fastnet yacht race disaster 1979

Yachting Monthly

• Digital edition

1979 Fastnet Race: The race that changed everything

• Nic Compton
• May 18, 2022

Nic Compton investigates how the UK’s worst sailing disaster - the 1979 Fastnet Race - changed the way yachts are designed

The Royal Navy airlifted 74 survivors during three days of rescues. Credit: Getty

‘A soul-chilling surge of fear swept through all of us as we heard the terrifying sound of a breaking wave 40ft above us. In a few seconds the 10ft-high foaming crest was bearing down on us from behind like an avalanche. […] We braced ourselves for the pooping of our lives, but a split second before the onslaught from astern, the bow disappeared as we nosedived into a wall of water in front. […] As the bow submarined into this secondary wave, Grimalkin ’s stern rose until it arced over the bow and stood us on our nose. As we approached the vertical, crew were thrown against the back of the coachroof or out of the boat altogether. A split second later and we were hit from astern by the breaking wave and we pitchpoled.’

This is one of the defining moments of the 1979 Fastnet Race when, after having been knocked down multiple times and rolled through 360°, the 30ft Grimalkin was hit by a rogue wave and pitchpoled.

As she went through the roll, her rig collapsed and she remerged with a broken mast and the spars smashing against her topsides.

By then, the boat’s owner, David Sheahan, was dead, floating face down in the sea to windward, and two of the crew were slumped in the cockpit, also apparently dead.

Rescue helicopters went back in the days after the disaster to check every boat for survivors, including Grimalkin . Credit: Getty

Faced with this carnage, the remaining three crew – including the owner’s son, Matt Sheahan, then only 17, who wrote the passage above – decided to abandon ship and boarded the liferaft .

Only later did they discover that at least one of the crew left on board was still alive – Nick Ward, who went on to tell his tale in his book Left for Dead .

But of course Grimalkin wasn’t the only yacht to have succumbed to the Force 10 winds that ravaged the fleet that year.

By the end of the 1979 Fastnet race, 24 boats had been abandoned, five boats had sunk, 136 sailors had been rescued, and 15 sailors killed.

It was and still is the deadliest yacht race in history – well ahead of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race which left six people dead.

The rescue was described as the biggest peacetime life-saving operation in British history, and its impact has reverberated throughout the yachting world.

Stowage arrangements on yachts was one of the changes following the 1979 Fastnet Race, after many crews found it too dangerous to be below deck due to insecure equipment

It was a wake-up call for the emergency services and triggered a huge push for improved safety equipment.

But how much did it affect the course of boat design , and have the lessons of this deadliest of races really been learned, or is there a danger it could happen all over again?

When the 303 boats gathered for the Fastnet Race on 11 August 1979, racing was still governed by the International Offshore Rule (IOR), first introduced in 1969.

After 10 years of experimentation, designers had found ways of maximising the rule, not always with desirable results.

‘In 1979 all boat racing was done under IOR, but it was already in decline, mainly because designers had found their weaselly way into the rule,’ says the former Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) technical director Mike Urwin, ‘which meant that unless you had the latest and greatest you didn’t stand a chance. The IOR produced boats which wholly optimised the rule but which were opposed to the rules of nature, such as hydrodynamics.’

One of the main complaints about the IOR was that it produced boats which were ‘short on stability’, as Urwin puts it.

The 1979 Fastnet Race Inquiry looked at weather reporting, safety gear, crew experience and tactics, and search and rescue procedures.

The rule contained a Centre of Gravity Factor, which encouraged designers to aim for the minimum stability allowed, bringing ballast inside the boat and even fitting wooden shoes on the bottom of keels to reduce weight.

The result was lightweight boats with wide beams, pinched ends and high freeboards, which in extreme weather had a tendency to roll over and stay over.

Another major failing of the rule was that, as it wasn’t possible to physically weigh them yet, the boats were weighed theoretically by measuring their shape at a series of stations and calculating the overall shape accordingly.

This lead to designers adding all kinds of strange appendages between the stations to increase the waterline length, which in turn meant the hulls became distorted and difficult to steer.

It was an altogether bad state of affairs yet, speaking 40 years after the 1979 Fastnet Race, designer Ron Holland – responsible for dozens of IOR racers, including Grimalkin – defends his and his colleagues’ approach.

