Documentary telling the tragic story of the greatest disaster in the history of yachting. In August 1979, 303 yachts began the 600-mile Fastnet Race from the Isle of Wight off the southwest coast of England to Fastnet Rock off the Irish coast and back.
The Race began in fine weather, then suddenly became a terrifying ordeal. A Force 10, sixty-knot storm swept across the North Atlantic with a speed that confounded forecasters, slamming into the fleet with epic fury. For twenty hours, 2,500 men and women were smashed by forty-foot breaking waves, while rescue helicopters and lifeboats struggled to save them. By the time the race was over, fifteen people had died, twenty-four crews had abandoned ship, five yachts had sunk, 136 sailors had been rescued, and only 85 boats had finished the race.
The events of the 1979 Fastnet race have been described as the worst yachting disaster in history. The tragic incident was so impactful that it even changed the way yachts are designed.
The Race began in fine weather, then suddenly became a terrifying ordeal. A Force 10, sixty-knot storm swept across the North Atlantic with a speed that confounded forecasters, slamming into the fleet with epic fury. For twenty hours, 2,500 men and women were smashed by forty-foot breaking waves, while rescue helicopters and lifeboats struggled to save them. By the time the race was over, fifteen people had died, twenty-four crews had abandoned ship, five yachts had sunk, 136 sailors had been rescued, and only 85 boats had finished the race.
The events of the 1979 Fastnet race have been described as the worst yachting disaster in history. The tragic incident was so impactful that it even changed the way yachts are designed.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00The Fastnet race of 1979 is one that its competitors will never forget.
00:00:11They were absolutely terrified.
00:00:13A wave that looked like a block of flats.
00:00:15A mad, mad ride.
00:00:18We've never seen anything like it.
00:00:19An iconic sailing race.
00:00:21The Fastnet race is one of the classic offshore races and arguably the toughest.
00:00:28It rounds the notorious Fastnet Rock.
00:00:32This isolated rock off the south of Ireland with this extraordinary lighthouse.
00:00:39In the summer of 1979, it was hit by a storm that no forecaster saw coming.
00:00:47It was a weather bomb.
00:00:48No one had a chance until it was too late.
00:00:53They were sailing into the centre of this storm.
00:00:56Leaving a trail of destruction.
00:00:59I looked up and the cooker was flying towards me.
00:01:03This is the story of four days that changed yacht racing.
00:01:08This was the titanic disaster of sailing.
00:01:12And weather forecasting.
00:01:13It's ingrained in the history of the UK Met Office.
00:01:18Forever.
00:01:20With 300 boats hit by a once-in-a-generation sea storm.
00:01:26Sixty foot high waves.
00:01:28These tattered life rafts.
00:01:30That took the lives of 21 people.
00:01:35He was held to the life raft with his lifeline, but he was gone.
00:01:40And triggered heroic efforts in the biggest peacetime rescue operation the UK had ever
00:01:46seen.
00:01:47All the lifeboats were called out.
00:01:49That was when we realised it was a little bit bigger than just going after one yacht.
00:01:55Told by the men and women who lived to tell the tale of the disaster at sea, 1979.
00:02:17The Fastnet race, certainly in the 70s, was probably the most important event in the racing
00:02:26calendar.
00:02:28Started in 1925, the Fastnet race soon became known as one of the world's leading offshore
00:02:34sailing races.
00:02:35The Fastnet race, which is the climax of Cow's Week.
00:02:39With Spinnaker set, they headed westwards down the Solent.
00:02:42The Fastnet race is one of the classic offshore races.
00:02:47And arguably the toughest.
00:02:52The Grand National of offshore racing.
00:02:56And they're off.
00:03:01The Fastnet race is usually tough going.
00:03:08Anybody who was anybody in sailing wanted to take part in the Fastnet race.
00:03:13Edward Heath's Morning Cloud is going well with her new crew.
00:03:16I'm not just talking about the big boats, but lots of smaller boats as well.
00:03:22If you've got any interest in yachts or yachting, you wanted to be in that particular race.
00:03:27It was the place to be.
00:03:31When you've got lots of wind, you've got really good speed and you're in a kind of groove.
00:03:36And this is glorious because there's no motor going, everything's under control.
00:03:42The 600-mile race is named after the Fastnet rock,
00:03:46an exposed islet lying at the southernmost tip of Ireland,
00:03:50topped by a 55-metre tall lighthouse,
00:03:53which competitors must round as part of the race.
00:03:58There's something about the image of the Fastnet rock itself,
00:04:01you know, this isolated rock off the south of Ireland
00:04:05with this extraordinary lighthouse.
00:04:07Competing for the coveted Fastnet Challenge Cup trophy,
00:04:10the 1979 route took competitors from Cowes through the Solent,
00:04:15down the south coast of the UK, past Land's End,
00:04:20across the Celtic Sea and round the Fastnet rock before finishing in Plymouth.
00:04:28One of the reasons why the Fastnet race is so important
00:04:32is because it's a race that's so close to the heart of the country.
00:04:36The reason why the Fastnet race is so exciting
00:04:38is the combination of coastal waters and open waters.
00:04:48Things were fairly calm.
00:04:50Had a slight ridge of high pressure across southern parts of the UK.
00:04:56The Fastnet was the biggest race in the world, as far as I was concerned.
00:05:01The people who sailed, the Fastnet was always in my bucket list.
00:05:07We had raced every day during Cowes Week,
00:05:10so we'd been working quite hard during the week and partying quite hard.
00:05:23You've got hundreds of boats all starting in the space of an hour.
00:05:28It's very impressive.
00:05:30Ten seconds.
00:05:31That day, I was presenting World of Sport,
00:05:34then ITV's Saturday afternoon sports programme.
00:05:38Four, three, two, one.
00:05:46At around about 1.30, we started to get live pictures from the Solent,
00:05:51from Southern Television's outside broadcast vessel,
00:05:54supplying the whole ITV network with pictures.
00:05:58The start is all important.
00:05:59An incredible sight.
00:06:01303 yachts in the Solent on a very pleasant Saturday afternoon.
00:06:07Before anyone heads out on a sailing race,
00:06:10they have to have a meteorological brief.
00:06:12This time, it came from Southampton Weather Centre.
00:06:17Southwesterly winds, force four to five,
00:06:21increasing to force six to seven for a time.
00:06:25Force four to five, worsening to force six to seven for a time.
00:06:29That's all.
00:06:33It's worth bearing in mind that the accuracy of these forecasts
00:06:36during the 70s was pretty much 24 hours,
00:06:40which is OK if you're going out sailing for a day.
00:06:42However, for a race heading out to sea for a number of days,
00:06:47you're pretty much going into the unknown.
00:06:51Starting on the Saturday,
00:06:53the competitors knew their finish time was at the whims of the weather
00:06:57and could take them anything between three and five days.
