakens safety debate

[sailorman]

Paul Cayard, Artemis chief and tactician, recently predicted a repeat of Oracle's capsize.
"It would be a miracle if we get through the summer without it happening to somebody [else]," he said. "We're going to start pushing harder, we are going to race and those type of boats - catamarans - tip over."

For safety, sailors wear helmets, life vests and body armour and carry knives to cut themselves free from fallen rigging. They also receive regular training in underwater survival and wear small oxygen bottles in case of being trapped. Divers and doctors follow in support boats

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/sailing/22494280

Will they stop this circus, i doubt it

 

[trapezeartist]

Sailing is dangerous.
Motor racing is dangerous.
Rock climbing is dangerous.
Potholing is dangerous.
Ski-ing is dangerous.
Bingo is pretty safe, but you could die of boredom.
Life is dangerous: no-one gets out alive.

Take sensible precautions by all means, but we can't entirely eradicate the dangers in life. And sometimes it's the more dangerous things that are the most fun. The participants understand the dangers, and accept them.

 

[Houleaux]

Sailing is dangerous.
Motor racing is dangerous.
Rock climbing is dangerous.
Potholing is dangerous.
Ski-ing is dangerous.
Bingo is pretty safe, but you could die of boredom.
Life is dangerous: no-one gets out alive.

Take sensible precautions by all means, but we can't entirely eradicate the dangers in life. And sometimes it's the more dangerous things that are the most fun. The participants understand the dangers, and accept them.

+1

Really saddened to hear of tragic death, but the things we enjoy often entail risk. I wouldn't want that to stop us being permitted to do them.

 

[nathanlee]

Motor racing would never allow these things to be raced if they were cars. If you're going to experiment with new designs, then do it until controlled conditions with a safety boat, etc. It's wrong that these things are sold for teams to race without meeting some safety criteria on strength or design. Same with Open 60 keels falling off.

You think they'd let a rally car on the track if it didn't have a roll cage, because the builder decided he'd save weight? Nope. So why are they doing it with boats.

 

[sailorman]

Motor racing would never allow these things to be raced if they were cars. If you're going to experiment with new designs, then do it until controlled conditions with a safety boat, etc. It's wrong that these things are sold for teams to race without meeting some safety criteria on strength or design. Same with Open 60 keels falling off.

You think they'd let a rally car on the track if it didn't have a roll cage, because the builder decided he'd save weight? Nope. So why are they doing it with boats.

Rally & F1 cars went thorugh very dangerious periods & were changed / banned after many fatal accidentd that could have been prevented.
The Group B was banned
Group B was a set of regulations introduced in 1982 for competition vehicles in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportscar_racing and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rallying regulated by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fédération_Internationale_de_l'Automobile. The Group B regulations fostered some of the quickest, most powerful and sophisticated rally cars ever built and is commonly referred to as the golden era of rallying.^{[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed]} However, a series of major accidents, some of them fatal, were blamed on their outright speed and lack of crowd control. After the death of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Toivonen and his co-driver http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Cresto in the 1986 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_Corse,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Toivonen

 

[nathanlee]

Rally & F1 cars went thorugh very dangerious periods & were changed / banned after many fatal accidentd that could have been prevented.
The Group B was banned

Indeed. I remember the exploding S4.

Surely, given these lessons, and those of F1, powerboats, and so on, a very well funded modern yacht racing team should have more of a strict adherence to building safe boats.

There really is no excuse for so many keels falling off, for example, and a 70ft boat flying a hull is just mental.

 

[Cantata]

Be very careful what you wish for.

 

[Richard Shead]

Matthew Sheahan from Yachting World looks at this in next months issue, he had completed it before the accident however I am sure they will be looking at this in some depth now.

 

[sailorman]

Be very careful what you wish for.

I have no wish to sail a 70` x 70` cat

 

[[70521]]

Bingo is pretty safe, but you could die of boredom.

In our village hall its quite exciting! The wolf whistles that go up when 11 is called and the giggle when 69 is call have to be heard. I have to say I bring the average age of the people attending down to 75!

Having climbed and sailed most of my live I think it is all about a calculated risk. One that the America's Cup has got very, very wrong. I agree it is a huge spectacle, look at how many people went to Plymouth when it was there, but I hear that the Colosseum was very popular in ancient Rome.

 

[Bobc]

Sailing is dangerous.
Motor racing is dangerous.
Rock climbing is dangerous.
Potholing is dangerous.
Ski-ing is dangerous.
Bingo is pretty safe, but you could die of boredom.
Life is dangerous: no-one gets out alive.

Take sensible precautions by all means, but we can't entirely eradicate the dangers in life. And sometimes it's the more dangerous things that are the most fun. The participants understand the dangers, and accept them.

You forgot horseriding. Probably the most dangerous sport I can think of right now. I know numerous people who have broken limbs and a couple who have had worse.

 

[trapezeartist]

You forgot horseriding. Probably the most dangerous sport I can think of right now. I know numerous people who have broken limbs and a couple who have had worse.

Yes, that as well. And they've been doing it for hundreds of years and no-one has suggested fitting a roll-cage yet.

Just to make it clear, I'm not against an investigation into the AC accident to see if any sensible lessons can be learned. But I am very wary of the possibility of a knee-jerk lets-ban-something reaction. Each member of the crew had a helmet and an emergency air supply, so it seems that safety has been taken into consideration. You just can't eliminate every little scrap of danger.

 

[yoda]

Will be interesting to see if the Employers duty of care is bought into question? I believe there is a difference where the man is employed rather than an amateur.

Yoda