Yachting: Crashed boat's crew 'unaware of any navigational danger'

Team Vestas Wind's yacht, which smashed into a reef near Mauritius. Photo / Shane Smart

A report into the grounding of Team Vestas Wind on leg two of the Volvo Ocean Race has shed further light on the navigational error that led to the high-powered boat slamming into a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Danish boat, skippered by Chris Nicholson, who led Team New Zealand's entry in the last edition of the round the world yacht race, ran aground a reef at Cargados Carajos Shoals during the stage from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi in November.

The crew were forced to abandon the boat in darkness, and were rescued by local coastguard authorities the next day.

The badly damaged Vestas Wind has since been retrieved from the reef and is being rebuilt in the Persico boatyard in Bergamo, Italy, with a view to returning to the race for the last two stages starting from Lisbon, Portugal in June.

Volvo Ocean Race authorities, who are currently in Auckland as the fleet prepare for the next leg of the race to Itajai, Brazil, commissioned an independent report into the incident, the results of which were made public for the first time today.

The review was conducted by acknowledged experts in the field -- Rear Admiral (retired) Chris Oxenbould, a former deputy in the Australian Navy, ocean navigational expert Stan Honey and Chuck Hawley, who serves as the chairman of the US Sailing Safety at Sea Committee.

The panel did not apportion blame for the incident, but concluded there were deficiencies in the use of electronic charts and other navigational data on board Vestas Wind. The Danish team announced last month their navigator, Dutchman Wouter Verbraak, had been sacked.

"The team was unaware of any navigational danger in its vicinity, incorrectly assessed the minimum charted depth at Cargados Carajos Shoals to be 40 metres and understood that it was safe to sail across the shoals," summed up the panel.

The report also included a set of recommendations aimed at improving safety at sea for the entire offshore racing community. In particular, it has suggested improving navigational charts and other on board software to avoid similar incidents in the future.

Nicholson, who flew into Auckland for the release of the report, said he was happy with the panel's findings.

"I think it's quite a good account of what happened and it dives deeply into some of the things that need to be changed, not only on our boat but on other boats as well," the team's skipper said.

"The key one for us was a regimented checklist similar to what the airlines do in regards to ensuring that everything has been done.

"We had everything there in place. We had access to enough information we had the right people, we had the right support, it was just the method of bringing that all in together to do what we needed to do that let us down."

Volvo Ocean Race chief executive Knut Frostad said all recommendations would be considered by the event.

"It is our intention that the report serves as a useful document for the entire offshore racing community in the future. Accidents will always happen at sea -- we hope this helps make them less likely."

The fleet sets out from Auckland for the fifth leg of nine on Sunday. It is the longest and most challenging stage of the nine-month race, which takes the fleet through the Southern Ocean to the next destination of Itajai in Brazil.