All language subtitles for Disaster.At.Sea.Fastnet.1979.2023.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

HORN BLARES

ANGELA RIPPON:
The Fastnet Race of 1979

is one that its competitors
will never forget.

They were absolutely terrified.

A wave that looked like
a block of flats.

Mad, mad ride.
We've never seen anything like it.

An iconic sailing race...

The Fastnet Race
is one of the classic offshore races

and, arguably, the toughest.

...that rounds the notorious
Fastnet Rock...

This isolated rock off
the south of Ireland

with this extraordinary lighthouse.

In the summer of 1979,

it was hit by a storm
that no forecaster saw coming...

It was a weather bomb.
No-one had a chance.

...until it was too late...

They were sailing into
the centre of this storm.

...leaving a trail of destruction.

I looked up and the, um...

the cooker was flying towards me.

This is the story of four days
that changed yacht racing...

This was the Titanic disaster
of sailing.

...and weather forecasting...

It's ingrained in the history
of the UK Met Office.

Forever...

...with 300 boats hit by
a once-in-a-generation sea storm...

60-foot-high waves.

These tattered life rafts.

...that took the lives
of 21 people...

He was held to the life raft

with his lifeline, but he was gone.

...and triggered heroic efforts

in the biggest peacetime rescue
operation the UK had ever seen...

All the lifeboats were called out.

That was when we realised
this was a little bit bigger

than just going after one yacht.

...told by the men and women
who lived to tell the tale

of the disaster at sea - 1979.

DISCO MUSIC PLAYS

The Fastnet Race,
certainly in the '70s,

was probably THE most important
event in the racing calendar

Started in 1925,
the Fastnet Race soon became known

as one of the world's leading
offshore sailing races.

REPORTER: The Fastnet Race,
which is the climax of Cowes Week.

With spinnakers set, they headed
westwards down the Solent.

The Fastnet Race is one of

the classic offshore races and,

arguably, the toughest.

The Grand National of
offshore racing.

And they're off.

The Fastnet Race is usually
tough going.

Anybody who was anybody in sailing

wanted to take part
in the Fastnet Race.

Edward Heath's Morning Cloud
is going well with her new crew.

But I'm not just talking about
the big boats,

but lots of smaller boats as well.

If you'd got any interest
in yachts or yachting,

you wanted to be
in that particular race.

It was the place to be.

When you've got lots of wind,

you've got really good speed,

then you're in a kind of groove

and this is glorious,

because there's no motor going.

Everything's under control.

The 600-mile race is named
after the Fastnet Rock,

an exposed islet lying at
the southernmost tip of Ireland,

topped by
a 55-metre-tall lighthouse,

which competitors must round
as part of the race.

There's something about the image
of the Fastnet Rock itself.

You know, this isolated rock off
the south of Ireland,

with this extraordinary lighthouse.

Competing for the coveted
Fastnet Challenge Cup Trophy,

the 1979 route took competitors
from Cowes through the Solent,

down the south coast of the UK,

past Land's End,

across the Celtic Sea

and round the Fastnet Rock,

before finishing in Plymouth.

CLARE NASIR: One of the reasons
why the Fastnet Race is so exciting

is the combination of coastal waters
and open waters.

Things were fairly calm.

We had a slight ridge
of high pressure

across southern parts of the UK.

DEREK MORLAND: The Fastnet was
the biggest race in the world,

as far as I was concerned.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL:
Like many people who sail,

the Fastnet was always...

in my bucket list.

We had raced every day
during Cowes Week,

so we'd been working quite hard
during the week.

And partying quite hard.

You've got hundreds of boats all
starting in the space of an hour.

It's very impressive.

COMMENTATOR: Ten seconds.

That day, I was
presenting World Of Sport,

then ITV's Saturday-afternoon
sports program me.

Four, three,

two, one.

At around about 1.30,

we started to get live pictures
from the Solent,

from Southern Television's
outside-broadcast vessel,

supplying the whole ITV network
with pictures.

REPORTER:
The start is all important.

An incredible sight.

303 yachts in the Solent on
a very pleasant Saturday afternoon.

Before anyone
heads out on a sailing race,

they have to have
a meteorological brief.

This time, it came from
Southampton Weather Centre.

'South-westerly winds,

'force four to five,

'increasing to force six to seven
for a time.'

"Force four to five,

"worsening to force six to seven
for a time." That's all.

It's worth bearing in mind
that the accuracy of these forecasts

during the '70s

was pretty much 24 hours,

which is OK if you're
going out sailing for a day.

However, for a race heading out
to sea for a number of days,

you're pretty much going into
the unknown.

ANGELA: Starting on the Saturday,

the competitors knew the finish time
was at the whims of the weather,

and could take them anything
between three and five days.

It's still anyone's cup.

We knew that we were probably going
to have very little wind

for the beginning of the race...

and that we would probably pick up
a bit after the first or second day.

But there was not even a hint
of what was to come.

The fact that it was going to be
windy didn't fill us full of fear.

I mean, you know, at 24,
I was invincible.

CLARE: The hint that something
windy was on the horizon was stated,

but, for many of the sailing crews,
that was fantastic.

They want the wind.

They want a five, a force six,

a force seven,
even a gale-force eight.

We were very confident
with our capabilities.

We didn't realise how much wind
was coming. Nobody did.

