Wired magazine’s Adam Fisher has reported that the accident was due to a structural failure when the forward beam broke.
Nathan Outteridge was helming. His father, interviewed on Australian television said,
“They heard a few cracking noises, and then the boat tipped on its side. Before it went right over the mainframe just broke and it collapsed a bit like a taco shell cracking.”
That forward beam had been damaged during tow tests, without the wing in place.
From the report last October:
“The plan was to launch and tow the boat, to put it through its paces at speed, then to step the wing… We launched the boat, towed it to the bridge at speed and on the way back we heard some noises as we were loading the catamaran platform itself. The boat will come out of the water and go into the shed and we will spend the rest of the day thoroughly going through it.”
Photos and TV helicopter video make it clear that the port hull and forward cross beam broke up.
We are all extremely sorry for the death of Bart Simpson but in the immediate shock of this loss we should not lose perspective on what the America’s Cup represents.
Apart from a few aberrant editions when 12 metres and then AC class monohulls were used, the Cup is, and always has been, the pinnacle of the sport of inshore yacht racing. It has always been a test of technology as much as sailing skill and the Americas cup contenders have, each in its day, been the fastest sailing yachts of the period. Let’s not change that.
That the boats should be extreme is fully within the America’s Cup concept. That the boats should be dangerous is equally traditional… remember Reliance?
Many people have said that they wish to make the America’s Cup more like Formula 1. Well, now it is. Formula 1 is not just about raw speed. It is also about cornering, reliability and the ability to look after your tyres.
In the case of the 34th America’s Cup, the limit of speed is a question of how fast can the boat go without breaking or capsizing. Making it more resistant to either is counterproductive to absolute speed so the best boat is necessarily a compromise.
We want the sport to be as safe as possible, but it is impossible to make it 100% safe… that’s the prerogative of video games. The mastering of risk is one of the things we admire America’s Cup crews for, and it is all the more admirable because it is a collective team effort that keeps the boat on the right side of the knife edge between top speed and disaster.
Let us mourn the passing of a fine sailor and a special person, but let us acknowledge that America’s Cup crews indulge their passion knowing the risks and accepting that the sport is potentially lethal…. just like drivers in Formula One.