00:07:02It's still anyone's cup.
00:07:06We knew that we were probably going to have very little wind
00:07:10for the beginning of the race
00:07:12and that it would probably pick up a bit after the first or second day.
00:07:17But there was not even a hint of what was to come.
00:07:22The fact that it was going to be windy didn't fill us full of fear.
00:07:26I mean, you know, at 24, I was invincible.
00:07:30The hint that something windy was on the horizon was stated.
00:07:35But for many of the sailing crews, that was fantastic.
00:07:39They want the wind.
00:07:40They want a five, a force six, a force seven, even a gale force eight.
00:07:45We were very confident with our capabilities.
00:07:49We didn't realise how much wind was coming. Nobody did.
00:07:52No idea of the severity of the gales that were going to hit these yachts.
00:07:56Absolutely no idea at all of the carnage that was awaiting them.
00:08:12In late summer 1979,
00:08:15the biennial Fastnet race was getting underway.
00:08:23This appeared to be a typical Fastnet race.
00:08:26It was going to be hard fought.
00:08:28Yachts jostle for position on the starting line
00:08:30while they wait for the gun to go.
00:08:33There's a lot of boats all over the place.
00:08:34A passing submarine adds to the hazards for the fleet.
00:08:37They want to spread them out, a bit like marathon runners.
00:08:43Setting sail on his first Fastnet race was 17-year-old John Dorey.
00:08:53These photos were taken on Saturday morning of the Fastnet race.
00:08:58This is my father here.
00:09:02And that's me.
00:09:07John was part of an eight-man crew from Guernsey,
00:09:10aboard his father Peter's yacht, Caval.
00:09:15It was very much a family atmosphere on the boat.
00:09:23My father had sailed it before in 1973,
00:09:26with Ian, his cousin, who was also racing with us in 1979.
00:09:31So that would have been taken, I don't know,
00:09:34about two hours before we started the race, I would say.
00:09:37And in the belly of every crew member and skipper,
00:09:40there's that knotted feeling of uncertainty.
00:09:43Also jostling for position in the middle of the racing fleet
00:09:47was another 37-foot yacht, Trophy.
00:09:50You're having to be really quite careful that you don't hit another boat.
00:09:55Among Trophy's eight-man crew from Essex
00:09:58was 24-year-old engineer Derek Moreland,
00:10:01also competing in the race for the first time.
00:10:05We got into what we thought was the best position for the start for us,
00:10:10and we were just absolutely excited.
00:10:14Trying to make a good start with the mid-sized yachts like Caval and Trophy
00:10:19were the crew of Alamanda,
00:10:21owned by 35-year-old property developer Michael Campbell.
00:10:27So I was not experienced at all in offshore racing.
00:10:30For that reason, I got together a very competent crew.
00:10:36At this point, things were so calm,
00:10:38it was a very different set of worries, really.
00:10:43We were going out there just hoping there'd be some wind.
00:10:46The biggest concern was they weren't going to pick up momentum
00:10:49to start the race properly.
00:10:52The Met Office were forecasting little wind,
00:10:55calm seas and fog for the first two days of the race,
00:10:59and nothing stronger than mild gales by day three.
00:11:04For the sailors, the air was fairly quiet.
00:11:10But on the other side of the Atlantic, the weather was far from calm.
00:11:17You see something spawned across North America.
00:11:21It can easily then track across the water towards the UK.
00:11:29Across North America,
00:11:31there was some really quite violent weather going on.
00:11:37Stormy conditions,
00:11:39and it really is dependent on where the jet stream is
00:11:42to where that will eventually land.
00:11:47WHOOSH
00:11:51The forecasters at the UK Met Office
00:11:53hadn't got wind of anything worrying that was heading for British shores.
00:12:03It's got an image of real man against the elements.
00:12:09The Fastnet Rock was known as Ireland's teardrop
00:12:12because it was the last thing that immigrants leaving Ireland
00:12:15for America would see as they left their home.
00:12:20This isolated rock off the south of Ireland.
00:12:23It's this bleak place with this extraordinary lighthouse.
00:12:27What a job that must be.
00:12:34With the race now underway in the Solent,
00:12:36off the south coast of Ireland,
00:12:3829-year-old lightkeeper Gerald Butler
00:12:41was starting his shift on Fastnet Rock.
00:12:46That rock is exposed to some of the most unimaginable forces of the Atlantic.
00:12:54I had never experienced a Fastnet race previous to this,
00:12:58so I was highly excited.
00:13:01I felt honoured and privileged just to be there.
00:13:06All day Saturday, the sea was just flat calm,
00:13:10just as calm as a cup of tea.
00:13:13We weren't concerned in any way, really.
00:13:17Once the competitors finally arrived at Fastnet Rock,
00:13:21Gerald and two other lightkeepers
00:13:23would relay the numbers of the yachts to the organisers
00:13:26as the boats rounded the rock.
00:13:29We knew things were going to be very, very slow,
00:13:32so we knew the yachts would not be coming around until the Monday.
00:13:38Back on the south coast of England,
00:13:40Trophy and the other yachts were now moving out of the Solent.
00:13:46It was like you were dreaming. It was just mad.
00:13:51We were just doing it for fun.
00:13:53You know, we didn't have massive budgets,
00:13:55none of us got paid any money.
00:13:57By contrast, some boats were very well funded,
00:14:00with some high-profile public figures at the helm.
00:14:05The defending champion, Britain,
00:14:07with Morning Cloud and team captain Edward Heath.
00:14:10In 1979, one of the best-known competitors
00:14:13was the former Prime Minister, Edward Heath.
00:14:17Big personalities, rich men, powerful men,
00:14:20and they were the ones who made all the national newspaper headlines,
00:14:24not your ordinary yachtsmen.
00:14:26This is the one place in the world in early August
00:14:29where anyone is likely to be someone.
00:14:31A lot of people thought there are the haves and the have-yots.
00:14:35It was regarded as an elite sport, a rich man's sport,
00:14:39and certainly that is true of the bigger boats.
00:14:45Janet Grosvenor was the deputy race director in 1979.
00:14:50In 1979, and as of now,
00:14:53you have a huge spectrum of people taking part in these races,
00:14:57amateurs and professionals.
00:15:00In 79, anyone could take part.
00:15:03It was this mix of experience levels
00:15:06that helped to make the Fastnet race so popular.
00:15:10But it also left some more vulnerable to the waves.
00:15:15In my view, there were actually too many amateur yachtsmen in that race
00:15:20and a lot of boats that weren't actually fully equipped
00:15:23to deal with the conditions.
00:15:26As dawn broke on day two,
00:15:29all the yachts were still in the race
00:15:32as the competitors had found themselves becalmed in thick fog,
00:15:36which had crept in overnight.
