Artemis has wrecked

HankPhillips · May 9, 2013

Sad.....

tommays · May 9, 2013

I am sad to see it happen

BUT wonder how they have gotten this far WITHOUT killing more people due to the high speeds and ease of crashes both by capsize and i can only image a port starboard collision at 30+ knots

Tim R. · May 9, 2013

Actually the updated article says one crew member killed. So sorry for their family.

rardiH36 · May 9, 2013

This is really tragic. On all levels. My sadness for the family and friends of the dead sailor.

The technology and speed and risk has shot ahead of the fragility of human flesh to cope. Not to mention the cost. This is the second serious accident during practice on San Francisco Bay.. The previous was the Oracle entry. Nobody was hurt that time. But the boat was destroyed. Cause: Only normal SF Bay winds and chop.

As a sailor on San Francisco Bay watching these boats blow by me, I have marveled at the speed and beauty of the AC72's and AC45's while they are doing their training runs. But I have also wondered why the America's Cup has moved to boats that move so fast that spectators can only observe them for just a minute or two before they are gone from sight. And that they are really very fragile.

Seems that the technology advance is very dangerous for the sailors and doesn't enhance the spectator experience much either.

Brian D · May 9, 2013

Andrew "Bart" Simpson was the only fatality. So sad.

shemandr · May 9, 2013

Sorrow for the family!

Chris Patterson · May 10, 2013

Am I reading this right, in that the boat just essentially broke?

weinie · May 10, 2013

From sailinganarchy:

Preliminary reports indicate Artemis’s boat didn’t capsize because the sailors were pushing too hard or made a mistake, as was the case with Team Oracle. The problem was with the boat itself, either faulty engineering or faulty construction. The boat simply broke apart under sail, folded, then flipped. The Artemis boat has had a history of cracking and problems with the carbon fiber used in the twin “beams” — the two girders that lash the two narrow hulls together.

The boat had been in and out of the shed numerous times in an attempt to correct those problems. Today, however, the forward beam — the girder in front of the sail — gave way during a practice run. The two hulls, no longer connected, began sailing in slightly different directions. This caused one hull to snap just forward of the aft beam, and the mast, held up by high-tension rigging connected to the front of the hulls, simply fell over. The boat began to cartwheel, ultimately trapping Simpson underneath and drowning him. Read on.