No idea of the severity of the gales
that were going to hit these yachts.

Absolutely no idea at all of
the carnage that was awaiting them.

In late summer 1979,

the biennial Fastnet Race
was getting under way.

This appeared to be
a typical Fastnet Race.

It was going to be hard fought.

REPORTER: Yachts jostle for position
on the starting line

while they wait for the gun to go.

There's a lot of boats
all over the place.

A passing submarine
adds to the hazards for the fleet.

They want to spread them out,
a bit like marathon runners.

Setting sail on his first
Fastnet Race

was 17-year-old Jon Dorey.

These photos were taken

on the Saturday morning
of the Fastnet Race.

This is my father here.

And that's... that's me.

Jon was part of an eight-man crew
from Guernsey,

aboard his father Peter's yacht,
Cavale.

It was very much
a family atmosphere on the boat.

My father had sailed it before,
in 1973,

with lan, his cousin,
who was also racing with us in '79.

So, that would have been taken -
I don't know -

about two hours before we started
the race, I would say.

And in the belly of every
crew member and skipper,

there's that knotted feeling
of uncertainty.

Also jostling for position
in the middle of the racing fleet

was another 37-foot yacht, Trophy.

You're having to be
really quite careful

that you don't hit another boat.

Among Trophy's eight-man crew
from Essex

was 24-year-old engineer
Derek Morland,

also competing in the race
for the first time.

We got into what we thought

was the best position for the start,
for us.

And we were just absolutely excited.

Trying to make a good start
with the mid-sized yachts

like Cavale and Trophy

were the crew of Allamanda,

owned by 35-year-old
property developer Michael Campbell.

So, I was not experienced at all
in offshore racing.

So, for that reason, I got together
a very competent crew.

CLARE NASIR:
At this point, things were so calm,

it was a very different set of...

worries, really.

We were going out there,
just hoping there'd be some wind.

The biggest concern was they weren't
going to pick up momentum

to start the race properly.

The Met Office were forecasting
little wind,

calm seas and fog for
the first two days of the race,

and nothing stronger
than mild gales by day three.

For the sailors,
the air was fairly quiet.

But on the other side
of the Atlantic,

the weather was far from calm.

You see something spawned
across North America -

it can easily then track
across the water towards the UK.

Across North America,

there was some really
quite violent weather going on.

Stormy conditions.

And it really is dependent on
where the jet stream is

to where that will eventually land.

The forecasters at the UK Met Office
hadn't got wind of anything worrying

that was heading for British shores.

MICHAEL BUERK:
It's got an image of real...

man against the elements.

The Fastnet Rock was known as
"Ireland's teardrop”,

because it was the last thing

that immigrants leaving Ireland
for America would see

as they left their home.

This isolated rock
off the south of Ireland

is this bleak place

with this extraordinary lighthouse.

What a job that must be.

With the race now under way
in the Solent,

off the south coast of Ireland,

29-year-old light keeper
Gerald Butler was starting his shift

on Fastnet Rock.

The rock is exposed to
some of the most unimaginable forces

of the Atlantic.

I had never experienced
a Fastnet Race previous to this,

so I was highly excited.

I felt honoured and privileged
just to be there.

All day Saturday,
the sea was just flat-calm,

just as calm as a cup of tea.

We weren't concerned in any way,
really.

Once the competitors finally arrived
at Fastnet Rock,

Gerald and two other light keepers

would relay the numbers of
the yachts to the organisers,

as the boats rounded the rock.

We knew things were going to be
very, very slow,

so we knew the yachts would not be
coming around until the Monday.

Back on the south coast of England,

Trophy and the other yachts
were now moving out of the Solent.

It was like you were dreaming.
It was just mad.

We were just doing it for fun.

You know,
we didn't have massive budgets.

None of us got paid any money.

By contrast,
some boats were very well funded,

with some high-profile
public figures at the helm.

REPORTER: The defending champion,
Britain,

with Morning Cloud
and team captain Edward Heath.

In 1979,
one of the best-known competitors

was the former Prime Minister
Edward Heath.

Big personalities,
rich men, powerful men.

And they were the ones who made

all the national newspaper
headlines,

not your ordinary yachtsman.

This is the one place in the world
in early August

where anyone is likely to be
someone.

A lot of people thought,

"There are the haves
and the have yachts.”

It was regarded as an elite sport,
a rich man's sport.

And, certainly, that is true
of the bigger boats.

Janet Grosvenor was
the deputy race director in 1979.

In 1979 and, as of now,

you have a huge spectrum of people

taking part in these races -

amateurs and professionals.

In '79, anyone could take part.

It was this mix of experience levels

that helped to make the Fastnet Race
so popular.

But it also left some
more vulnerable to the waves.

In my view, there were actually too
many amateur yachtsmen in that race

and a lot of boats
that weren't actually fully equipped

to deal with the conditions.

As dawn broke on day two,

all the yachts
were still in the race,

as the competitors had found
themselves becalmed in thick fog,

which had crept in overnight.

GERALD: Fog on Fastnet
is a regular occurrence,

a normal thing to happen,

and the sea was calm.

The fog was just happily
keeping us company,

so there was nothing to make me
think that a storm is coming.

It was foggy and calm then. I don't
think we thought anything of that.

REPORTER: At the meteorological
headquarters in Bracknell,

human knowledge and modern
technology combine

to produce an accurate forecast.