‘We were designing boats to the IOR rule, so it wasn’t just boat design, it was trick design. Without those restrictions we would have designed boats that were less distorted and faster, but they wouldn’t have won races under the IOR rules. The racing rule forced us to design narrow sterns, so the boats were tricky to sail downwind: you had to be skilled to stay on your feet – it was all part of the game. We just took the handicap system as it was and designed boats as fast as possible around that – still bearing in mind that if you don’t finish you can’t win and you need structural integrity to keep sailing.’

Lessons from the wreckage of the 1979 Fastnet Race

Holland experienced the storm first hand, first from the deck of Golden Apple of the Sun and then, when the boat’s rudder broke off the Isles of Scilly , from the inside of a rescue helicopter.

‘I personally felt bad afterwards, especially because of those people who died. We had never had that before. But the weather was so extreme; the waves were of a size, shape and frequency that I’ve never seen before. I’m convinced that even a Colin Archer would have rolled over in those conditions.’

As the crews licked their wounds and the families mourned their dead in the aftermath of the 1970 Fastnet race, the RYA and the RORC commissioned an inquiry to find out what had gone wrong.

Three questionnaires were sent to the skipper and crews of all 303 yachts, and 669 completed questionnaires were fed into a computer for analysis.

Yacht designer Ron Holland took part on the 1979 Fastnet. He said the waves were of a size and frequency he had never seen before. Credit: Getty

The result was a 74-page report, which looked at everything from weather reporting to marine safety gear , crew experience and tactics, and search and rescue procedures.

Yet, despite recognising that many people felt designers had ‘gone to extremes which surpass the bounds of common sense’ in their quest for speed, the section on boat design is relatively short: less than three pages out of a 74-page report.

Indeed, the authors seem to go along with the ‘consensus of opinion’ that it was ‘the severity of the conditions rather than any defect in the design of the boats’, which was the main cause of the problem – all the while noting that 48% of the fleet had been knocked to horizontal, 33% had gone beyond horizontal, and five boats had spent between 30 seconds and six minutes fully inverted.

The report didn’t bother investigating knockdowns to horizontal (so-called B1 knockdowns) because it considered that these ‘have always been a potential danger in cruising and offshore racing yachts in heavy seas’, so they regarded them as normal.

New measures

Buried in the appendices was a technical report comparing the stability of a Contessa 32 Assent – the only boat in the smallest class to complete the course – and a ‘1976 Half Tonner’ (generally assumed to be Grimalkin ).

The report showed the Contessa had a range of stability of 156° compared to just 117° for the Half Tonner, making the latter far more likely to stay inverted.

Despite these concerns, the report made few recommendations for changes in yacht design, apart from suggesting the RORC should consider changing its measurement rules and make it possible to exclude boats ‘whose design parameters may indicate a lack of stability’.

The overwhelming weight of the report, however, was about the weather, improving safety gear on boats and better procedures for search and rescue.

It concluded: ‘In the 1979 race the sea showed that it can be a deadly enemy and that those who go to sea for pleasure must do so in the full knowledge that they may encounter dangers of the highest order. However, provided that the lessons so harshly taught in this race are well learnt we feel that yachts should continue to race over the Fastnet course.’

Changes brought in after 1979 means boats have to meet the ISO 12217-2 stability standard in order to sail in the Fastnet Race. Credit: Carlo Borlenghi

Yet, despite this, racing rules did change.

From 1983, the Channel Handicap System (CHS) was introduced, initially alongside IOR and eventually, as the renamed International Rating Certificate (IRC), supplanting it.

The new rule encouraged a low centre of gravity by not penalising ballast in the keel.

Also, thanks to advances in technology, it was now possible to weigh boats which, according to Mike Urwin, ‘at a stroke’ stopped designers distorting the hull to get better rating – gone were the unseemly bumps and creases of IOR boats – and resulted in ‘more wholesome boats which were easier to handle’.

There were other changes.

From 1988, the CHS introduced a Safety & Stability Screening (SSS) system, which measured a boat’s stability and took into account factors such as rig, keel , and engine type.

Thus an inboard engine scored more highly than an outboard, and a sturdy, simple rig was favoured over the complex spiders webs of many IOR boats.

Features such as furling headsails, in-mast reefing and radar can have a big impact on a yacht’s stability. Credit: David Harding

Trisails and VHF radios became mandatory.

In due course, competitors were required to complete shorter, qualifying races before they were allowed to race in the Fastnet, and a certain percentage of the crew were expected to have a sea survival certificate.

