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From: Wally (no email)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2007 - 15:45:14 EST
Wow!
Jeffrey Mills <> wrote: I just finished _Knockdown: The Harrowing True Account of a Yacht Race
Turned Deadly_. The book lived up to its name. Called the
Sydney-Hobart or Syd-Hob, the annual race runs from Sydney, Australia,
to Hobart, Tasmania, a rhumb line of 735 miles. The Bass Strait
separates the two landforms, and is a relatively shallow bottleneck
between two oceans, where seas are confused into "black holes" and
rogue waves literally dredge up bottom debris hundreds of feet deep.
More often than not, the race is quite dangerous. In the year in
question, 1998, a hurricane formed right on top of the racing fleet,
and the Aussie meteorological agency, the one entity permitted to
talk to the fleet while underway, was being very conservative with
forecasts because they didn't want a black eye in case a dire
prediction didn't pan out. One independent meteorologist, however, broke the
rules and made pleas to certain boats to quit the race. In the aftermath he
was made the official forecaster for future Syd-Hobs.
Winds 50-100mph and waves 50-90 feet high devastated the fleet. Boats
and life rafts would literally fall some distance from breaking seas 8
stories high. Some boats actually experienced a dozen rollovers each. Many
broken bones, gashed heads, torn ligaments and deep contusions. Rescue
helicopters flew day and night in these conditions, and plucked 57 men
from the sea, including one who had been washed away in just a life
vest and was presumed lost. Finding him was a 1-in-a-million chance.
Rescue swimmers (including two rookie women) were in just as much
peril going into seas, which in one second were 90 feet below, and the
next second were rushing at the helicopter skids.
Thanks to these tireless rescuers, only six men total would die: one
was a skipper who had a heart attack during a rollover; one
helmsman drowned entangled in cockpit ropes while the boat was
upside-down; one was washed away from the boat during a knockdown, and
three were washed away from a life raft when seas ripped its bottom.
Two others on that one managed to hang on, to watch these three mates wash
further and further away). The two managed to survive the couple days
dangling in the bottomless raft, even though one was scantily clad and
near hypothermic death, while the other hung on with a separated
shoulder (and I think a broken ankle). The agony these men felt watching
their mates pulled steadily away from them while powerless to help was
indeed harrowing.
All the while, the hurricane continued.
A number of the high-dollar maxis were sunk or largely destroyed, a
smallish boat of foolishly courageous and well-conditioned underdogs
would win, and survivor after survivor would step off the rescue
helicopter, or onto the finish-line dock declaring, "I'll never sail the
Bass Strait again."
_________________________________________________________________
The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop.
http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline2
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