At Met Office HQ in Berkshire,

forecasters were struggling
to identify

exactly what WAS coming across
the Atlantic.

It was extremely difficult
for the Met Office in those days.

They didn't have
the hi-tech equipment.

CLARE: The '70s were a pioneering
time for weather forecasting.

However, radar and satellite
were still in their infancy.

Relative to what we use now,

computer models were pretty...
basic.

In the '70s,
people got their weather forecasts

from the radio,
the TV and the newspapers.

But it was very vague

and it was occasionally
completely inaccurate.

Prior to GPS, back in the '70s,

you were pretty much cut off
once you were out to sea.

So the shipping forecast
was like gold dust.

RADIO: 'Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea,

'south to southwest four.'

But with the shipping forecast
broadcast just four times a day

and only forecasting
the next 24 hours,

it was limited in
how much it could help sailors.

JON: You'd tune into
the shipping forecast,

but it only came out
once every six hours.

And things can move
quicker than that.

If you're two or three days
away from land

and you need to get back to land
quickly,

you can run into problems.

MICHAEL: So, Monday the 13th dawned.

We'd rounded
the south west of England

and we were aiming into
the Irish Sea.

For the Fastnet competitors,
the sea was still calm.

We had heard the morning forecast

and there was no warning
of any significant wind at all.

It was very light wind.

But was this
the calm before the storm?

Possibly.

Between Sunday and Monday,

that's when we saw the development

of something called
explosive cyclogenesis.

In layman's terms,
it was a weather bomb.

Once this low-pressure system,
named Low Y - that's a letter Y...

Once it finally engaged with
the jet stream, it started spinning.

It started really deepening.

The wind started picking up

and pummelling towards
the Fastnet Rock.

A weather bomb - in technical terms,

it's when the centre
of a low pressure

drops by 24 millibars in 24 hours.

However, what happened
mid August in 1979

was off the scale.

An absolute beast of a storm.

No-one had a chance.

As the yachts were passing
Land's End

and heading into the Celtic Sea...

...150 miles away at Fastnet Rock,

light keeper Gerald Butler
was starting to feel uneasy.

GERALD: On Monday morning,
the fog cleared.

It's very unusual
for the fog to Lift so quickly.

It's a phenomenal thing to see.
In a matter of minutes, it was gone.

And... that kind of alarmed us.

The wind had picked up
some strength,

revealing something
completely different.

And it really was an indication
of what was to come.

But, for the race competitors,
a bit more wind was welcome.

The fog lifted around about midday

and we had a decent breeze,

so we were sailing along
very nicely.

We had a really rather pleasant day
ahead of us.

Well, looked like it.

RADIO: 'Mainly southerly four.
Locally, six,

'increasing six locally,
gale eight.'

That was a real
false sense of security

that things were just a bit too calm
and, yes, bring on the wind.

That's what they wanted.

We did pick up the forecasts
as they came.

There was no indication
the winds were going to be

other than a fairly normal
gale-force eight.

JON: We'd sailed in stronger winds
than that in Cowes the week before.

We didn't feel it was a problem
at all.

During Monday afternoon,

this weather system was developing
so quickly,

it was really hard
for the meteorologists to keep up.

And with the UK Met Office

not yet spotting the ticking
weather time bomb,

the yacht crews in its path had no
clue of the meteorological monster

that was heading their way.

There was no hint, no suggestion,

that the weather
was going to change so suddenly,

so dramatically and so seriously.

With most yachts now entering
the Celtic Sea,

off Southern Ireland,
the bigger boats in the race

were now starting to round
Fastnet Rock.

The size of the yachts
when they were passing

was a phenomenal sight
for someone like me to see.

I was only 29.

I really felt
this was just the place to be.

For the mid-sized yachts, there was
still a way to go to reach the rock,

as they passed Land's End
and headed into the Celtic Sea.

The breeze started to pick up
and we were just sailing off,

out into the western approaches.

With the race now three days in,

back on dry land, Janet Grosvenor
and the race organisers

decamped to the finish line
in Plymouth.

When we got to Plymouth
on the Monday,

we could sense that the wind

was picking up.

But at that point we thought,

"This is just going to make it
a very, very fast race

"and the big boats will be here
sooner than we expect.”

I noticed a boat, a pleasure craft.

It was close into the rock.

And, at that point,
the wind had started to freshen.

The weather was
quickly deteriorating.

And I remember looking and thinking,
"Uh-oh. Time you were gone in."

The evening shipping forecast

was the first to indicate anything
more than a gale-force eight.

RADIO: 'South-westerly gales,
force eight.

'Increasing severe gales.
Force nine imminent.'

DEREK:
The breeze started to build up.

Robin, the navigator, said to me,

"Look, we've just got a forecast
for force nine."

And that's different.
HE CHUCKLES

MICHAEL BUERK:
Remember, this is a race.

So right up until the last moment,

these... in my view,

mad people are thinking,

"If I keep the sails up
a bit longer,

"I can get ahead of
all the competition."

JON DOREY: Seven to eight is a lot,
but it's manageable.

If you go up to storm-force ten,

you're probably
taking all your sails down,

um, cos that's not looking good.

That's just too much.

The jet stream
was in the right place.

It was the right strength for this
storm to be primed for a storm ten.

By the time we...

were aware of something beyond

just a normal gale coming our way,

we were already past Land's End.

