World Sailing Report on Bora Gulari Accident
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Dinghy classes
Forum Name: Dinghy development
Forum Discription: The latest moves in the dinghy market
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12918
Printed Date: 04 Jul 25 at 8:45pm
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Topic: World Sailing Report on Bora Gulari Accident
Posted By: JimC
Subject: World Sailing Report on Bora Gulari Accident
Date Posted: 22 Nov 17 at 10:23pm
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Here's the World Sailing report on the accident that led to Bora Gulari losing several fingers.
http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/WorldSailingInvestigationReportNacra17IncidentAugust2017-%5B23296%5D.pdf" rel="nofollow - WorldSailingInvestigationReportNacra17IncidentAugust2017 Wrapping that control line round your hand to get a better grip is a *really* bad idea! |
Replies:
Posted By: turnturtle
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 6:59am
| Note of caution for everyone ☠️ |
Posted By: Do Different
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 7:35am
| Basic old fashioned seamanship. Don't stand in a bight or a coil, don't take turn that will become a hitch. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 9:13am
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Ouch... I had a friend who lost a finger tip falling off the back of tornado with a kite sheet wrap over his hand. He was sailing with Hugh Styles at the time who was on this investigation team. I quite often take wraps on the main, which I know is a bad habit. But really just upwind where I don't feel 200 has quite the speeds to cause the injuries though... a snapped toe strap may achieve the sudden fall though. Generally I think dinghy sailing is very safe. Certainly around the events i've been to I can only recall less than a dozen serious incident, plus a few more recounted second hand. Does anyone know where you can buy those cut resistant gripper gloves? Although at $19 they're quite a bit more expensive than the builders merchants. |
Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 9:21am
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Terrible injury, I hate ropes they're bad enough when travelling at the low speeds we do, but at foiling speeds?
Someone needs to work on a better system of controlling what we do than having to wrap bloody rope round our hands, it's primitive, no other windsport does it, windsurfers use the boom kites use a bar. Our feet on pedals would be more efficient, all the mechanisms they must employ to get the other foils working, there should be a better system so that in the event of an accident like that everyone gets thrown clear and even then they are not out of the woods, they could easily hit the damn wires holding the masts up. Yotties should leave speed to the disciplines geared for it or design better safety systems. A tragedy to that guy he's very talented I'm sure I watched a video of him doing well in a foiling moth event in Hood River, what a nighmare, gutted for him. ------------- https://www.corekite.co.uk/snow-accessories-11-c.asp" rel="nofollow - Snow Equipment Deals https://www.corekite.co.uk" rel="nofollow - New Core Kite website |
Posted By: Do Different
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 9:51am
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Come on people. Mozzy you've always talked good technical sense but really? Cut resistant gloves, get real, a wrap will rip bits off not cut them off gloves ain't saving you, only good practice will help. And iGRF, you don't HAVE to wrap ropes round your hands, if you do you're doing it wrong.
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Posted By: davidyacht
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 9:53am
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Surely the need to wrap a sheet or control line around your hand indicates ... insufficient hand grip, not enough purchases, not enough grip of the ratchet, an inadequate cleat or that the line is to thin. For the line to sever your fingers, one would think the latter, which may be an unforseen consequence of developments in the strength of modern chordage and a trend to use low diameter lines to reduce friction. You would never hold onto a wire rope, but now we have low diameter lines with the equivalent strength of wire. I also know someone who did serious damage to his hand by holding onto the back beam of a Tornado during a capsize. Not at all nice, especially given the talent of Bora. Would be worth giving this publicity to prevent similar accidents. ------------- Happily living in the past |
Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 9:55am
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I don't, but 'they' have a habit of wrapping themselves around me, my legs mainly, about which I have a childhood phobia, when something wrapped itself round my legs when I was young swimming in the Thames at Oxford it held me under and I came very close to drowning.