00:15:41The race was over,
00:15:43and it was time to go home.
00:15:47It was the last day of the race,
00:15:50and all the yachts were still in the race
00:15:53as the competitors had found themselves becalmed in thick fog,
00:15:57which had crept in overnight.
00:16:03Fog on Fastnet is a regular occurrence,
00:16:06a normal thing to happen.
00:16:08And the sea was calm,
00:16:11the fog was just happily keeping us company.
00:16:15So there was nothing to make me think that a storm was coming.
00:16:21At the meteorological headquarters in Bracknell,
00:16:24human knowledge and modern technology combined
00:16:27to produce an accurate forecast.
00:16:29At Met Office HQ in Berkshire,
00:16:32forecasters were struggling to identify
00:16:35exactly what was coming across the Atlantic.
00:16:38It was extremely difficult for the Met Office in those days.
00:16:42They didn't have the high-tech equipment.
00:16:45The 70s were a pioneering time for weather forecasting.
00:16:49However, radar and satellite were still in their infancy.
00:16:53Relative to what we use now, computer models were pretty basic.
00:16:58In the 70s, people got their weather forecasts
00:17:01from the radio, the TV and the newspapers,
00:17:04but it was very vague,
00:17:06and it was occasionally completely inaccurate.
00:17:09Prior to GPS, back in the 70s,
00:17:12you were pretty much cut off once you were out to sea,
00:17:16so the shipping forecast was like gold dust.
00:17:25But with the shipping forecast broadcast just four times a day
00:17:29and only forecasting the next 24 hours,
00:17:33it was limited in how much it could help sailors.
00:17:38You tune into the shipping forecast,
00:17:40but it only came out once every six hours,
00:17:43and things can move quicker than that.
00:17:46If you're two or three days away from land
00:17:49and you need to get back to land quickly,
00:17:52you can run into problems.
00:18:05So Monday the 13th dawned,
00:18:07we'd rounded the south-west of England
00:18:11and we were aiming into the Irish Sea.
00:18:14For the Fastnet competitors, the sea was still calm.
00:18:20We had heard the morning forecast
00:18:22and there was no warning of any significant wind at all.
00:18:28There was very light wind.
00:18:30But was this the calm before the storm? Possibly.
00:18:34Between Sunday and Monday,
00:18:36that's when we saw the development
00:18:38of something called explosive cyclogenesis.
00:18:44In layman's terms, it was a weather bomb.
00:18:50Once this low-pressure system named Low-Y, that's the letter Y,
00:18:54once it finally engaged with the jet stream, it started spinning.
00:18:58It started really deepening.
00:19:00The wind started picking up
00:19:02and pummeling towards the Fastnet rock.
00:19:09A weather bomb in technical terms,
00:19:12it's when the centre of a low pressure
00:19:15drops by 24 millibars in 24 hours.
00:19:18However, what happened mid-August in 1979 was off the scale.
00:19:24An absolute beast of a storm.
00:19:27No-one had a chance.
00:19:39As the yachts were passing Land's End
00:19:42and heading into the Celtic Sea,
00:19:45150 miles away at Fastnet rock,
00:19:48light-keeper Gerald Butler was starting to feel uneasy.
00:19:54On Monday morning, the fog cleared.
00:19:57It's very unusual for the fog to lift so quickly.
00:20:01It's a phenomenal thing to see.
00:20:03In a matter of minutes, it was gone.
00:20:05In a matter of minutes, it was gone.
00:20:07And that kind of alarmed us.
00:20:10The wind had picked up some strength,
00:20:12revealing something completely different,
00:20:15and it really was an indication of what was to come.
00:20:18But for the race competitors, a bit more wind was welcome.
00:20:26The fog lifted around about midday and we had a decent breeze,
00:20:31so we were sailing along very nicely.
00:20:34It was a really rather pleasant day ahead of us.
00:20:37Well looked like it.
00:20:41Mainly suddenly 4.
00:20:43Locally 6.
00:20:45Increasing 6 locally.
00:20:47Gale 8.
00:20:48There was a real false sense of security
00:20:50that things were just a bit too calm.
00:20:53And yes, bring on the wind, that's what they wanted.
00:20:56We did pick up the forecasts as they came.
00:20:59There was no indication the winds were going to be
00:21:02fairly normal gale force 8.
00:21:04We'd sailed in stronger winds than cows the week before.
00:21:08We didn't feel it was a problem at all.
00:21:11During Monday afternoon, this weather system was developing so quickly,
00:21:16it was really hard for the meteorologists to keep up.
00:21:20And with the UK Met Office not yet spotting the ticking weather time bomb,
00:21:26the yacht crews in its path had no clue
00:21:29what the meteorological monster that was heading their way.
00:21:34There was no hint, no suggestion that the weather was going to change
00:21:38so suddenly, so dramatically and so seriously.
00:21:48With most yachts now entering the Celtic Sea,
00:21:51off Southern Ireland the bigger boats in the race
00:21:54were now starting to round Fastnet Rock.
00:22:00MUSIC
00:22:03The size of the yachts when they were passing
00:22:06was a phenomenal sight for someone like me to see.
00:22:10I was only 29.
00:22:12I really felt this was just the place to be.
00:22:16For the mid-sized yachts, there was still a way to go to reach the rock
00:22:20as they passed Land's End and headed into the Celtic Sea.
00:22:26The breeze started to pick up
00:22:28and we were just sailing off out into the western approaches.
00:22:33With the race now three days in, back on dry land,
00:22:37Janet Grosvenor and the race organisers
00:22:39decamped to the finish line in Plymouth.
00:22:46When we got to Plymouth on the Monday,
00:22:49we could sense that the wind was picking up.
00:22:58But at that point we thought,
00:23:00this is just going to make it a very, very fast race
00:23:03and the big boats will be here sooner than we expect.
00:23:12I noticed a boat, a pleasure craft that was close into the rock
00:23:17and at that point the wind had started to freshen.
00:23:22The weather was quickly deteriorating.
00:23:25I remember looking and thinking, uh-oh, time, you are gone in.
00:23:30The evening shipping forecast was the first to indicate
00:23:34anything more than a gale force eight.
00:23:37South-westerly gales force eight,
00:23:40increasing severe gales, force nine imminent.
00:23:49The breeze started to build up.
00:23:53Robin, the navigator, said to me
00:23:55that we've just got a forecast for force nine,
00:23:58and that's different.
00:24:05Remember, this is a race, so right up until the last moment,
00:24:10these, in my view, mad people are thinking,
00:24:13if I keep the sails up a bit longer,
00:24:15I can get ahead of all the competition.
00:24:22Seven to eight is a lot, but it's manageable.
00:24:25If you go up to storm force ten,
00:24:27you're probably taking all your sails down
00:24:30because that's not looking good.
