As reported on Wired.
BY KATIE M. PALMER
Artemis Racing crew members gather at a Treasure Island dock the day after the deadly crash of their 72-foot-long catamaran on Friday, May 10, 2013, in San Francisco. Sailor Andrew “Bart” Simpson was trapped underwater when the high-tech catamaran capsized during America’s Cup training. Photo: Noah Berger / AP
Sailors of catamarans — those light, fleet, double-hulled sailboats — accept capsizing as a part of the game and train for flips before they ever grasp a tiller. Without the massive center-weighted keel of traditional monohulled sailboats, catamarans are much faster and more difficult to keep stable during maneuvers. The risk is especially well-understood by the America’s Cup crewmembers who will race the leading edge AC72 boats in July. But an abiding respect for these untested behemoths wasn’t enough to keep them safe Thursday, when a member of Artemis racing was killed when his boat crashed.
“What happened yesterday was not on the radar for any of us,” said Iain Murray, regatta director and CEO of America’s Cup Race Management.
Race officials and the members of Swedish team Artemis were struggling to determine just what caused the accident that killed Andrew “Bart” Simpson. It was the second time an AC72 — the 13-story tall, carbon fiber racers that will compete in the event — has capsized, and Murray said there will be a thorough review of the crash and any changes that might be made to the America’s Cup and its playoffs, the Louis Vuitton Cup.
“We need to conduct the review before we determine what action, if any, will be taken,” said Stephen Barclay, CEO of the America’s Cup Event Authority. “Nothing’s off the table.”
Yesterday afternoon, both Artemis and Cup defender Team Oracle were on San Francisco Bay for a practice run. The teams stayed close together — they weren’t racing, but paying close attention to how the boats stacked up in similar winds. At 1 p.m., the boat neared the center of the triangle created by Angel Island, Alcatraz, and Treasure Island. During a bear away, the same common but tricky maneuver that led Oracle’s AC72 to capsize in October, Artemis’ boat went into a nosedive.
Artemis was having a difficult time with its AC72 even before yesterday’s crash. After getting the boat in the water for the first time in November, the team quickly realized a number of flaws and put the boat back in the shed. Then, after completing a few practice runs against Team Oracle in February, the team realized it was vastly outgunned by boats that could use trick daggerboards to raise both hulls out of the water and “foil.” The team went back to the drawing board.
Because of the retooling necessary, the team didn’t received its second set of hulls, shrink-wrapped and in royal blue, until Tuesday. The boat on the water Thursday was its red-hulled first design “Big Red,” flying the team’s second wing after the first was smashed in Valencia last May. It was to be the boat’s last practice run.
Breezes were around 18 to 20 knots — brisk, but not at all atypical for a summer day in San Francisco Bay. In contrast, on the October day that Team Oracle’s AC72 capsized, winds were closer to 25 knots with gusts up to 30. The waters also were relatively flat; unlike the choppy waters Team Oracle encountered in October, the boats were sailing in a flood tide.
The two crashes were as different as the conditions in which they occurred.
“It was neither a proper capsize nor a proper pitchpole,” says Dick Enersen, who has competed in and made documentaries about the America’s Cup.
Oracle pitchpoled — digging its hulls into the water and flipping upside down — and took hours to disintegrate. With Artemis, the speculation is that loads on the crossbeam, which links the two hulls, in front of the mast caused the girder to fail at its intersection with the port hull, after which the whole structure immediately collapsed: The port hull snapped in half just in front of the rudder, and the rigid wing fell over. Parts of the wing were seen being picked up by chase boats in the water around the main vessel.
At the very least, the results of the review will hopefully include more safety measures, said Scott MacLeod, who has represented sponsors in the Cup since 1992.
“There’s not much they can do to change the technology or slow the boats down,” he says. “But hopefully they can protect the sailors.”
In most regards, what happened after the crash couldn’t have gone any better. Today, U.S. Coast Guard Captain Matt Bliven praised the on-water teams from both Artemis and Oracle for their rapid response. But the safeguards in place, established both before and after Oracle’s crash, weren’t enough to completely protect either the boat in its shattered state or its crew.
One of the biggest causes of damage to the Oracle boat in October was accumulated water in the wing, which dragged it down and broke off pieces as it sank. After that, teams started putting airbags at the top of their masts to keep the wing from sinking in the event of a capsize. But in video footage shot yesterday from a helicopter, the tip of Artemis’ wing could be seen sinking below the water about an hour after the crash, in spite of the floats.
Precautions have also been taken to prevent sailors from getting trapped under the boat. During the October Oracle capsize, the boat’s wing initially remained intact, propping up the hulls in the sky like the third leg of a tripod. Afterwards, skipper Jimmy Spithill said his greatest fear was that the mast would break and trap the sailors underneath the netting that connects the two hulls. All sailors now carry knives to cut the netting, and oxygen canisters containing four or five life-saving breaths.
It appears, though, that Simpson was caught underneath a solid sections of the boat, where he somehow ended up after being thrown from his windward position on the netting that spans the boat’s hulls. It’s unclear why Simpson was unable to free himself — he may have been incapacitated while trapped beneath the boat for a reported 10 minutes. Once he was found, he was rushed to St. Francis Yacht Club, where CPR was attempted.
Simpson joined Artemis at the end of February. He was an Olympic sailor who competed in the 2008 and 2012 Summer Games, where he won a gold and a silver medal. “As an America’s Cup team, we are investing in the team’s future with guys like Andrew,” team CEO Paul Cayard said in a statement at the time. “These young sailors bring talent and enthusiasm to our team. They are the future of the America’s Cup.”
That enthusiasm turned to sadness Thursday as the team vowed to determine just went wrong, and what might be done to ensure the safety of the sailors.
“Our thoughts are with Andrew’s family, who suffered a tragic loss yesterday — of a son, a father, and a husband,” Torbjörn Törnqvist, team chairman, said in a statement. “As our friend and teammate, Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson was central to Artemis Racing, both in the course of racing and our lives. His presence and personality was a binding force and he will be missed. Right now, the primary focus of Artemis Racing is on the well-being of our team members and their families, and the America’s Cup competition will remain second to that.”