Race2 accident
2000/2/22 AC2000 Race#2
スタートから１２分、異変発見
Twelve minutes after the start, halfway up the first beat, Francesco de Angelis saw the boat speed drop dramatically.
Max Sirena, second bowman, went under deck to check the keel and saw that either a plastic bag or a big piece of cloth had got caught at the bottom of the keel.
Whilst Paolo Bassani, bowman, was pulling the carbon pole out of the boat, Max Sirena was hit on the head by its hook and was wounded.
With Sirena sitting on Luna Rossa's stern bleeding, the other crew members desperately tried to free the keel from the cloth:
Paolo Bassani, bowman, was hauled overboard with a halyard, then Francesco de Angelis was forced to stop the boat, sails flapping, in order to let Piero Romeo (second mainsheet trimmer) dive under the boat to clean the keel.
Max Sirena was transferred on Luna Rossa's tender to get stitched by the team's doctor Andrea Fraschini.
With Team New Zealand already far away, de Angelis and his crew were able to focus on the race again. Lorenzo Mazza, grinder/tailer, took Sirena's place.
負傷した Sirena と Angelis のコメント
Max Sirena, back to the base, said:
"I was under deck and whilst passing the carbon pole to someone on deck I was hit by the hook at its end and I was wounded on the head.
I am now well. I was more sad because we lost the race than having injured myself".
Francesco de Angelis said:
"I don't think it's bad luck. These things can happen. Soon after the start we got something - maybe some cloth with rope attached - around the nose of the bulb.
We tacked to try and free the thing off but that didn't work, so we tried using the kelp pole and that didn't work either.
Piero Romeo then volunteered to dive underwater. The cloth moved but got caught on a winglet.
The accident to Max Sirena didn't influence the outcome of the race.
We were already behind Team New Zealand. We decided to move Max to the chase boat as the gap between us and our opponent was already big.
If we had been closer we might have kept him on board. He is well now and will be racing on the next race on Thursday".