00:24:32That's just too much.
00:24:35The jet stream was in the right place.
00:24:37It was the right strength for this storm to be primed for a storm ten.
00:24:44By the time we were aware of something beyond just a normal gale,
00:24:51we were already past land's end.
00:24:56You're out in the middle of the sea.
00:24:58You can't just pull into port and go into the marina.
00:25:01You're just on your own.
00:25:03The unexpectedness of it really, I think,
00:25:08depended on where you were in the fleet.
00:25:11If you were a big, fast boat, in a sense, you were ahead of it.
00:25:15If you were a little boat, you might be behind it.
00:25:19If you were the middle-range boats, you were right in the middle of it.
00:25:29Where we were at that time,
00:25:31it would have been more dangerous to have turned round
00:25:34and tried to go into wind.
00:25:36It just wasn't an option.
00:25:38Most of the competitors were sailing into the centre of this storm.
00:25:45Reliant on the shipping forecasts
00:25:47and with no storm-force winds yet broadcast,
00:25:50the competitors aboard mid-sized yachts like Trophy, Caval and Alamanda
00:25:55were unaware of the ferocious winds coming their way.
00:26:06But light-keeper Gerald Butler could see that conditions were deteriorating
00:26:11and started making preparations.
00:26:18About ten o'clock, we battened all the doors.
00:26:23Everything we could was tied down.
00:26:26It's like being in a submarine.
00:26:29When it's locked, closed, it's watertight.
00:26:34For us, you see, we were safe,
00:26:36but the yachts, we were really concerned for them.
00:26:41I think the first time I remember picking up on how things were unfolding,
00:26:47simply by walking up a hill, and I couldn't walk against the wind,
00:26:51and you instantly thought,
00:26:54there's something going on here, I hope everyone's all right.
00:27:10By this time, we'd reduced the sail a lot.
00:27:15It was dark, you couldn't really see what was happening on the horizon,
00:27:19but this beast was moving in.
00:27:24With the bigger yachts in the race rounding Fastnet,
00:27:28light-keeper Gerald Butler had been recording their sail numbers
00:27:32and feeding them back to the organisers.
00:27:36There would have been about 15 yachts at any time in the area of Fastnet
00:27:41with all these lights bobbing in the water.
00:27:49We had this alder slam.
00:27:51The beam of light was thrown directly onto the yachts.
00:27:57When the sea hit the tower, everything beneath us was totally obscured,
00:28:01and then you'd see the wave collapsing
00:28:03and cascading down on top of whatever yachts were in that area.
00:28:07And to see the sailors up on deck,
00:28:09and they were up to their knees in water.
00:28:18Fastnet, south-westerly, severe gales, force nine.
00:28:22Increasing storm force ten imminent.
00:28:27It was around about 11 o'clock,
00:28:29probably the wind accelerated in a way
00:28:33that I've never seen a wind get up so quickly.
00:28:37Very shortly after, the mast collapsed.
00:28:41With the broken mast now loose on deck
00:28:44and having lost the radio aerial attached to it,
00:28:47Michael Campbell and the yacht skipper, Angus Gavin,
00:28:50were forced into desperate action to seek help.
00:28:55Angus suggested that we should send up some flares.
00:29:00The waves were getting bigger, the boat was going faster,
00:29:04but it wasn't the weather that created our problems.
00:29:10It was when we saw the red flare.
00:29:12That's when it changed.
00:29:16The boat had not been hulled, none of us had been hurt.
00:29:22I think all of us in retrospect would say
00:29:25that perhaps it was unnecessary to have sent the flares up,
00:29:29but that's what we did.
00:29:32Trophy responded very generously.
00:29:36For all seafarers, it's not just the etiquette,
00:29:39it's the morality, it's the ethics of sailing
00:29:42that you always go to the help of some other sailor who's in distress.
00:29:47We'd grown up with this sort of thing about sailing.
00:29:50If a boat's in trouble, you go and help.
00:29:53We never even really thought about it.
00:29:56The big decision is,
00:29:58how much risk am I putting myself and my crew in doing that?
00:30:03Fearing that members of Allanander's crew may be overboard,
00:30:07Trophy took down their own sails and used their motor to get to them.
00:30:13If they'd lost anybody that was drifting off,
00:30:17maybe we could do something to help them.
00:30:23An optimistic thing, as it turned out,
00:30:25because the weather had, by now, got worse.
00:30:28The waves were bigger, the wind was heavier.
00:30:32And we realised that in that sea,
00:30:34there was nothing that anyone could do to really help us.
00:30:37So Allanander's crew decided their only option
00:30:41was to cut off the boat's rigging and hazardous broken mast.
00:30:46The thing we were concerned about,
00:30:48that we didn't hammer off downwind and go straight into them.
00:30:51But they had to sail close enough to shout to each other
00:30:55and for Trophy to be on hand to help.
00:30:58We told them that once we'd got rid of the mast, we were OK,
00:31:02and that we would motor to Cork.
00:31:08So we said, we'll just stand by,
00:31:10and if you need anything, just let off another flare.
00:31:14With conditions worsening, on board Trophy,
00:31:17the crew decided to ride out the storm till morning
00:31:20with just the motor and no sails while they stood by Allanander.
00:31:31Southwest veering westerly, dawn force 10 in fast net.
00:31:36The wind reached storm force 10.
00:31:42Winds were picking up to 70 miles an hour,
00:31:45probably in excess of 100 miles an hour.
00:31:49And a key component to this was the wind change,
00:31:52a rapid wind change of 90 degrees.
00:31:56So this low-pressure system was so tightly coiled.
00:31:59The wind change creates absolutely gargantuan waves,
00:32:03which weren't only really high, they were really steep as well,
00:32:07and they were coming from every direction.
00:32:10On Allanander, Michael Campbell was at the helm.
00:32:14I suddenly heard, rather than saw...
00:32:19..a roar.
00:32:21I looked up to my left, and there was this wall of water coming...
00:32:27..out of sync with the general weather,
00:32:32coming straight for our beam.
00:32:35It is absolutely realistic that waves can reach the height of 40, 50,
00:32:39even 60 feet.
00:32:41They're called rogue waves, but it's the combination
00:32:44of pretty much what we could call a perfect storm.
00:32:47On board Trophy, Derek Morland was getting some sleep down below,
00:32:51but his world was about to be turned upside down.
00:32:55A huge wave crashed onto the yacht.
00:33:00The next thing that I knew was I was woken up.
00:33:06I stood up and looked around.
00:33:09I was actually stood on the ceiling.
00:33:13Almost immediately, the boat flew around and rolled back upright again.
00:33:17When we went up on deck, the rig had gone over the side,
00:33:21so the mast was in the water, everything was over the side.