And Urwin points to another way the 1979 Fastnet Race has improved boat safety.

When it came to devising an ISO standard for yacht construction in the UK in the 1990s, the starting point for stability was the SSS system produced by the RORC.

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The resulting ISO 12217-2 (which Urwin calls a ‘gold standard for stability’) is now not only used to qualify for RORC offshore races such as the Fastnet, but is used by most British designers to pass the EU’s Recreational Craft Directive rules.

Even more significantly, perhaps, the tragedy prompted a change of attitude, according to former ROCR race director Janet Grosvenor.

‘The 1979 Fastnet was the trigger that started a greater awareness of safety issues in sailing that exists today,’ she says.

‘You can see it in people’s ordinary lives and their perception of safety. Young people nowadays turn up with their own lifejacket , which they know fits them and is up to date, whereas before they used to all be provided by the boat. It’s a mindset. We are living in a more health and safety conscious world these days.’

The new approach came to the fore in 2007 when, for the first time in its 82-year history, the start of the race was delayed after the Met Office warned of extreme conditions in the Irish Sea, similar to 1979.

In her role as race director, Grosvenor delayed the start by 25 hours, ensuring the bulk of the fleet was still in the English Channel when the storm hit and could retire safely if necessary.

And retire they did, with 207 of the 271-strong fleet taking shelter in ports along the south coast.

For Grosvenor, the fact that no boats capsized and no lives were lost was a vindication of this new attitude.

Lasting legacy of the 1979 Fastnet Race

Matt Sheahan’s experiences during the 1979 Fastnet Race affected him for the rest of his life and sparked a personal crusade.

After studying Yacht Design at Southampton University, he worked at Proctor Masts before eventually joining Yachting World as racing editor.

In his guise as chief boat tester, he conducted a campaign to make yacht manufacturers more open about stability.

‘I was determined to include stability information with all our boat tests. I wasn’t trying to change the world or say there should be set limits, it was just about getting people to understand the issue and know what their boat is suitable for. When you sail an Ultra 30, with eight crew and minimal ballast, you know if you get it wrong you’ll be swimming and the boat will probably capsize. That’s ok, it’s a calculated risk taken by experienced sailors. What’s not acceptable is when you have a cruising family who don’t have much experience and just want a boat for weekend cruising, and you sell them a boat which is capable of capsizing if it heels beyond 100° or 105° – which is the case with many boats by the time you put all the extra bits of kit on the mast. But people aren’t aware.’

The Contessa 32, Assent , pictured taking part in Cowes Week, was the smallest boat to complete the 1979 Fastnet Race

As ever, suitability of a boat for a specific use is key.

It is important that buyers understand what a boat is suitable for and what it is not. So, are boats safer now than they were in 1979?

There’s little doubt that the advances in safety equipment, clothing and building materials have improved sailors’ chances of survival in extreme weather conditions.

And there are signs that designers are producing more seaworthy designs than before.

Conditions in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race were said to be at least as bad as in the 1979 Fastnet Race, yet only 18% of the 115 boats in the race had B1 knockdowns and only 3% had B2 knockdowns – compared to 48% and 33% in the Fastnet.

Heed the warnings

But Sheahan is cautious: ‘What worries me is that the lessons from the 1979 Fastnet get forgotten. Most yachts have better stability characteristics now, partly because of regulations but also because they are generally getting bigger, so they have more form stability anyway. But by the time you add in mast-furling , furling staysails, and all the other bits of kit on the mast, the centre of gravity starts to creep up and you have a problem again. There’s a trend to make cruising boats look like fancy hotel foyers down below, to make them more appealing to the family. But the minute the boat heels over, it’s a nightmare to get across. With nothing to hold onto, someone’s going to get hurt. There’s also a move towards fine bows and over-wide sterns, making boats harder to steer downwind. So stability might be better, but the handling is getting worse.’

Urwin also thinks we are far from immune from a repeat of 1979.

The subsequent inquiry into the 1979 Fastnet Race recommended that blocking arrangements on main companionways should be totally secure

‘With the best will in the world we can’t forecast exactly what weather is going to do. If it happens again, modern boats are less likely to get into trouble, and if they do get into trouble the safety equipment is much better. We have by various means, some directly related to the 1979 Fastnet, improved the design of boats so they are more seaworthy. But never say never. With climate change creating extreme weather, it could happen again.’

