ROWING: In another incident which raises serious questions about the event, brothers Duncan and Gareth Pearson have had to be rescued from the Atlantic Rowing Race after their boat, Serenity Now, capsized.
By extraordinary coincidence the same ship which plucked Ireland's Gearoid Towey and Ciarán Lewis from the sea, the Hispania Spirit, again performed the rescue, but those worried about the safety of the competitors will find it more notable that Serenity Now met its end in a very similar way to Digicel Atlantic Challenge earlier this month.
"The Pearsons emailed us to say their boat broke up in the same way as ours," Towey revealed yesterday. "The cabin broke up." Six crews of the 26 competing have now had to be rescued, and reports say there have been 11 capsizes - including eventual winners James Cracknell and Ben Fogle - with, crucially, only three resulting in the boat self-righting.
Bill Butler, a hugely experienced sailor and the shore coach of American Fire, which capsized last week, has been fiercely critical of the design of the boat. "The light open vessels with no exterior ballast as approved by Woodvale Events cannot, in the wildest stretch of the imagination, be considered fit for oceanic service. These would be fine for rivers, lakes, canals, or small inland seas. Their inherent design is self-defeating," he says in an open letter to the organisers, Woodvale Events, on the website theocean.net.
Butler says that the cabin is factored in as a watertight compartment which allows the boat to self-right after a roll over, but in the case of American Fire both of the crew were in the cabin and "ended up on its roof, their weight preventing the boat from righting. As soon as they opened the hatch to escape, the cabin filled with water, ending all hope of righting the boat."
Teresa Page of Woodvale Events says they have no official response at the moment "the reason being we are working flat out here at the moment with the rescues that are happening". She said it would not be proper to reply in "a rush" to these points.
This design of boat had been used in this crossing since 1995 and has crossed the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and the North Atlantic. "There have been no situations like this at all. It is incredibly unusual." She pointed to the "totally unusual" weather this year and said the organisers would examine the weather later this year to see if patterns were changing when they were considering their plans to hold the event again in late 2007.
Towey says that conditions were "completely screwed up" this year, possibly right from the time of Hurricane Katrina.
Towey is taking a keen interest in the progress of the Christina, with Paul Gleeson and Tori Holmes on board. Asked if he would compete in tomorrow's St Michael's head of the river he laughs. "God no; one step at a time!" Interest in the event at O'Brien's Bridge, sponsored by Waterways Ireland, is huge, however. "We have 550 entries, which is phenomenal," says organiser Kieran Kerr. The NUIG senior eight, although entered, will be involved in the less exciting business of completing their ergometer tests for the international programme.