I can't count the number of times I've completely lost the plot because of bloody ropes wrapping themselves where they are not wanted. ------------- https://www.corekite.co.uk/snow-accessories-11-c.asp" rel="nofollow - Snow Equipment Deals https://www.corekite.co.uk" rel="nofollow - New Core Kite website |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 9:57am
I wasn't suggesting them as my own idea, I was referencing the recommendation in the report. "c. Personal Safety Equipment – Sailors should wear gloves that protect against cutting by thin lines and wire under load. These are commercially available at low cost. The standard these types of gloves are tested is based on cutting with a straight edge. There are no protection standards that apply to wrapping lines around a hand." Details in Appendix 3 and copied below.  . |
Posted By: Do Different
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 10:13am
| Fair enough Mozzy, I stand corrected. And you've proved my point, how many pages to say what the "old boys" knew along and then come up with a technical answer which won't actually save an injury. |
Posted By: Do Different
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 10:22am
| Two issues IGRF. I agree accidental wraps can be terrifying and potentially fatal but the incident in question was intentional. |
Posted By: turnturtle
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 10:24am
I’ve always had similar issues- it’s funny, the good guys always seem to keep their sheets tidy, it’s not dinghy sailing unless at least one tail has been lost down the self bailer... as for windsurfing, getting the mouse tail of the downhaul to stay in the sail pocket... p’ah, such complexity eludes me. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 10:28am
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DoDifferent, I completely agree, the answer is to not wrap a rope. All my coaches said never wrap sheets. Partly for safety, but also it leads to a bad habit of keeping sheets still.
Having said that, just looking at my 200 videos and if the main is near centre I pretty much always have a wrap (especially when sailing bare handed). I run a 6mm mainsheet, I guess it's just too thin for me to properly grip for the leech tension without gripper gloves. So why don't I wear gripper gloves? Well, I'm guilty of another bad practice, I like to slip the sheet through my hand to ease it, which is more difficult with a 'gripper' glove. I end up sailing most of the time without gloves so I can slip a sheet, but then then also wrap the sheet. So I was thinking, maybe I should start sailing with the sticky gripper gloves again as it'll at least force me to use better technique, and if I can get ones that are cut resistant and function just as well, then that's got to be good right? Regarding the gloves, what would be interesting to know, is whether the rope cut through his gloves and fingers, or if it just gripped his fingers through the gloves and pulled the fingers off alongside the rest of the glove. Because if his fingers tore off, but the glove didn't tear, just slipping off his hand, then stronger gloves would not help. If the rope is gripping the fingers through the glove, then tearing both glove fingers and actual fingers off in one, then maybe Kevlar reinforced gloves may help? Your finger would still be gripped (possibly dislocation / break) but the strength of the glove would stop it being torn off (assuming the whole gloves doesn't slip off your hand taking your finger with it)? |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 10:56am
| Maybe rules should state minimum of 8mm lines? Not trendy, not quite as free running, but possibly safer? |
Posted By: andymck
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 11:36am
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There is a major floor in the report which is the lack of a good medical report. There are three potential mechanisms for the injury as described, a cut by a sharp surface. A crush injury by the control line or a “ring” avulsion type injury, which is a combination of constriction and tension. Or a combination. Use of Gloves will not really protect against the latter two. In fact can in some circumstances can make it worse.
A better description of the state of tissues at time of presentation including the state of the gloves would provide clues to the mechanism involved. This would normally be part of a medical report. This would have also tried to identify the mechanism as it does have a bearing on prognosis. The big lesson appears to be the wrapping of sheets and lines. Oh and that we know as we get faster and foil we are going to have more significant and potentially life changing injuries due to the massive increase in kinetic energy. Andy ------------- Andy Mck |
Posted By: Old Timer
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 1:13pm
Yeah, kiting is really safe, although I have heard tales of a few muppets smashing themselves up on land when they don’t have the skills to control the kite.
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Posted By: sargesail
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 1:55pm
In the early days I saw someone transition off the sea, over the beach and through the windscreen of his own BMW in the carpark.  
