Lessons from a Sinking in the Roaring 40s
On November 18, 2022 one of the 16 sailboats entered in the 2022-23 Golden Globe Single-Handed Race Around the World, sank before its skipper could properly prepare to abandon ship. The story of his rescue has lessons for all boaters going offshore.
Before the start, fulfilling the safety and qualifying requirements for the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race were a major hurdle. However, it was these unique regulations which played an important part in saving Tapio Lehtinen following the sinking of his yacht off South Africa.
About Tapio Lehtinen
Tapio Lehtinen from Helsinki is a life-long sailor who started in Optimist dinghies at the age of 6. A former Commodore of the Helsingfors Segelsällskap (HSS) Yacht Club, his experience ranges from racing Lasers, 470s and 29ers to keel boat and ocean racing, including a three-decade-long racing career in his classic six meter May Be IV.
He has competed in the 1981/2 Whitbread Round the World Race aboard Skopbank of Finland, the 1985 Two handed Round Britain and Ireland Race, the 2-STAR transatlantic race 1986, the Azores and Back race in 1987 and the 2014 Bermuda Race.
The Worst Nightmare Came True
When Lehtinen woke to a loud bang, he stepped into knee deep water with more flooding like a river from the engine compartment. With no time to think, he prepared the Plastimo “special edition” GGR (Golden Globe Race-approved) life raft in the cockpit and donned his dry survival suit, grabbing the small GGR communications emergency grab bag on the way out.
With the raft inflated beside the boat, the securing line he had re-set with a slip knot had let go. When it began drifting away, he could not go below for the main grab bag, as water was above waist height and the decks were awash, so he jumped for the raft now three meters from the boat.
He had also been unable to reach his EPIRB inside the boat, which later automatically water activated, sending the first DISTRESS alert. But it went down with the yacht 20 minutes later taking his two other emergency beacons with it.
GGR Safety Regs Save the Day
Fortunately, GGR safety regulations require a PLB distress beacon and waterproof VHF handheld radio with GPS to be packed inside the raft. In the shock of the moment, Lehtinen forgot the PLB was in the raft, finding it nearly two hours later and turned it on. At that point it was his only distress beacon.
Inside the GGR comms grab bag, his spare satellite phone was damaged while boarding the raft. (His main sat phone stored at the chart table went down with the ship). Also, inside was the backup waterproof YB3 satellite tracker and texting unit.
GGR control, on learning of the EPIRB Distress and noting ASTERIA’s onboard Tracker was no longer transmitting, assumed the boat had sunk and that Lehtinen was probably in the raft. GGR remotely activated the backup YB3 and noted it had been powered on.
This was exciting news, and a message was sent “Are You OK?”
The GGR System Kept Everyone in the Loop
Lehtinen responded shortly after that he was in the raft, all was well but Asteria had sunk. This then gave a second position of the raft that was linked to the GGR 24hr online tracking page for all to see. Using the same YB3 unit, Lehtinen was able to send and receive short messages from the raft, a great comfort for him as a survivor, his family and all his followers around the world.
His rescue was a success.
Packing Communication Gear in the Life Raft
“I know from experience over the past 30 years that when all goes wrong you may not get your grab bag, so what’s in the raft is all you may have,” noted race organizer Don McIntyre. “I always pack a distress beacon in my rafts and now a VHF/GPS, so I made it mandatory for GGR, too.
“I also lost a good friend deep in the Southern Ocean in the 1994 BOC challenge when his 48hr EPIRB battery ran out before the ship arrived. We now insist on the YB3 unit in the GGR comms grab bag which tracks every 15 minutes for months, including two-way texting. Tapio was happy to have both.”
It is a long-held tradition of the sea, that if a mariner is in Distress and declares a “Mayday”, all other mariners will use their best endeavors to immediately assist if they are safely able to do so. Such was the case for Abhilash Tomy (IND) on Bayanat and Kirsten Neuschäfer (RSA) on Minnehaha when asked by GGR control to assist in the rescue of fellow GGR entrant Tapio Lehtinen on ASTERIA.