00:33:26The giant wave had ripped off Trophy's mast and rigging.
00:33:30They also had a broken rudder.
00:33:33To make matters worse, their skipper, London publican Alan Bartlett,
00:33:38had gone overboard.
00:33:40Alan, who had been in the cockpit when the boat rolled over,
00:33:44he was over the side.
00:33:46The crew managed to pull Alan back onto the boat,
00:33:49but with a broken mast, just like on Alamanda,
00:33:52they were now in grave danger.
00:33:56In the middle of the night, howling gale,
00:33:59the mast wires and ropes and sheets and things all flailing around,
00:34:05threatening to knock you off, threatening to bring the boat over.
00:34:09By now, it's survival, really.
00:34:14For teenager John Dorey, on board his father's yacht Caval,
00:34:18he was also realising the dire straits the yacht's crew were in.
00:34:24Well, as a 17-year-old, I'm wondering what I'm doing here.
00:34:31I didn't think it was going to be like this.
00:34:33Well, we're kind of terrified, really, down below.
00:34:36I mean, the boat's moving everywhere,
00:34:38everything's been thrown all over the place, you know.
00:34:44It's, um...
00:34:54I've spoken to several yachtsmen
00:34:56who took part in the Fastnet Race of 1979,
00:34:59and they were absolutely terrified.
00:35:01It was like looking at a wave that looked like a block of flats.
00:35:05It was just the most horrendous situation
00:35:07that any of them had ever faced.
00:35:09Expert sailors disagree on what's the best way to survive
00:35:13when it's really, really blowing.
00:35:16You've just put up what they call a storm jib,
00:35:19which is a tiny little triangle,
00:35:21to try and give you a bit of control.
00:35:24Do you take all the sails down and run in front of it
00:35:28under, as they say, bare poles, which is dangerous,
00:35:31because you have no kind of control at all.
00:35:36From midnight, we changed course
00:35:38because the wind had increased a lot in strength,
00:35:41so we couldn't continue in the direction of Fastnet Rock.
00:35:44We had to go more in the direction of Wales.
00:35:48Caval's crew hoped to ride out the storm
00:35:51and return to the race course in the morning.
00:35:54We were just sailing under bare poles, no sails up,
00:35:57so you've got the force of the wind is enough
00:35:59just to push the boat along on its own,
00:36:01but then at some point, even that's too much,
00:36:03so you can't slow down.
00:36:05It's just an absolute helter-skelter ride,
00:36:08mad, mad ride.
00:36:10There's, um... We've never seen anything like it.
00:36:13It's dark outside, but it's a whiteout,
00:36:15so there's spray everywhere, everywhere.
00:36:18The noise, incredible.
00:36:22The boat's been thrown around all over the place.
00:36:24At one point, it's like explosions hit the boat.
00:36:31And the boat goes right the way over,
00:36:34and I'm... I don't know how it happened,
00:36:36but I'm lying against the side of the boat,
00:36:39and there's a cooker, there's a gas cooker
00:36:41on the other side of the boat,
00:36:43which is about the size of a microwave oven.
00:36:45It's designed to swing.
00:36:48I looked up, and the cooker was flying towards me.
00:36:52It was kind of... It was like a sort of spacewalk,
00:36:55like an astronaut in space just rolling towards me.
00:36:57It seemed to be in slow motion.
00:36:59And I was looking at it, and I was thinking,
00:37:02I wonder what's going to happen next.
00:37:05HE WHISTLES
00:37:10With the storm showing no signs of calming down,
00:37:14the winds were at force 10,
00:37:17and there were still up to 240 race yachts out to sea.
00:37:26We were listening on the 2182 frequency,
00:37:29which is the distress frequency.
00:37:35A yacht had come on and say,
00:37:37I'm after passing an upturned hull,
00:37:40and I can't see any life on board.
00:37:44Another fellow would come on and say,
00:37:46we passed a yacht, and they were clinging on to the side of it.
00:37:49We were really concerned for them.
00:37:54This was just repetitive all night long.
00:37:59With some of them, they just went over completely upside down
00:38:04for quite lengthy periods.
00:38:07When that happens, all hell breaks loose down below.
00:38:14I'm in the pilot berth,
00:38:17and the cooker was flying towards me.
00:38:23And it came up to me,
00:38:25and it just stopped, boof, right in front of my face.
00:38:28I felt the wind against it, and I looked over,
00:38:32and the cord, there's a metal cord, the gas cord holding it,
00:38:35it just stopped it in front of me.
00:38:39Everything went crazy after that.
00:38:43For the crew of Alamanda,
00:38:46the impact of a gigantic wave had been catastrophic.
00:38:51The impact of a gigantic wave had been catastrophic.
00:38:56The boat turned over, we were thrown in the water.
00:39:01It was very quiet, very peaceful underwater.
00:39:05None of the noise.
00:39:08Once I got one of the ropes of the harness off from around my neck,
00:39:14I then struggled to get up to the surface.
00:39:19We came up to see that the boat had righted itself.
00:39:23After Michael Campbell and his crew members
00:39:26managed to get themselves back aboard,
00:39:28they assessed the damage.
00:39:30We'd lost the distress flares,
00:39:33no radio, no oil for the engine,
00:39:37and we'd already lost the mast and the sails,
00:39:40so we really hadn't got anything.
00:39:43The life raft punctured itself,
00:39:46so we had no life raft.
00:39:50In hindsight, of course, we were very lucky that we lost the life raft,
00:39:54because we could perhaps have been tempted to get into it
00:39:58where people had sadly perished.
00:40:01It was almost invariably in a life raft.
00:40:07For the crew of Trophy, they were left with no mast, sails or rudder,
00:40:12and having taken on a lot of water,
00:40:15they were forced into a difficult decision.
00:40:18I turned round and everybody was in the life raft,
00:40:22apart from me and Simon and Alan.
00:40:25I remember thinking, well, I'm not staying here on my own,
00:40:29and we'd gotten in the life raft,
00:40:31which at that time we felt was a fairly safe place to go,
00:40:36but it wasn't.
00:40:41If the life raft is launched,
00:40:43naturally you're going to jump into it, step down into it.
00:40:48But one of the lessons that they have learned is
00:40:51you do not get off that yacht until the yacht is sinking,
00:40:55because the yacht is much sturdier and much more capable than the life raft.
00:41:02Step up into the life raft, do not step down into it.
00:41:08When the boat got rolled over, that made the life raft inflate.
00:41:13Everybody was shook up by what had happened.
00:41:16They came up on deck, saw that the life raft had been launched,
00:41:20and got in it.
00:41:28With the storm intensifying beyond Force 10 to hurricane levels,
00:41:33the crews of up to 240 yachts were in grave peril.
00:41:38The emotions coming through the radio were, strangely enough,
00:41:42very controlled.
