'Turn to port, port, port, port...oh no...'

9:53 PM Sun 13 Sep 2009 GMT

'Spirit of Bermuda collision with Perception - photo by Lou Grimaldi' .

The Spirit of Bermuda started the Schooner Festival in Massachusetts in fine spirit yesterday with a collision, with a schooner half its size. Spirit's 16 foot bow sprit punched through Perception's main boom and ripped into her lifelines about one third forward of her stern.

Luckily no one was hurt and neither the 112-foot Spirit nor the 50 foot Perception is to have suffered major hull damage.

The Spirit was taking part in the 25th annual Gloucester Schooner Festival over the Labour Day weekend when the accident happened on Sunday as the two boats were seconds from crossing the start line. Eyewitness Larry Rosenfeld, who was on board the ship as a navigator and participates in 200 sailing races annually, said the crash happened in an instant. Thirteen seconds before the race started he said he did not see another vessel in front of Spirit.

'At about three seconds before the start signal (six to seven seconds before impact) I saw the bow sprit and then the bow of Perception on our starboard bow and told the helmsman to turn to left because collision was imminent and this was the best alteration of course in order to minimise damage.'

Mr. Rosenfield said the helmsman was turning left as he said the command because he too saw that impact with the other boat was imminent.

'The captain who was standing further to the left of the ship, then ordered the helm left as soon as he saw the situation,' Mr. Rosenfeld said. 'We did not have a lot of speed, so while the action of the helmsman was extremely quick, the boat itself was somewhat sluggish to respond.'

Malcolm Kirkland, who is the executive director of the Bermuda Sloop Foundation which runs the Spirit, was also on board.

Crew members of the Spirit of Bermuda , pull onboard one of two men the vessel rescued when their boat capsized. The other man can be seen next to the distressed boat, off St George’s, Sunday afternoon. - .. .

The Sloop's Chairman Alan Burland, who was the helmsman at the time of the accident, went through a debrief with the entire crew and reminded everyone that it was an important life lesson and asked that they remain respectful if a dispute started with the other crew.

Crew on board the Spirit of Bermuda have been a lot in the news lately - only last month they made headlines when they beat the Coast Guard to be involved in a realtime rescue of two men from a capsized boat.

by Royal Gazette/Sail-World Cruising