The truth is that boat design is always going to be a compromise between speed and safety and that no boat is guaranteed to survive all weather conditions.

And one thing that becomes clear from all the first-hand accounts of the 1979 Fastnet Race is that the conditions were beyond anything competitors had encountered before.

Today’s sailors would do well not to assume that modern boats could survive any better than those flawed boats of 40 years ago.

As Ron Holland puts it: ‘If a fleet of boats racing on the Solent was hit by that Fastnet storm, they would still find it difficult to steer and the result wouldn’t be that different. I’ve done a lot of miles at sea but I’ve never seen conditions like that.’

Sailors take heed.

Stability research after the 1979 Fastnet Race

The Contessa 32 was used in the research into the causes of knockdowns after the 1979 race Credit: Graham Snook/Yachting Monthly

The Fastnet disaster prompted the Wolfson Unit at Southampton University to undertake detailed research into the causes of B1 (90°) and B2 (full inversion) knockdowns.

Its conclusions were striking.

•  yacht with a stability range of 150° or more, like a Contessa 32 (pictured), will not remain inverted after capsize, as the wave motion alone is enough to bring it back up.
• If the wave height is 60% or more than the length of the boat, then capsize is almost inevitable, therefore, smaller yachts are more liable to be capsized than bigger ones.
• The Wolfson Unit also found that a yacht which has a stability range of 127° when fitted with conventional sails drops to an alarming 96° when fitted with in-mast mainsail and roller-furling genoa.

Yacht construction

The 1979 Fastnet Inquiry also highlighted several ‘weaknesses’ in relation to yacht construction.

Steering gear

Many rudders failed during the race due to the weakness of the carbon fibre used in the construction.

The report authors highlighted that although emergency steering would only give ‘minimum directional control’ it was important it would work to get a yacht safely to harbour.

Watertight Integrity

The design and construction of main companionways was ‘the most serious defect’ affecting watertight integrity.

The inquiry recommended that blocking arrangements should be totally secure but openable from above and below decks.

Bilge pumps should also discharge overboard and not into the cockpit, unless the cockpit is open-ended.

Many of the crews found it too dangerous below decks as their yachts rolled due to insecure equipment, like batteries, becoming flying ‘missiles’.

The stowage arrangements in some boats were designed to be effective only up to 90° angle of heel.

Deck Arrangements

The inquiry found cockpit drainage arrangement in some of the boats was ‘inadequate’, and called for a requirement for cockpits to drain within a minimum time.

The report also highlighted the problems with yachts under tow, and recommended a requirement for a strong securing point on the foredeck and a bow fairlead for anchor cable and towing warp.

The report also called for adequate toe-rails to be fitted, especially forward of the mast.

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Death on the High Seas: The 1979 Fastnet Race

Offshore sailing is one of the most challenging and exhilarating sports in the world, demanding skill, stamina, and courage from those who take part. For sailors, there is nothing quite like the feeling of being out on the open sea, with nothing but the wind and the waves to guide you.

But while offshore sailing can be a thrilling and rewarding experience, it is also one of the most dangerous, with sailors facing a range of hazards that can put their lives at risk. One of the most notorious incidents in the history of offshore sailing is the 1979 Fastnet Race disaster, a tragedy that shocked the sailing world and led to significant changes in the sport.

The Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Fastnet Race is usually held every two years. It’s been that way since 1925 and has always been held on the same 605 miles course.

Sailors set out from Cowes, an English Seaport on the Isle of Wight, and head to Fastnet Rock in the Atlantic , south of Ireland . They then back to Plymouth via the Isles of Scilly. It’s a famed test of some of the best sailors in the world.

The 1979 Fastnet race is notorious for something different though. On August 11, 1979, a storm with hurricane-force winds hit the yachts competing in the race, causing chaos and devastation.

75 boats capsized, 5 sank and 15 sailors lost their lives. Of the 303 yachts that started the race, only 86 finished. It was one of the deadliest yacht races in history and the events that unfolded that day shocked the sailing world to its very core.

A Dangerous Game

We often forget that mother nature is a harsh mistress. The disaster which occurred during the 1979 Fastnet race was caused by an extremely powerful storm that hit the boats as they were crossing the Irish Sea. Meteorologists hadn’t seen the scale of the storm coming, meaning even the most seasoned sailors competing were caught off guard.