You're out in the middle of sea.

You can't just pull into a port
and go into a marina.

You're just on your own.

The unexpectedness of it...

really, I think, depended on

where you were in the fleet.

If you were a big, fast boat,
in a sense, you were ahead of it.

If you were a little boat,
you might be behind it.

If you were the middle-range boats,
you were right in the middle of it.

Where we were at that time,
it would have been more dangerous

to turn around
and try to go into the wind.

It just wasn't an option.

Most of the competitors were sailing
into the centre of this storm.

Reliant on the shipping forecasts,

and with no storm-force winds
yet broadcast,

the competitors
aboard mid-sized yachts,

like Trophy, Cavale and Allamanda,

were unaware of the ferocious winds
coming their way.

But light keeper Gerald Butler

COULD see that conditions
were deteriorating

and started making preparations.

About ten o'clock,

we battened all the doors.

Everything we could was tied down.

It's like being in a submarine.

When it's locked, closed,
it's watertight.

For us, you see, we were safe

but the yachts -
we were really concerned for them.

I think the first time
I remember picking up on

how things were unfolding,

simply by walking up a hill

and I couldn't walk
against the wind.

And you instantly thought,

"There's something going on here.

"I hope everyone's all right.”

By this time,
we had reduced the sail a lot.

It was dark. You couldn't really see
what was happening on the horizon.

But this beast was moving in.

With the bigger yachts in the race
rounding Fastnet,

light keeper Gerald Butler had been
recording their sail numbers

and feeding them back
to the organisers.

There would've been about 15 yachts
at any time in the area of Fastnet.

There was all these lights
bobbing in the water.

We had this Aldous lamp.

The beam of light was thrown
directly onto the yachts.

When the sea hit the tower,

everything beneath us
was totally obscured.

And then you'd see the wave
collapsing and cascading down

on top of whatever yachts
were in that area.

And to see the sailors up on deck,

and they were up to their knees
in water.

RADIO: 'Fastnet - south-westerly
severe gales, force nine.

'Increasing storm-force ten
imminent.'

MICHAEL CAMPBELL:
It was around about eleven o'clock

that probably
the wind accelerated...

in a way that I've never seen
a wind get up so quickly.

Very shortly after,
the mast collapsed.

ANGELA: With the broken mast
now loose on deck,

and having lost the radio aerial
attached to it,

Michael Campbell and
the yacht's skipper, Angus Gavin,

were forced into desperate action
to seek help.

Angus suggested that
we should send up some flares.

DEREK:
The waves were getting bigger,

the boat was going faster.

But it wasn't the weather...

that created our problems.

It was when we saw the red flare.

That's when it changed.

The boat had not been holed.

None of us had been heard.

I think all of us, in retrospect,
would say that

perhaps it was unnecessary
to have sent the flares up,

but, um, that's what we did.

Trophy responded, very generously.

For all seafarers...
it's not just the etiquette -

it's the morality,
it's the ethics of sailing -

that you always go to the help of

some other sailor who's in distress.

We'd grown up with this

sort of thing about sailing...

is that if a boat's in trouble,
you go and help.

We never even really
thought about it.

The big decision is,

"How much risk am I putting myself
and my crew in doing that?"

Fearing that members of
Allamanda's crew may be overboard,

Trophy took down their own sails
and used their motor to get to them.

If they'd lost anybody

that was drifting off,

maybe we could do something to...

um, help them.

An optimistic thing,
as it turned out,

because the weather had by now
got worse.

The waves were bigger,
the wind was heavier.

MICHAEL CAMPBELL:
And we realised that in that sea,

there was nothing that anyone
could do to really help us.

ANGELA: So, Allamanda's crew decided
their only option

was to cut off the boat's rigging
and hazardous broken mast.

The thing we were concerned about -

that we didn't hammer off downwind
and go straight into them.

But they had to sail close enough
to shout to each other

and for Trophy
to be on hand to help.

We told them that once
we got rid of the mast, we were OK

and that we would motor to Cork.

So we said, "We'll just stand by

"and if you need anything,

"let off another flare."

With conditions worsening,
on board Trophy,

the crew decided
to ride out the storm till morning,

with just the motor and no sails,
while they stood by Allamanda.

RADIO: 'Southwest, veering westerly.

"Storm-force ten in Fastnet.'

The wind reached storm-force ten.

Winds were picking up to 70mph,
probably in excess of 100mph.

And a key component to this
was the wind change -

a rapid wind change of 90 degrees.

So, this low-pressure system
was so tightly coiled,

the wind change creates
absolutely gargantuan waves,

which weren't only really high.
They were really steep as well.

And they were coming from
every direction.

ANGELA: On Allamanda,

Michael Campbell was at the helm.

I suddenly heard, rather than saw...

THUNDER RUMBLES

..d roar.

I looked up to my left

and there was this wall of water
coming...

...out of sync
with the general weather...

...coming straight for our beam.

It is absolutely realistic
that waves can reach the height

of 40, 50, even 60 feet.

They're called rogue waves.

But it's the combination
of pretty much

what we could call a perfect storm.

On board Trophy, Derek Morland
was getting some sleep down below.

But his world was about
to be turned upside down.

A huge wave crashed onto the yacht.

The next thing that, um,
I knew was, I was woken up.

I stood up and looked around.

I was actually stood
on the ceiling.

