CYCA's Flinders Islet Inquiry may affect 2009 Sydney Hobart safety reg

2:20 AM Thu 10 Dec 2009 GMT

'Carbon fibre from Shockwave 5, washed up on Corrimal Beach with Towradgi Point in the background. Flinders Island is seen on the horizon, just under the sunlit storm clouds.' Peter Andrews

After the tragic deaths of sailors Andrew Short, the owner/skipper of Andrew Short Marine and crew Sally Gordon, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) Board of Directors resolved to hold an inquiry into the incident that occurred during the Flinders Islet Yacht Race on 10 October 2009 and the interim recommendations may affect the 2009 Sydney Hobart safety regulations.

While the general belief was that nothing would happen until a coronial enquiry which might be a year or more away, under the terms of its Aquatic License, issued by NSW Maritime, the Club is required to investigate the race.

Rear Admiral Chris Oxenbould AO RAN (Retired) is chairing the 2009 Flinders Islet Inquiry Committee. Other members of the committee include Past Commodore John Brooks and Past Commodore and current ISAF Treasurer David Kellett AM.

In an official statement the CYCA said some weeks ago 'In accordance with the terms of reference, the inquiry may seek input from various parties including, but not limited to, the crew of competing yachts, members of the race committee, the Bureau of Meteorology, emergency services involved in the incident, and such other persons as the inquiry sees fit. The inquiry may also receive written submissions.

Matt Allen, the CYCA Commodore provided some more background for Sail-World.com

'The NSW Police have indicated to us that they're only preparing a report for the coroner, but a coronial inquiry is well into the future.

'We are required to make some form of inquiry into the incident under our aquatic license. We wanted to wait until we did the police and operational debrief which we did some few weeks ago, and then we did our own debrief.
'We've made some procedural changes as a result of our debrief; very minor things, you know, fine tuning like how things could be more efficient or various things.

'The inquiry is not anywhere near as complicated as the circumstances of 1998. I think there's obviously a chance that they may recommend to the club that we recommend to regulatory authorities - ISAF, Yachting Australia - to make some changes to safety regs in some areas.

'We can make our own regulations as pertaining to our races our Cat 1 and Cat 2 and will add additional safety regulations if needed.

'I've spoken to the NSW Government at Ministerial level. They realise that our expertise - you can see we've put Dave Keller, John Brooks and chaired by Chris Oxenbould - I would have thought that it's unlikely that any part of Government could put in three people of equal calibre to those three to look at a yachting related issue.

'I think that the general feeling - I've done some research on this - generally the coroner will review favourably the fact that Club's doing the same investigation, it's come up with x number of recommendations, and it's implemented or recommended them onto yachting authorities.

'We all know that we've got a race that starts at 1pm on Boxing Day. If there are any significant recommendations coming out of this then the Club will look at how we attempt to implement some or all of these for the 2009 Hobart race.'

by Rob Kothe

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CYCA's Flinders Islet Inquiry may affect 2009 Sydney Hobart safety reg

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