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The storm came about due to the collision of a cold front with warm air from the Gulf Stream. This created a rapidly intensifying low-pressure system that generated hurricane-force winds and giant waves. The yacht crews were forced to do battle with winds of up to 70 knots (130km/h) and waves that reached 30 feet (9 meters).

This situation was further worsened by the design philosophy of the competing boats. Many crews emphasized speed over structural strength, taking advantage of new advances in fiberglass to build faster boats. But these new designs were untested in heavy seas, and were quickly overwhelmed by the weather.

The yachts caught at the storm’s center were the hardest hit. Many of these boats quickly capsized or were knocked over by the intense waves. Some yachts were dismasted entirely by the brutal winds. Sailors with decades of experience were thrown from their yachts and struggled to survive in the violent sea conditions.

Unfortunately, these extreme conditions made any kind of rescue operation incredibly difficult. If the yachts couldn’t survive the fierce winds and giant waves, what hopes did small rescue boats have?

Many of the yachts were already far from shore when the storm hit, meaning the rescue boats had to battle through the storm themselves to reach the stranded sailors. The rescue crews were at high risk and had to work tirelessly just to keep their own boats from capsizing. The last thing rescue efforts needed was the rescuers themselves needing rescue.

The limited communications technology of the time proved to be an added hurdle. Radio transmissions were often disrupted by the storm, making it difficult to coordinate rescue efforts and find all the boats that needed help.

Despite these challenges, rescue crews from the Royal Navy and other organizations worked tirelessly to save as many souls as possible. Royal Navy ships, RAF Nimrod jets, helicopters, lifeboats, and a Dutch warship, HNLMS Overijssel, all came to the rescue. While 15 sailors died, 125 were rescued by these combined efforts.

What Else Went Wrong?

Several factors beyond the sheer ferocity of the storm helped add to the tragic loss of life that day. A major factor was the lack of safety equipment and training at the time.

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Many of the boats weren’t carrying safety equipment that would be considered standard today. It was found that many of the yachts weren’t carrying life rafts, EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons), or storm sails. Making this even worse, many of the sailors hadn’t been trained in the use of the safety equipment they did have, or how to handle extreme conditions.

This lack of safety equipment would have been disastrous on its own. But when added to the fact many of the boats were far out to sea, it was a recipe for disaster. Rescue crews had to battle through the storm to reach the boats.

The fact many of the boats were not equipped with radios or other communication devices meant the rescue crews had an almost impossible task finding the crews. Imagine looking for a needle in a haystack that is being blown through an industrial fan.

Ultimately, the 1979 Fastnet Race led to a major rethinking of racing, risks, and prevention. It highlighted the need for better safety measures and the importance of accurate weather forecasting in offshore sailing.

The tragedy led to significant changes in the sport, including the development of better communications and navigation technologies, improved safety equipment, and more rigorous regulations. Thankfully these have all helped prevent a repeat of the disaster.

In the end, the legacy of the 1979 Fastnet Race disaster is a testament to the resilience and determination of the sailing community. While the tragedy was a devastating event, it also sparked a renewed commitment to safety and innovation and has helped to make offshore sailing a safer and more exciting sport for sailors around the world.

And through the tragedy much was learned about these new designs of boats. The hulls that made it through the storm safely, and the designs that came from them, are often still in service today.

Top Image: The 1979 Fastnet Race saw competitors trapped by a fierce Atlantic storm, and many sailors died out of the reach of rescuers. Source: artgubkin / Adobe Stock.

By Robbie Mitchell

Compton. N. 2022. 1979 Fastnet Race: The race that changed everything . Yachting Monthly. Available here: https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/cruising-life/1979-fastnet-race-the-race-the-changed-everything-86741

Mayers. A. 2007. Beyond Endurance: 300 Boats, 600 Miles, and One Deadly Storm . McClelland & Stewart.

Ward. N. 2007. Left for Dead: The Untold Story of the Tragic 1979 Fastnet Race . Bloomsbury Publishing.

Editor. 2023. 1979: Freak storm hits yacht race . BBC. Available here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/14/newsid_3886000/3886877.stm

Robbie Mitchell

I’m a graduate of History and Literature from The University of Manchester in England and a total history geek. Since a young age, I’ve been obsessed with history. The weirder the better. I spend my days working as a freelance writer researching the weird and wonderful. I firmly believe that history should be both fun and accessible. Read More

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Yachting World

• Digital Edition

Fastnet 79: Could sailing’s biggest disaster ever happen again?