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Posted By: 423zero
Date Posted: 23 Nov 17 at 5:23pm
| I saw a kite mowdown two toddlers and their mother, they were paddling in two inches of water. |
Posted By: johnr
Date Posted: 24 Nov 17 at 9:19am
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Kit injury 1: guys loses control of his kite in car park is dragged along car park feet first with legs under parked car and face and body through car door. Poor guy reading the paper to get away from his wife on a Sunday morning probably had a toilet accident. Both kneecaps damaged and serious rehabilitation required.
Kite injury 2: Jumps and lands in massive tree stump washed up on beach breaking hip again with long term rehabilitation. Kite injury 3: Fatality due to head injury colliding with slip edge during launching. The guys was a very experienced windsurfer, outdoor instructor and the last guy I thought would die doing kitesurfing. Kiting does not seem that safe compared to windsurfing. Sure kit is better and people more skillful but the early adoptors did not seem to fare to well. Not sure any of those gloves would prevent a reoccurrence of Bora's injury as I believe that it was the wrapping of the control line that caused the issue. It could be argued that if he was not wearing gloves then he would have come of without losing figures as the rope would have been more inclined to release. They are wearing gloves so they can pull high loads and use skinny ropes. |
Posted By: turnturtle
Date Posted: 24 Nov 17 at 12:11pm
| I heard a rumour of a muppet who smashed himself up on a harbour wall kiting.... he gave it up and ‘retired’ to dinghy sailing as a result... via a Musto Skiff. |
Posted By: Oatsandbeans
Date Posted: 24 Nov 17 at 1:38pm
| It always made me cringe seeing sailors wrap ropes around my hands. I have never done it. I get a better grip on a rope by passing it over my thumb when it has come out the top of my hand and then it goes back into the hand. If you want to ease it you just ease your grip and it slowly runs over thumb. In an extreme situation like bora's letting the rope off your hand is still easy and quick. |
Posted By: JohnJack
Date Posted: 27 Nov 17 at 9:48am
| From the report, it sounds like the amputation of his fingers was caused by the sheet first gripping then the sudden jerk as the sheet tightens against the helmsman momentum whilst exiting the boat during the pitch pole. Same mechanism as the long drop (though a hangman's skill was in only allowing the offender to drop enough to allow dislocation of the neck and not ripping the head off). I never understood the need for super skinny sheets, though I have really poor grip in my hands anyway and struggle with anything less than 8-10mm if it has any serious load on it. If I find it doesn't run free enough, I just substitute with bigger blocks. the extra few grams in weight is not going to make that much difference overall. However not sure if the Nacra is a total one design where this isn't a possibility (in which case it may need a review) or is this just put down to being a freak accident with an "allowable" minute possibility of reaccurence. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 27 Nov 17 at 10:19am
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Control lines I find adding extra diameter really adds resistance, so it end up being just as tough on your hands, and tougher on your muscles, and then doesn't release as well. You can obviously go up in sheave diameter, but it's not always possible on control lines. With sheets you can always use larger blocks and with tapered sheets it should run smooth. I do find over 8mm the sheets gets quite heavy and harder to work with in the boat.
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Posted By: Sam.Spoons
Date Posted: 27 Nov 17 at 11:00am
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From what I can gather it was the traveller line rather than the sheet that did the damage JJ. Bigger blocks will reduce friction as will fewer blocks or thinner rope. I guess finding a compromise is the key. Spice has a 6:1 centre mainsheet but still has pretty high sheet loads, Blaze (and now Supernova) has a 2:1 transom mainsheet led along the boom via a ratchet on the kicker take off to the hand. Much lower sheet loads with only three blocks in the system, but I do seem to be pulling a fair bit of mainsheet between running and upwind. I suppose a couple of the extra purchases on the Spice go to overcoming the extra friction  Perhaps I'll measure the amount of sheet pulled next time I rig each of the boats..... ------------- Spice 346 "Flat Broke" Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish" |