Tragic America’s Cup death ‘an accident waiting to happen’

The tragic death of Artemis Racing’s Andrew “Bart” Simpson was an accident waiting to happen, according to America’s Cup expert Peter Lester.

British Olympic gold medallist Simpson was on board the Swedish AC72 boat when it capsized in San Francisco Harbour today and Lester believes that his death could be just the tip of the iceberg.

“We’ve been saying this now since the 72s were announced that the extreme design, the speed, it’s a disaster waiting to happen that unfortunately has now happened,” sailing commentator Lester told ONE News.

“We’re not even racing at the moment and you know that when the Louis Vuitton Cup starts and the boats go boat-on-boat the crews will push harder, regardless of the accident that’s happened today because you’re in race mode.

“The boats were only out there training. So I think the risks are going to get even more when you get into the Louis Vuitton Cup because it’s in racing mode.”

The Louis Vuitton Cup, which will involve Team New Zealand, begins in July and there will be a reluctance to change any of the rules, according to Team Korea boat designer Brett Bakewell-White.

“They are able to [change the rules] if they all agree but it’s going to be a problem for them because it doesn’t give them much time to change anything,” Bakewell-White told ONE News.

“The problem is that all the boats have been designed on the premise that this is the configuration and they are going to sail up to 30 knots of breeze so the teams have developed their boats around that.

“So I think there will be a reluctance from the likes of Team New Zealand and Oracle to change anything.”

The current wind threshold for racing is 28 knots for the Louis Vuitton Cup and 33 knots for the America’s Cup but that won’t change because of commercial pressures says Bakewell-White.

“As a designer for Team Korea I sat in a lot of the early meetings and the some of the challengers were asking for the wind limit to be reduced because they thought it would be dangerous and Oracle were very much against it purely because the whole thing was being driven by television schedules,” he said.

The scary thing is that the wind was only blowing a mild 20 knots today and in faster conditions, the catamarans could be exposed to more carnage.

“I think it highlights the fact that again getting around the course is important and it is conceivable that you could end up with no boats,” Bakewell-White warned.

“And not actually having an America’s Cup because everyone’s run out of equipment. It’s not likely but it’s possible.” – TVNZ, read on