• Elaine Bunting
• November 7, 2019

This year marked the 40th anniversary of a race never to be forgotten. Elaine Bunting looks back at crews’ experiences of the 1979 Fastnet Race

Helicopter winchman goes to Grimalkin. Photo: PA Archive

Back in 1979, Ted Turner’s Tenacious won the Fastnet Race , with a corrected time of 3 days 8 hours. Over the last 30 years the average speed across the 605-mile Fastnet course has increased phenomenally: at the elite end, the fastest Ultime trimarans complete the course in just a third of Tenacious ’s time. Yet for the smallest yachts in the race, the race can still take five full days.

Yacht design has changed enormously in 30 years, but even more so communications, navigation and access to weather information. So it begs the question of whether a tragedy on such a wide scale could ever happen again?

Navigating in 1979 was a world away from today. Since today there is never a doubt as to our position, the role of the navigator is more one of tactician and strategist. Back then, nav aids such as Loran and Decca were specifically banned and sat nav, then in its infancy, was also prohibited. The tools for the navigator were a sextant, a radio direction finder (RDF), compass and experience of dead reckoning navigational skills.

Royal Navy helicopter comes to the aid of Camargue . Eight crew were rescued at 1033 on 14 August 1979. Photo: Getty Images

Communications were poor. VHF or MF radio was not mandatory. The larger yachts mostly carried VHF but only an estimated 25% of the smaller yachts did. Radio sets were heavy, cumbersome and expensive, and also power-hungry on yachts with small capacity batteries.

Professional navigator and columnist Mike Broughton was just 17 when he took part in the 1979 Fastnet , the youngest competitor in the race, along with Yachting Worl d’s former technical editor Matthew Sheahan . Broughton was racing Hullaballoo , a 3/4 Tonner.

“It was all about the shipping forecast in those days. The news came from the radio. There was gossip that a storm was on the way and we knew the Prime Minister [Edward Heath in Morning Cloud ] had retired,” he explains.

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“The navigation was quite primitive. We did have RDF, but on the Irish coast it was a reciprocal and if you had a 5-10° error, with no cross-cut you never knew [exactly] where you were. We didn’t even have VHF. We had a French search tug signalling Kilo, ‘I wish to communicate with you’, in Morse code.”

Now yachts not only have EPIRBs, but AIS, often radar, and access to weather through multiple means, not least long periods of 4G mobile phone coverage. Crews carry PLBs and AIS personal locators. YB trackers allow teams to see each other’s positions, tracks and speeds.

Safety gear is checked and of a regulated standard; 40 years ago, only a very few tether lines met any agreed standard, and liferafts without drogues were apt to blow rapidly downwind, or even (as happened) to disintegrate.

A yacht 150 miles north-west of St Ives under jury rig. Photo: PA Archive

Clothing was poor by modern standards, and leaked as a matter of course. Hypothermia was a real risk. Attitudes to safety gear were also very different; lifejackets and harnesses were not routinely worn. Crews were much less drilled and there were no mandatory qualifications.

While one could argue that, as a society, we may be more risk averse than we were 40 years ago, we are also better informed. Access to better forecasts allows skippers to decide earlier whether or not to press on. The number of retirements seen in any Fastnet Race is to its credit, and not a negative. If a storm of similar ferocity were to affect the race again, it is almost certain many would seek shelter rather than press on.

But could a storm ever cause another Fastnet disaster? Very possibly. The sea state that brewed so violently 30 years ago would probably still see boats rolled and damaged. Even short-term forecasts can be sufficiently inaccurate to lead to unforeseen conditions, duration of peak winds or sea state, just as we saw during the race this year in August.

A well equipped 1979 yacht, with Sailor VHF radio and RDF

“Boats are better now, organised better, the weather forecasts better,” says Mike Broughton. “But as yachtsmen we are easily belittled by 40-45 knots of wind. And boats get more radical. When you hear of inshore yachts doing it that are thin and lightly built, and so wet that guys didn’t go below, you wonder if it is the same trend as in 1979. But the training and the gear is just so much better.”

The 1979 Fastnet storm

The first indication of a storm to come was at 1505 on Monday 13 August, when the BBC Shipping Forecast broadcast the following warning: ‘Sole, Fastnet, Shannon. South-westerly gale Force 8 imminent.’ By the next broadcast at 1905 that had been upgraded to: ‘Force 8 increasing severe gale Force 9 imminent.’