00:41:44Even though they were in a horrible situation,
00:41:47looking at some of their colleagues, they'd lost them.
00:41:50On Caval, John Dorey was recovering after the boat had capsized
00:41:54and turned upside down.
00:41:57Unbeknown to him, his father, Peter,
00:41:59and fellow crew member, Phil Bodman, had gone overboard.
00:42:04Once the boat righted itself, a frantic rescue effort followed,
00:42:08while John remained below deck.
00:42:12Maybe 20 minutes after we'd first capsized,
00:42:15Ian had came down to see me, kind of apologising.
00:42:21He said he'd been trying to turn around for 20 minutes
00:42:24to try and get my dad out of the water, but there was no way.
00:42:29It was pitch black, there was a whiteout, there was foam everywhere,
00:42:3350-foot waves, not happening.
00:42:39They both had safety harnesses on.
00:42:42Phil was able to grab the mainsheet, pull himself aboard.
00:42:46My father's harness failed.
00:42:50For the crew of Trophy,
00:42:52the grim reality of their new predicament was dawning on them.
00:42:58We were all sat, there was eight of us sat in the life raft.
00:43:01We then realised that these big waves are really big now
00:43:04and the life raft is effectively surfing down the fronts of these things.
00:43:08And then within about half an hour of us getting into it,
00:43:12it was capsized and it wound up upside down.
00:43:15And then it blew back upright again and we got back in it.
00:43:18That happened three, four, maybe five times
00:43:21where we managed to do all of that.
00:43:24But on the fifth time that the life raft capsized,
00:43:29the life raft broke into the top and the bottom half.
00:43:34The force of the crashing wave
00:43:36had caused half of the life raft's outer ring to become flat.
00:43:40The force of the crashing wave
00:43:42had caused half of the life raft's outer ring
00:43:45to become detached from the bottom half,
00:43:47where the eight crew of Trophy had been sitting.
00:43:51They were now all in the sea
00:43:54and their life raft was split in two.
00:44:00I was being rolled over in these waves
00:44:03and I felt something hit the back of my right hand.
00:44:07There was a line tied to the life raft
00:44:10and I pulled myself towards the life raft.
00:44:13Unfortunately, Peter and John couldn't
00:44:17and they were separate to us.
00:44:22We tried to paddle ourselves towards them,
00:44:25holding on to the top and the bottom half of the life raft,
00:44:28but they were just getting further and further away.
00:44:32John and Peter, who were both very good friends,
00:44:35but things were so dire,
00:44:38I don't think that thought was with us for very long
00:44:42because we were just trying to survive ourselves.
00:44:46Will thought... I certainly did.
00:44:49I thought I was going to die.
00:44:51With the weather bomb wreaking havoc,
00:44:54even the bigger, sturdier yachts were now being taken out,
00:44:58some with broken rudders made from carbon fibre,
00:45:02a novel substance at the time
00:45:04and unable to withstand the waves.
00:45:09I think the decision about whether to turn back or not
00:45:12was all more or less made for us because of the conditions.
00:45:15We were just in survival mode.
00:45:17It was going to be a question of whether we'd get the whole boat back or not.
00:45:20It wasn't a question of just trying to turn around to find my dad,
00:45:24but, um, I mean, there were seven of us still on the boat.
00:45:29Having lost their life raft
00:45:31and all radio contact during the capsize,
00:45:34the crew of Caval decided to battle on through repeated knockdowns
00:45:39in the hope of reaching dry land.
00:45:42All we knew is that we had...
00:45:44We knew we had 100 miles of seaway in front of us.
00:45:46There was nothing to hit.
00:45:48We just had to keep vigilant and hope for the best.
00:45:50On board Alamanda,
00:45:52they too were left with no radio and very few options.
00:45:58The poor, unfortunate yachtsmen
00:46:00who weren't even able to call for help.
00:46:03Fascinatingly, in Irish,
00:46:05it's called an carraig aonair, which means alone raft,
00:46:08and these yachts were alone.
00:46:11This is what made the whole thing so stark.
00:46:14For the six remaining trophy crew clinging onto their life raft,
00:46:19things were about to get even more desperate.
00:46:23What happened then is one of the waves that hit us
00:46:27pulled the two halves of the life raft apart.
00:46:30Simon was the only one who was managing to hang on to the bottom half.
00:46:35The rest of us were on the top half, and he got blown away from us.
00:46:41I couldn't see any way that we were going to go through the night
00:46:45and then be rescued. How could they even find us?
00:46:48But we were...
00:46:50We fight, don't we?
00:46:52The life raft was keeping us alive, even in bits.
00:47:02August 14th, 1979, just a normal day for us,
00:47:06but I got woke up in the morning as we usually did when the boat was wanted.
00:47:1023-year-old fisherman and RNLI lifeboat crew member Tommy Cocking
00:47:15had been called in to join the rescue effort.
00:47:18We were told the yacht was in distress.
00:47:21As we were progressing down, further going down,
00:47:24the waves were getting bigger.
00:47:3020 miles from St Ives, at RNAS Culdrose,
00:47:3425-year-old Royal Navy helicopter pilot Keith Thompson
00:47:38was woken by a phone call.
00:47:41I was to be on duty in about two days' time,
00:47:44so it was a bit of a shock.
00:47:46So it was a bit of a shock to get a phone call very early in the morning at that time.
00:47:50We didn't know what we were going to see at all.
00:47:56We were given a very, very sketchy brief of a yacht is in trouble.
00:48:02As we were getting towards the land's end, they said,
00:48:05stand by, we've got a list of yachts, which took us all by surprise.
00:48:10On my knee pad I have a place where I can write things down
00:48:14with a grease pencil and a China graph.
00:48:17I ran out of space and started writing on the inside of the windscreen of the helicopter
00:48:22because we were getting up to 12, 14 yachts.
00:48:31We were finding out more information then over the radio,
00:48:35other rescue units had been sent to the area.
00:48:39The rescue operation was just beyond belief.
00:48:44Every light-boat and cormorant was out.
00:48:46Rescue helicopters from Culdrose, Nimrods from Scotland, Nimrod aircraft.
00:48:51It was really so brave of so many people to risk their own lives
00:48:56to try and save these beleaguered yachtsmen.
00:48:59And that was when we sort of realised this was a little bit bigger than us.
00:49:03That was when we sort of realised this was a little bit bigger than just going after one yacht.
00:49:14Dawn brought the light needed for a huge search and rescue mission to be launched.
00:49:21With rescuers braving hurricane conditions.
00:49:27The rescuers did amazing things.
00:49:34Spearheaded by Falmouth Coast Guard,
00:49:37all lifeboats from Cornwall and the south coast of Ireland were called out.