Almost immediately,
the boat flew around

and rolled back upright again.

When we went up on deck,

the rig had gone over the side,
so the mast was...

was in the water.

Everything was over the side.

The giant wave had ripped off
Trophy's mast and rigging.

They also had a broken rudder.

To make matters worse, the skipper,

London publican Alan Bartlett,
had gone overboard.

Alan, who had been in the cockpit
when the boat rolled over,

he was over the side.

The crew managed
to pull Alan back onto the boat -

but with a broken mast,
just like on Allamanda,

they were now in grave danger.

In the middle of the night,

howling gale,

the mast's wires and ropes
and sheets and things

all flailing around,

threatening to knock you off,
threatening to bring the boat over.

By now, it's... it's...

it's survival, really.

For teenager Jon Dorey
on board his father's yacht, Cavale,

he was also realising
the dire straits

the yacht's crew were in.

Well, as a 17-year-old, I...

I'm wondering what I'm doing here.
Erm...

... I didn't think
it was gonna be like this.

Well, you're kind of terrified,
when you're down below.

I mean,
the boat's moving everywhere.

There's... Everything's
being thrown all over the place.

You know.

It's, um...

I've spoken to several yachtsmen

who took part in

the Fastnet Race of 1979,

and they were absolutely terrified.

It was like looking at a wave
that looked like a block of flats.

It was just
the most horrendous situation

that any of them had ever faced.

Expert sailors disagree

on what's the best way to survive

when it's really, really blowing.

Do you just put up

what they call a storm jib,

which is a tiny little triangle,

just to give you a bit of...

try and give you a bit of control?

Do you take all the sails down
and run in front of it under -

well, they say bare poles -
which is dangerous

because you have
no kind of control at all?

From midnight, we changed course

cos the wind had increased
a lot in strength,

so we couldn't continue
in the direction of Fastnet Rock.

We had to go more in the direction
of Wales.

Cavale's crew
hoped to ride out the storm

and return to the racecourse
in the morning.

We were just sailing on
the bare poles. No sails up.

So you've got the force of the wind,

is enough just
to push the boat along on its own.

But then at some point, you can't...
even that's too much.

You can't slow down.

It's just an absolute
helter-skelter ride.

Mad, mad ride. There's, um...

We've never seen anything like it.

It's dark outside,
but it's a white-out,

so there's spray everywhere.
Everywhere.

The noise - incredible.

WAVES CRASH

The boat's being thrown around
all over the place.

At one point, it's like, er,
explosions hit the boat.

And the boat goes
right the way over.

And I...
I don't know how it happened

but I'm lying against
the side of the boat

and there's a cooker, a gas cooker
on the other side of the boat,

which is about the size
of a microwave oven.

It's designed to swing.

I looked up and the, um...
the cooker was flying towards me.

It was kind of...

It was like a sort of space walk,
like an astronaut in space,

just rolling towards me -
seemed to be in slow motion.

And I was looking at it

and I was thinking,

"I wonder what's gonna happen next."

With the storm showing
no signs of calming down,

the winds were at force ten

and there were still
up to 240 race yachts out to sea.

We were listening
on the 2182 frequency,

which is the distress frequency.

A yacht'd come on and say,

"I'm after passing an upturned hull.

"And I can't see any life on board."

Another fellow would come on
and say,

"We passed a yacht and they were
clinging on to the side of it."

We were really concerned for them.

This was just repetitive,
all night long.

With some of them,
they just went over completely -

upside down -
for quite lengthy periods.

When that happens,
all hell breaks loose down below.

JON DOREY:
I'm in the pilot berth, and...

...the cooker was flying towards me.

And it came up to me

and it just stopped -

boof -
right in the front of my face.

I felt the wind against it

and I looked over and the cord -

there was a metal cord,
the gas cord, holding it -

had just stopped in front of me.

Everything went crazy after that.

For the crew of Allamanda...

...the impact of a gigantic wave
had been catastrophic.

The boat turned over.
We were thrown in the water.

It was very quiet,
very peaceful, underwater.

None of the noise.

Once I got one of the ropes,
the harness...

...off from round my neck,

I then struggled to get up
to the surface.

We came up to see that
the boat had righted itself.

After Michael Campbell
and his crew members

managed to get themselves
back aboard,

they assessed the damage.

We'd lost the distress flares.

No radio, no oil for the engine.

And we'd already lost the mast

and the sails. So...

we really hadn't got anything.

The life raft punctured itself,

so we had no life... life raft.

In hindsight, of course,

we were very lucky that we lost
the life raft,

because we could perhaps have been
tempted to get into it.

Where people had sadly perished,

it was almost invariably
in a life raft.

For the crew of Trophy,

they were left with no mast,
sails or rudder

and, having taken on a lot of water,

they were forced into
a difficult decision.

I turned round
and everybody was in the life raft,

apart from me and Simon and Alan.

| remember thinking, "well,
I'm not staying here on my own.”

And we got in the life raft,
which...

at that time, we felt
was a fairly safe place to go.

But... it wasn't.

GERALD:
If the life raft is launched,

naturally, you're going to
jump into it, step down into it.

But one of the lessons
that they have learned is,

you do not get off that yacht
until the yacht is sinking

cos the yacht is much sturdier
and much more capable

than the life raft.

Step up into the life raft.
Do not step down into it.

