Speaking of surprise storms - and there has been a lot of that of late - we can recall that today is the 18th anniversary of another unexpected August storm that was responsible for the greatest tragedy in ocean yachting. On August 11th, 1979, yachts competing for the Admiral's Cup departed Cowes on the Isle of Wight on a trip that should have taken them around the Fastnet Rock and back to Plymouth. On August 13th, the fleet was hit by winds of hurricane force, with devastating results for many of the 300 boats involved.
As preparations for the race began, the harbinger of doom looked innocent - a shallow depression of 1,004 hectopascals just off the coast of Nova Scotia. The rest of the chart had an equally benign appearance. Ironically, the main difficulties anticipated by competitors in the early part of their voyage were sea fog and insufficient wind; gales were forecast for the 14th, but were not, at that stage, expected to be anything unusual. Even history was reassuring: the only previous fatality in the Fastnet Race had been a single yachtsman lost in 1931, and the only really rough weather experienced had been in 1957 when 29 of the 41 starters failed to make the finishing line.
During the two days that followed, the Nova Scotia depression moved eastwards as expected, but in mid-Atlantic it unexpectedly intensified, as August lows are prone to do. By midday on the 13th it had reached a position 300 miles south-west of Ireland; winds of hurricane force reached the Fastnet area just before 11 p.m. and during the next six hours winds of 80 m.p.h. lashed the race area, generating waves of 40 to 50 feet in height and the occasional monster topping 60 feet.
Some of the worst conditions were in the vicinity of Ladbadie Bank, about half way between Land's End and Ireland. Here the seas became viciously confused, with waves crashing together from many different directions; the steep faces of the waves, and the short distances between them, created awesome conditions so that even the most strongly built yachts were transformed into fragile toys at the mercy of the elements.
Of the 300 yachts that started, only 85 had made the finishing line by the time the race officially ended on August 16th. In the meantime, 23 yachts had been abandoned at sea, five were known to have sunk, and 15 participants in the event were known to have lost their lives. The final death toll reached 18 some days later.