00:49:43Lifeboatman Tommy Cocking was part of a seven-man crew from St Ives,
00:49:48sent out to assist a yacht in distress.
00:49:52When she went over the top sometimes and dropped,
00:49:55it was just one of those situations where you hang on.
00:49:59With the air rescue now launched, Nimrod aircraft would direct the operation,
00:50:04as the rescuers eye in the sky,
00:50:07using radar to identify survivors in the water for helicopters and lifeboats to pick up.
00:50:15Nimrods from Cornwall were the first to arrive,
00:50:18with others on their way from RAF Kinloss in Scotland, 700 miles away.
00:50:25The brief was very sketchy.
00:50:27It was get airborne as soon as you can and head out towards Land's End.
00:50:33Sea King helicopter pilot Keith Thompson was part of a four-man Navy crew from Caldrose in Cornwall,
00:50:39joining the mission to search a vast stretch of ocean.
00:50:44They said, well, they could be anywhere between Land's End and the Fastnet Rock.
00:50:49Which we said, where is the Fastnet Rock?
00:50:55As the dawn came through, there were still big waves,
00:50:58but they weren't rolling us over. It had calmed down a bit.
00:51:04With two of Trophy's crew drowned,
00:51:06and one drifting alone in the bottom of the split life raft,
00:51:10five crew members were still with the top half of the raft,
00:51:15but one of them hadn't made it through the night.
00:51:19It was cold. It was very cold.
00:51:21The yacht's navigator, Robin Bowyer, who was in his 50s,
00:51:25had been struggling to stay out of the cold water.
00:51:29And we were finding it harder and harder and harder to get Robin to do anything,
00:51:34and in the end he was just gone.
00:51:36So he was held to the life raft with his lifeline, but he was gone.
00:51:44Now in daylight, with no help on the horizon,
00:51:48Derek still feared he and the rest of the crew
00:51:51would never make it out of the waves alive.
00:51:55We were all so knackered. I mean, we were just completely broken by now.
00:52:00In Plymouth, at the race finish line,
00:52:03information about the devastating impact of the storm
00:52:06had been trickling through to the race organisers.
00:52:09The information that started coming into our race office from the Coast Guard,
00:52:14and that's when the snowball started,
00:52:19and suddenly it just rolled.
00:52:23Boats retiring, boats needing help.
00:52:27While a rescue mission was in full swing,
00:52:30there was also a race still going on.
00:52:34While a rescue mission was in full swing,
00:52:37there was also a race still going on,
00:52:40leaving the organisers having to deal with both.
00:52:43The whole system of what was required in Plymouth
00:52:47had to be put in place very, very quickly.
00:52:50The people who chose to keep racing could keep racing,
00:52:55but the focus was, of course, on the rescue mission.
00:53:00So there was a lot of us calling to check who was unaccounted for.
00:53:06When they couldn't get an answer,
00:53:08people, friends, families, got in their cars,
00:53:11and they drove to Plymouth.
00:53:13And the press came to Plymouth,
00:53:15and it was sailing press to start with,
00:53:18and then it was general press, and we were just inundated.
00:53:23The Sea King helicopters had been battling the giant waves
00:53:27for three and a half hours,
00:53:31managing to lift some of the race competitors to safety.
00:53:36These were the worst conditions I've ever flown in,
00:53:40so you had to be on top of your game.
00:53:46The Sea King would normally hover at 40 knots,
00:53:51The Sea King would normally hover at 40 feet for a normal rescue.
00:53:55However, the waves were 40, 50, maybe even 60 feet high.
00:54:00I would be looking out the window and saying,
00:54:02there's a big wave coming now, let's go up.
00:54:07This is the skill that these pilots have developed,
00:54:10is they have to go with the wave.
00:54:12For Derek Moreland and the surviving crew of Trophy,
00:54:16it looked like help had finally arrived.
00:54:20I saw an NIMROD come overhead,
00:54:24and it dropped flares.
00:54:27I suppose that was when you suddenly thought,
00:54:32maybe we are going to survive this.
00:54:34Despite the ongoing rescue effort,
00:54:36the world's press had their eye on the organisers of the race,
00:54:41who had been joined by the Government Minister and Secretary for Trade,
00:54:45John Knott, to field questions now brewing in a media storm.
00:54:51Do you think there are some lessons to be learnt and some changes to be made?
00:54:54Well, I think it's obviously a tragedy.
00:54:56It was quite interesting, the difference in attitudes, if you like,
00:55:03between the Government Minister responsible for all this and the journalists.
00:55:08There are a number of yachts missing still,
00:55:11but man is going to go on pitting himself against the elements,
00:55:15and ocean racing will carry on.
00:55:18There was a kind of extraordinary clash
00:55:21between two different kind of world views.
00:55:25Life's a risky business,
00:55:27and you have to be held to account for the consequences of all this.
00:55:31Alan Green was the Fastnet race director.
00:55:34He held two press conferences a day, keeping the media informed.
00:55:39Now you had a whole group of people who didn't understand sailing.
00:55:42Many in the press were asking, why wasn't the race stopped?
00:55:47Leaving the organisers defending themselves and long-standing race traditions.
00:55:53The onus to continue racing is entirely down to the skipper and the crew
00:56:00to decide whether they believe it's safe for them to continue.
00:56:04And even if the organisers had called off the race,
00:56:07they would have struggled to contact the stricken yachts,
00:56:10many of which did not have any form of radio communication.
00:56:16The VHF radios were just coming into their own at that time.
00:56:20They were expensive. A lot of yachts didn't put them in.
00:56:24In 1979, the means of communication were very limited.
00:56:30Quite, quite different to today, where there are trackers on boats,
00:56:35and they've all got radios, and they've all got mobile phones.
00:56:39I think there was the fear that, you know, our sport,
00:56:44you know, people are going to say, this is not safe.
00:56:47You know, we can't do this anymore.
00:56:52There's a very dramatic picture of Alan just standing with his eyes closed
00:56:57for a few minutes, just taking that minute or two to almost compose himself.
00:57:04And it expressed everything.
00:57:09At the end of the day, it's not just your own life
00:57:12or even your crew's life that you're putting at risk.
00:57:17It's this enormous rescue operation.
00:57:20I mean, goodness knows how much it cost,
00:57:22but also the risk to the lives of rescuers.
00:57:28With nearly 240 yachts caught in the storm,
00:57:32the crews of Trophy, Caval and Alamanda were still left adrift
00:57:37over 90 miles from dry land.
00:57:41Absolutely frightening.
00:57:43We must always remember, they were gaining experience overnight
00:57:47that would change them and would change racing forever.
00:57:56With the Fastnet storm tragedy unfolding
00:57:59and a rescue operation in full swing,
00:58:01Navy helicopter pilot Keith Thompson and crew
00:58:04had already pulled three survivors from a yacht called Grimalkin to safety.