DEREK:
When the boat got rolled over,

that made the life raft inflate.

Everybody was shook up
by what had happened.

They came out on deck, saw that
the life raft had been launched...

and got in it.

With the storm intensifying
beyond force ten

to hurricane levels,

the crews of up to 240 yachts
were in grave peril.

Oh, the emotions coming through
the radio were,

strangely enough, very controlled...

...even though they were
in a horrible situation,

looking at some of their colleagues
being lost.

On Cavale, Jon Dorey was recovering
after the boat had capsized

and turned upside down.

Unbeknown to him, his father, Peter,

and fellow crew member Phil Bodman
had gone overboard.

Once the boat righted itself,

a frantic rescue effort followed,

while Jon remained below deck.

Maybe 20 minutes
after we first capsized...

lan had came down to see me,
kind of apologising.

He said he'd been trying
to turn round for 20 minutes

to try and get my dad
out of the water, but...

there was no way.

It's pitch-black. It's a white-out.

There's foam everywhere.

50-foot waves.

Not happening.

Er...

They both had safety harnesses on.

Phil's, er, was able to grab
the main sheet, pull himself aboard.

My father's, um, harness,
er, failed.

For the crew of Trophy,

the grim reality
of their new predicament

was dawning on them.

We were all sat... There was
eight of us sat in the life raft.

We then realise that
these big waves are really big now

and the life raft is

effectively surfing down the fronts
of these things.

And then within about half an hour
of us getting into it,

it was capsized
and it wound up upside down.

And then it blew back upright again
and we got back in it.

That happened three, four,
maybe five times,

where we managed to do all of that.

But on the fifth time
the life raft capsized,

the life raft broke into the top
and the bottom half.

The force of the crashing wave

had caused half of the life raft's
outer ring

to become detached
from the bottom half,

where the eight crew of Trophy
had been sitting.

They were now all in the sea

and their life raft
was split in two.

I was being rolled over
in these waves

and I felt something hit
the back of my right hand.

It was a line tied to the life raft.

And I pulled myself
towards the life raft.

Unfortunately,
Peter and John couldn't,

and they were...
they were separate to us.

We tried to
paddle ourselves towards them,

holding on to the top and
the bottom half of the life raft.

But they were just getting
further and further away.

John and Peter
were both very good friends.

But things were so dire,

I don't think that thought
was with us for very long

because we were just trying
to survive ourselves.

We all thought... I certainly did.

I thought I was gonna die.

With the weather bomb
wreaking havoc,

even the bigger, sturdier yachts
were now being taken out -

some with broken rudders
made from carbon fibre,

a novel substance at the time,

which proved unable
to withstand the waves.

I think the decision
about whether to turn back or not

was more or less made for us
because of the conditions.

We were just in survival mode.
It was gonna be a question

if we could get the whole boat
back or not.

It wasn't a question of just trying
to turn around to find my dad.

But, um...

I mean, there were seven of us
still on the boat.

Having lost their life raft

and all radio contact
during the capsize,

the crew of Cavale
decided to battle on

through repeated knock-downs,
in the hope of reaching dry land.

All we knew is that we had...

We knew we had 100 miles of seaway
in front of us.

There was nothing to hit.

We just had to keep vigilant
and hope for the best.

On board Allamanda,

they, too, were left with no radio
and very few options.

GERALD:
The poor, unfortunate yachtsmen

who weren't even able to call
for help...

The Fastnet in Irish,
it's called An Carraig Aonair,

which means "lone rock".

And these yachts were alone.

This is what made the whole thing
so stark.

For the six remaining Trophy crew,
clinging on to their life raft,

things were about to get
even more desperate.

DEREK: What happened then is...

one of the waves that hit us

pulled the two halves of
the life raft apart.

Simon was the only one
who was managing

to hang on to the bottom half.

The rest of us were on the top half,

and he got blown away from us.

I couldn't see any way that we were
going to go through the night

and then be rescued.
How could they even find us?

But we were...

You fight, don't you?

The life raft was keeping us alive,

even in bits.

August the 14th, 1979.

Just a normal day for us.

I got woke up in the morning,

as we usually did
when the boat was wanted.

23-year-old fisherman

and RNLI lifeboat crew member
Tommy Cocking

had been called in
to join the rescue effort.

We were told
a yacht was in distress.

As we were progressing down further,
going down,

the waves were getting bigger.

20 miles from St Ives,
at RNAS Culdrose,

25-year-old Royal Navy
helicopter pilot Keith Thompson

was woken by a phone call.

I was to be on duty
in about two days' time,

so it was a bit of a shock

to get a phone call
very early in the morning.

At that time, we didn't know
what we were going to see at all.

We were given a very, very sketchy
brief of, "A yacht is in trouble.”

As we were getting towards
Land's End, they said,

"Um, stand by -
we've got a list of yachts,”

which took us all by surprise.

On my knee pad, I have a place where
I can write things down

with a grease pencil, a Chinagraph.

I ran out of space

and started writing on the inside
of the windscreen of the helicopter,

because we
were getting up to 12, 14 yachts.

We were finding our more information
then, over the radio.

Other rescue units
had been sent to the area.

The rescue operation

was just beyond belief.

Every lifeboat in Cornwall was out.

Rescue helicopters from Culdrose,

Nimrods from Scotland,
Nimrod aircraft.

