MrSurly

Horrible day.  My thoughts and prayers go out the family and friends of Andrew Simpson, so sorry for your loss.

 

FWIW, here is a little field report of what i saw today:

I did not see the capsize but i was down by GGYC and got some footage of both boats.  It was pretty windy and building, 18-20 by the time of the capsize.  Artemis and OR had initially come upwind together off Chrissy field, about a quarter mile east of the GG bridge.  Artemis appeared to be working on something.  Don't know if they had problems or just changing jibs, they had a crew up the rig.  Oracle did two or three short runs, returning upwind in between.  Eventually Artemis took off on a run too, looking pretty fast at times but they seem so slow down a lot, like they are talking or changing something on the boat.  With the breeze building OR took off on an absolute screaming run, faster than anything i've seen.  They ended up just east of Alcatraz and seemed to hang there in the cone for awhile.  I had seen Artemis in that area before that last run of OR, but did not see them any more.  I did notice some red in the water, but assumed it was either the ACEA media boat or the Artemis chase boat.  In retrospect i think i was seeing AR on its side and broken.  I even said something to a lady next to me like 'don't see AR anymore, hope they didn't capsize'.  When OR took off towards their base i assumed it was just getting a bit to windy for them.  But i did notice that there were no boats chasing them, which never happens.  Then there were couple helicopters around.  Never saw any boats rushing into StFYC, so i think mixed up place names on that detail.  Did hear sirens.

 

Peace good folks.