It was while hand-drawing the 2200 chart around a low pressure of 978mb that forecasters realised the isobars were tightening up to such a degree that it was inevitable a Force 10 would occur in the Fastnet sea area. But the length of the shipping forecast storm warning was not enough to allow the majority of competitors to run for shelter.

Satellite picture of the storm as it was developing on 1532UTC 13 August 1979

The strongest winds were in a corridor to the south of Ireland, which lay across the race fleet, bringing winds of 60 knots plus. The growth of the sea state was initially puzzling, as it increased ahead of the wind.

Some competitors later reported 6-7m seas and, later, huge, confused cross seas. Although estimating wave heights is very difficult from a yacht, claims of huge waves were substantiated by a report from a Nimrod pilot on 14 August of wave heights of ‘50-60ft’.

Satellite pictures showed a well-defined, active cold front, and this was followed by a trough, shown on the later charts. Most importantly, the change of wind direction behind the trough was in the region of 90°.

The strongest winds arrived as the pressure rapidly rose after the trough. Gusts contained within the leading edge of squalls could have been half as much again as the average wind speed (or perhaps more than that), making reported gusts of 80 knots realistic.

This change in the wind direction was the one overriding factor that generated problems for the boats. In other circumstances, yachts might have run under bare poles or towed warps, but on this occasion crews had no chance and yachts were knocked down repeatedly.

Storms of this intensity, or greater, are not unknown in this area, though they are rare in summer. In October 2017, a record wave height for Irish waters of 26m was recorded at the Kinsale gas platform off the Cork coast. Some of the highest waves in 1979 were also recorded by the Marathon platform in the same gas field.

First published in the October 2019 edition of Yachting World.

• Story Highlights
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- It is still remembered as one of the worst days in the history of modern sailing.

The Fastnet race still remains one of the biggest events in the yachting calendar.

Yet the Fastnet tragedy of 1979 in which 15 people were killed and ex-British leader Edward Heath went missing helped to usher in a new era of improved safety in the sport.

It was 30 years ago today that a freak storm struck over 300 vessels competing in the 600-mile yacht race between England and Ireland.

Mountainous seas and vicious high winds sunk or put out of action 25 boats.

The British rescue attempt turned into an international effort with a Dutch warship and trawlers from France also joining the search.

In spite of the biggest rescue operation launched by the UK authorities since the Second World War a total of 15 people died. Some of them drowned and others succumbed to hypothermia. Six of those lost went missing after their safety harnesses broke.

"It was a catastrophic event that had far-reaching consequences for the sport, the biggest of which was in the design and safety of the boats," Rodger Witt, editor of the UK-based magazine Sailing Today told CNN.

"Most people in the sailing community at the time knew someone who was involved in one way or another. I had a friend who lost his father. It was devastating."

In total 69 yachts did not finish the race. The former British prime minister, Edward Heath disappeared at the height of the storm, though he later returned to shore safe from harm. The corrected-time winner of the race was the yacht "Tenacious", owned and skippered by Ted Turner, the founder of CNN.

Witt said that in the aftermath of the disaster the rules governing racing were tightened to ensure boats carried more ballast. Improvements were also made to the safety harnesses that tied crewmen to their boats, many of which proved ineffective in the tragedy. It also became mandatory for all yachts to be fitted with radio communication equipment and all competitors were expected to hold sailing qualifications to take part.

At the time of the tragedy the Fastnet race was the last in a series of five races which made up the Admiral's Cup competition, the world championship of yacht racing.

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Competitors from around the globe attempted the route which sets off from the Isle of Wight, off the English south coast, and rounds the Fastnet rock on the southeast coast of Ireland.

Roger Ware was in charge of handling press for the event on behalf of the organizers, the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Ware said that even today the tragedy "still spooks me." The racers set off on a Saturday but it wasn't till three days later that the authorities in the English coastal town of Plymouth realized there was a problem.

The press team was based at the Duke of Cornwall hotel in Plymouth and early Tuesday morning Ware got a call from his superiors to go to the hotel immediately in order to field calls from journalists.

"The night before we'd noticed high winds but there'd been no forecast of bad weather so we didn't think much of it," Ware told CNN. "As the morning progressed though, we heard that more and more boats were missing. It became obvious a tragedy was unfolding."

Ware said the worst part for him was fielding calls from concerned relatives. "The Royal Ocean Racing Club headquarters was overloaded so calls were getting transferred to the press team.

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