It was really so brave of so many
people to risk their own lives

to try and save
these beleaguered yachtsmen.

And that was when we realised
this was a little bit bigger

than just going after one yacht.

Dawn brought the light needed

for a huge search-and-rescue mission
to be launched,

with rescuers
braving hurricane conditions.

MICHAEL BUERK:
The rescuers did amazing things.

Spearheaded by Falmouth Coastguard,
all lifeboats from Cornwall

and the south coast of Ireland
were called out.

Lifeboatman Tommy Cocking

was part of a seven-man crew
from St Ives,

sent out to assist a yacht
in distress.

When she went over the top
sometimes, and dropped,

it was just one of those situations
where you hang on.

With the air rescue now launched,

Nimrod aircraft
would direct the operation

as the rescuers' eye in the sky,

using radar to identify survivors
in the water

for helicopters and lifeboats
to pick up.

Nimrods from Cornwall
were the first to arrive,

with others on their way
from RAF Kinloss in Scotland,

700 miles away.

The brief was very sketchy.

It was,
"Get airborne as soon as you can

"and head out towards Land's End."

Sea King helicopter pilot
Keith Thompson

was part of a four-man Navy crew
from Culdrose in Cornwall,

joining the mission to search
a vast stretch of ocean.

They said, "Well, they could be
anywhere between Land's End

"and the Fastnet Rock."

To which we said,
"Where is the Fastnet Rock?"

As the dawn came through,

there were still big waves,
but they weren't rolling us over.

It had calmed down a bit.

With two of Trophy's crew drowned

and one drifting alone in the bottom
of the split life raft,

five crew members were still
with the top half of the raft.

But one of them hadn't made it
through the night.

It was cold. It was very cold.

The yacht's navigator, Robin Bow yer,
who was in his 50s,

had been struggling
to stay out of the cold water.

And we were finding it
harder and harder and harder

to get Robin to do anything.

Um, and in the end,
he was just gone.

So, he was held to the life raft

with his lifeline, but he was gone.

Now in daylight,
with no help on the horizon,

Derek still feared
he and the rest of the crew

would never make it
out of the waves alive.

We were also knackered.

I mean, we were just
completely broken by now.

In Plymouth,
at the race finish line,

information about
the devastating impact

of the storm had been trickling
through to the race organisers,

the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

The information that started
coming into our race office

from the Coastguard.

And that's when we...

the snowball started.

And suddenly, it just rolled.

Boats retiring, boats needing help.

While a rescue mission
was in full swing,

there was also a race
still going on,

leaving the organisers
having to deal with both.

The whole system of
what was required in Plymouth

had to be put in place very,
very quickly.

The people who chose to keep racing
could keep racing.

But the focus was, of course,
on the rescue mission.

So there was a lot of us
calling to check

who was unaccounted for.

When they couldn't get an answer -
people, friends, families -

got in their cars

and they drove to Plymouth,
and the press came to Plymouth

and it was sailing press
to start with

and then it was general press

and we were just inundated.

The Sea King helicopters had been
battling the giant waves

for three and a half hours...

...managing to lift some of
the race competitors to safety.

KEITH: These were the worst
conditions I've ever flown in.

So you had to be
on top of your game.

The Sea King would normally hover
at 40 feet for a normal rescue.

However, the waves were 40, 50,
maybe even 60 feet high.

I would be looking out the window
and saying,

"There's a big wave coming now.
Let's go up.”

This is the skill
that these pilots have developed,

is they have to go with the wave.

For Derek Morland
and the surviving crew of Trophy,

it looked like help
had finally arrived.

So, a Nimrod come overhead

and it dropped flares.

I suppose that was when
you suddenly thought,

"Maybe we ARE gonna survive this."

Despite the ongoing rescue effort,

the world's press had their eye
on the organisers of the race,

who had been joined by

the government minister and
secretary for trade, John Nott,

to field questions now brewing
in a media storm.

Do you think there are
some lessons to be learnt

and some changes to be made?

Well, I think
it's obviously a tragedy.

It was quite interesting, er,

the difference in attitudes,

if you like,

between the government minister
responsible for all this

and the journalists.

There are a number
of yachts missing, still.

But, er, man is going to go on
pitting himself against the elements

and ocean racing will carry on.

There was a kind of
extraordinary clash

between two different
kind of world views.

You know, "Life's a risky business,"

and, "You have to be held to account
for the consequences of all this."

Alan Green was the Fastnet Race
director.

He held two press conferences a day,
keeping the media informed.

Now, you had a whole group of people
who didn't understand sailing.

Many in the press were asking,
"Why wasn't the race stopped?"”,

leaving the organisers
defending themselves

and long-standing race traditions.

The onus to continue racing

is entirely down to the skipper
and the crew

to decide whether they believe
it's safe for them to continue.

And even if the organisers
HAD called off the race,

they would have struggled
to contact the stricken yachts,

many of which did not have
any form of radio communication.

The VHF radios were just
coming into their own at that time.

They were expensive.

A lot of yachts didn't put them in.

In 1979, the means of communication
were very limited.

Quite, quite different to today,

where there are trackers on boats

and they've all got radios
and they've all got mobile phones.

I think there was the fear that,

you know, our sport...

you know, people are gonna say,

"This is not safe."

You know,
"We can't do this any more."

