(By the way, proofreaders check copy. Fact checkers check facts.)
Whatever, anybody reading it should have caught that one. I think you can make a case for that being either.
It takes twenty to thirty minutes to take down what they had up and they dropped sail in a confused sea with 4m wave heights on a black night. So, yes, they were ten miles away by the time they could turn back into a 20-30 kt. wind and all that water to find a drifting flyspeck on the horizon. They backtracked with the computer but imagine what it must have been like out there.
See quote below from the skipper. It may have taken 20-30 minutes to get the sails down, but they would not continue sailing downwind at full speed while doing that. They would have rounded up and dropped remaining sails once the fractional spin was controlled. They might have even rounded and flogged that sail given the circumstances. It may have taken 20 minutes to get the sails down, but I don't they put full speed distance on the man in the meantime.
Also, these sailors are usually not tethered. They view the hazard of not clipping as part of the job. They find it too restrictive while working on deck. I'll bet it is. If you clipped, you'd be clipping every time you turned around.
Whether or not they clip in is up to debate, however it does seem to be more a badge of honor amongst some sailors to not clip in. There may specific conditions under which the team mandates it. However, harnesses are usually long enough with bungee built in to give range of movement, also you typically clip on to a jack line, and the tether can move between the points the jack line is attached to the deck. Even if you tethered in to a hard point, you would not need to reclip everytime you turned around, most likely only if you moved from one station to another. Still, some might see it as an inconvenience. I'm sure it is to a degree. And, if you have become comfortable with the boat in the certain conditions you might become complacent in the need to do so.
Hans was 32 and he was the man who put the crew of twenty-somethings together to make this race. So, when "the kids" set a monohull record not long into the race it was absolutely amazing. So, the loss was not only of a crewmember but the crewmember that was the reason they were all there and he was the mentor for everyone on board. By all reports the young crew performed an incredibly difficult recovery in big seas in the dark which was something worthy of the most seasoned offshore sailors. This is their first trip around. These kids are good. Hans must have been some teacher. He is survived by his partner Petra, their daughter Bobbi, and the Petra's baby bump.
That's hard.
ABN AMRO TWO Navigator Simon Fisher explained the incident, “Immediately Seb hailed a ‘man overboard’ and we initiated man overboard procedures and put in place the GPS positioning. The boat immediately turned around and began to search for him, meanwhile raising the alarm on shore. After Hans was found he was lifted back on board and the Accident and Emergency(A&E) department at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, UK was notified that we had a major medical emergency and to stand by. Unfortunaly our attempts to resuscitate him were not successful."
Whatever the exact true details, this is such a loss. The crew did their job admirably in the recovery, and the events must weigh heavy on them every waking minute. Sincerest heart-felt sympathies to the family and crew.