00:58:12Next, they were directed towards the battered life raft of Trophy
00:58:16by flares from Nimrod aircraft.
00:58:19But running low on fuel, the crew of the Sea King would have to move fast.
00:58:25We came to a dinghy.
00:58:26Picking up from a life raft in these conditions is very, very difficult.
00:58:31A very dangerous job for the winchman.
00:58:33Often he would be put in the water and then dragged towards the life raft.
00:58:38The helicopter lowered a winchman down.
00:58:41When he first came down, we said,
00:58:43there's somebody else, there's one that, it's OK, it's OK.
00:58:46He said, one guy in the bottom half of the life raft we just picked up.
00:58:49So we knew we had Simon.
00:58:52But by now, Trophy's skipper, 53-year-old Alan Bartlett,
00:58:56was suffering from hypothermia.
00:58:59So he was the first to be lifted to safety.
00:59:02But with their fuel running out, there wasn't enough time to pick up the others.
00:59:07And then he said to us, the Dutch destroyer will pick you up.
00:59:13A Dutch warship called the Overijssel, which happened to be nearby,
00:59:18had joined the rescue effort.
00:59:22We turned round and there's this massive ship.
00:59:27On board Caval, having lost his father to the might of the storm,
00:59:32John Dorey and the remaining crew
00:59:34were desperately trying to find their way to dry land.
00:59:40Now, Ian was in charge of the boat and he was so calm.
00:59:44However, it was still a force eight plus in the morning.
00:59:47We'd taken a terrific zigzag course.
00:59:50The winds at sea slowly subsided.
00:59:53On land, the media whirlwind was gathering pace.
00:59:57At first light today, the remnants of the race came gently towards Plymouth,
01:00:01nursing their bruises.
01:00:03We saw these tattered life rafts, these empty life rafts.
01:00:07It brought home to you, you know,
01:00:10people who died in the most extreme circumstances out there.
01:00:16For Derek and the three remaining Trophy crew,
01:00:19help was at hand, in the unexpected form of the Dutch warship.
01:00:26You can see me just here, over the white top.
01:00:30They put divers over the side, they were managing to hang on,
01:00:34and as the ship rolled down onto us, they just grabbed us.
01:00:39This morning, the Overijssel brought 15 survivors
01:00:42and two bodies back to Plymouth.
01:00:44During the storm, she rolled so much
01:00:46that sailors standing at the rails went underwater
01:00:49as they tried to pull yachtsmen aboard.
01:00:53After their return to land,
01:00:55Derek Moreland and Alan Bartlett were interviewed by a reporter.
01:00:59If one had known the life raft was going to split,
01:01:02there's no way anybody would have got into it.
01:01:04I don't think I'd ever get off a boat unless I was out to my knees in water
01:01:07or standing on a mast heading future.
01:01:11For the crew of Alamanda,
01:01:13having survived a battering from the waves for over 18 hours,
01:01:17by Tuesday evening, their saviour had finally arrived.
01:01:22There was a helicopter, hovering above us,
01:01:25asking us to come aboard.
01:01:27That was a big sigh of relief.
01:01:34By Wednesday morning, some bigger boats had now finished the race,
01:01:38with victory going to a yacht called Tenacious,
01:01:41owned by American media mogul and CNN founder Ted Turner.
01:01:46The irony is that some of the bigger yachts in the Fastnet race
01:01:49not only completed the course, but completed the course in good time.
01:01:54Another major public figure had also arrived safely into Plymouth.
01:01:59The former Prime Minister, Edward Heath.
01:02:01Well, it's an experience that I don't think anybody would want to go through again,
01:02:05willingly.
01:02:07On the south coast of Wales, Caval's crew had finally made it to dry land,
01:02:13and John Dorey was inspecting the damaged yacht
01:02:16and discovering a fatal flaw in his father's harness.
01:02:21I wandered over, and on the rear of the boat, there was a metal clip.
01:02:27I pulled it in, it's my father's, what was left of his harness.
01:02:31They found that the clips at the time were quick-snap clips, spring-loaded,
01:02:36but if the clip turned in a certain way, it would automatically open.
01:02:41In total, 21 people died in the Fastnet storm,
01:02:4615 competitors and six spectators.
01:02:50An estimated 2,700 people were killed.
01:02:54As the weather bomb dissipated, the Fastnet storm of 1979
01:02:59had left its mark not only at sea, but on land too.
01:03:06The storm was a major event in the history of the world.
01:03:10It was a major event in the history of the world.
01:03:14It was a major event in the history of the world.
01:03:17The storm of 1979 had left its mark not only at sea, but on land too.
01:03:26It impacted Wales, the Midlands, even further north,
01:03:29and in fact, it became one of the windiest Augusts on record.
01:03:39I regret really badly that we lost our three friends.
01:03:43It's something you'll never get over.
01:03:45I'm always thinking of Robin and Peter and John.
01:03:49I love boats. I love working on them. I love sailing them.
01:04:00I haven't really told the story to so many people.
01:04:03It's difficult to tell, but it's a story that's worth telling,
01:04:09and I think there are lessons to be learned as well.
01:04:14There was inquiry. There had to be an inquiry into the yacht design,
01:04:18into the safety features, into the rules,
01:04:21and they came to some very uncomfortable conclusions.
01:04:25There were recommendations on the stability of boats,
01:04:29the race management side of things as well,
01:04:33life rafts in particular, life jackets.
01:04:36It covered just about every angle.
01:04:41We've all learned a lot from the Fastnet storm.
01:04:44When there is bad weather on the way, these races can't go ahead,
01:04:49and that's exactly what's happened since then.
01:04:56A few days after the tragedy,
01:04:58a memorial was held at St Andrew's Church in Plymouth,
01:05:03and since then, remembrance services have taken place
01:05:07at Holy Trinity Church in Cowes, marking key anniversaries.
01:05:12In the grounds of the church stands a fitting reminder,
01:05:17a piece of the Fastnet rock,
01:05:20commemorating those that perished in the 1979 storm.
01:05:27The Fastnet storm is once in a generation.
01:05:30This was the worst sailing race disaster in history.
01:05:36This was the Titanic disaster of sailing.
01:05:39After the Titanic sank, ship safety was changed forever.
01:05:44After the 79 Fastnet race,
01:05:47sailing safety would never be the same again.
01:05:52As a meteorologist, it's ingrained in the history of the UK Met Office.
01:06:06Battling the elements to save lives at sea,
01:06:09join the Coast Guard for Search and Rescue SOS.
01:06:12Available to watch now on My5.
01:06:15And take a step back in time as we tell the story of a shopping revolution.
01:06:20The 1970 supermarket is brand new next Wednesday at 9.
01:06:24Next, Inside the Force 24-7.
01:06:35.