Safety First
The RORC Race Team includes Safety Advisors, Stephen Weekes, assisted by wife Anthea, who are in Lanzarote to check through the ISAF Safety Regulations lists completed by each boat.
During the checks, they have come across some interesting safety items that are over and above what is required by the ISAF regulations:
“Most of the boats have been across the Atlantic before or have certainly done some long distance racing, so they are all very well sorted,” explains Stephen. “We just check to make sure that everyone understands what some of the ISAF Safety requirements mean and to try to ascertain whether all the crew members on each boat know exactly how everything works. This is especially so on the larger boats with bigger crews.”
“Stowage of safety items is quite critical for the 3,000 mile RORC Transatlantic Race and we’ve found that several crews know the equipment is on the boat but can’t quickly put their hand to it, so we stress the point that they need to find out!
“Something we are seeing more of when we are looking round the boats is that most of them now have Personal AIS MOB Beacons. They have become a major lifesaving advantage and we see crews have them either fitted to their lifejacket so that they go off in the water, or are carrying them in their oilskin pockets so that they can activate them themselves. Once activated the MOB appears on the screen of the chart plotter as and SAR emblem and gives a course and bearing back to the casualty in the water, and not only on their boat, but all those within AIS range. The point was made that they should be aware of what the symbol would look like on their navigation systems. It needs testing so they understand what they are looking for when activated.
Gerald Bibot explains the likely weather senario for the start of the RORC Transatlantic Race - Photo RORC/Louay Habib
The Crew of Windfall at the Westerhall Rum Party - photo Calero Marinas