There's a very dramatic picture
of Alan

just standing with his eyes closed
for a few minutes,

just taking that minute or two,

to... almost compose himself.

And it expressed everything.

At the end of the day,
it's not just your own life,

or even your crew's life,

that you're putting at risk.

It's this enormous rescue operation.

I mean,
goodness knows how much it cost,

but also the risk
to the lives of rescuers.

With nearly 240 yachts
caught in the storm,

the crews of Trophy,
Cavale and Allamanda

were still left adrift,

over 90 miles from dry land.

Absolutely frightening.

We must always remember,

they were gaining experience
overnight that would change them

and would change racing forever.

With the Fastnet storm tragedy
unfolding

and a rescue operation
in full swing,

Navy helicopter pilot
Keith Thompson and crew

had already pulled three survivors

from a yacht called Grimalkin
to safety.

Next, they were directed towards
the battered life raft of Trophy

by flares from Nimrod aircraft.

But, running low on fuel,

the crew of the Sea King
would have to move fast.

We came to a dinghy.

Picking up from a life raft
in these conditions

is very, very difficult.

A very dangerous job
for the winchman.

Often, he would be put in the water

and then dragged
towards the life raft.

The helicopter lowered
a winchman down.

When he first came down, we said,
"There's somebody else."”

He said, "It's OK.

"One guy in the bottom half of
a life raft was just picked up.”

So we knew we had Simon.

But by now, Trophy's skipper,
53-year-old Alan Bartlett,

was suffering from hypothermia,

so he was the first
to be lifted to safety.

But, with their fuel running out,

there wasn't enough time
to pick up the others.

And then he said to us,

"The Dutch destroyer
will pick you up.”

A Dutch warship
called the Overijssel,

which happened to be nearby,

had joined the rescue effort.

We turn around
and there's this massive ship.

On board Cavale, having lost his
father to the might of the storm,

Jon Dorey and the remaining crew

were desperately trying to find
their way to dry land.

JON: Now, lan was in charge
of the boat and he was so calm.

However, it was still
a force eight-plus in the morning.

We'd taken a terrific zigzag course.

As the winds at sea slowly subsided,

on land, the media whirlwind
was gathering pace.

REPORTER: At first light today,
the remnants of the race

came gently towards Plymouth,
nursing their bruises.

We saw these tattered life rafts,
these empty life rafts,

and it brought home to you,
you know,

people had died in the most extreme
circumstances out there.

For Derek and the three remaining
Trophy crew, help was at hand,

in the unexpected form
of the Dutch warship.

You can see me just here.
I'm with the white top.

They put divers over the side.

They were managing to hang on.

And as the ship rolled down onto us,

they just grabbed us.

This morning, the Overijssel
brought 15 survivors and two bodies

back to Plymouth.

During the storm, she rolled so much

that sailors standing at the rails

went underwater as they tried
to pull yachtsmen aboard.

After their return to land,

Derek Morland and Alan Bartlett
were interviewed by a reporter.

If one had known
the life raft was gonna split,

there's no way
anybody would have got into it.

I don't think
I'd ever get off a boat

unless I was up to my knees in water

and standing on a masthead
in future.

For the crew of Allamanda,

having survived a battering
from the waves for over 18 hours,

by Tuesday evening,
their saviour had finally arrived.

There was a helicopter
hovering above us,

asking us to come aboard.

That was a big sigh of relief.

By Wednesday morning, some bigger
boats had now finished the race,

with victory
going to a yacht called Tenacious,

owned by American media mogul
and CNN founder Ted Turner.

FRED DINEAGE: The irony is
that some of the bigger yachts

in the Fastnet Race

not only completed the course,

but completed the course

in good time.

Another major public figure had also
arrived safely into Plymouth -

the former prime minister,
Edward Heath.

Well, it's an experience
that I don't think

anybody would want
to go through again, willingly.

On the south coast of Wales,

Cavale's crew
had finally made it to dry land

and Jon Dorey was inspecting
the damaged yacht -

and discovering a fatal flaw
in his father's harness.

I wandered over

and on the rear of the boat,

there was a metal clip.

I pulled it in. It's my father's...
what was left of his harness.

GERALD: They found that the clips
at the time

were quick-snap clips,
spring-loaded.

But if the clip turned
in a certain way,

it would automatically open.

In total, 21 people died
in the Fastnet storm -

15 competitors and six spectators.

An estimated 2,700 people
taking part in the race survived.

Five yachts were never recovered.

As the weather bomb dissipated,

the Fastnet storm of 1979

had left its mark not only at sea
but on land, too.

CLARE NASIR: It impacted Wales,
the Midlands, even further north.

And, in fact, it became

one of the windiest Augusts
on record.

I regret really badly

that we lost our three friends.

It's something you never get over.

I'm always thinking of
Robin and Peter and John.

I still love boats.

I love working on 'em.
I love sailing 'em.

I haven't really told the story
to many people.

It's, erm...

It's difficult to tell.

But it's a story
that's worth telling, and...

I think there are lessons
to be learned as well.

MICHAEL BUERK:
There was an inquiry -

there HAD to be an inquiry -

into the yacht design,
into the safety features,

into the rules, and they came to

some very uncomfortable conclusions.

There were recommendations
on the stability of boats,

the race-management side of things
as well.

Life rafts in particular,
life jackets.

It covered just about every angle.

CLARE: We've all learnt a lot
from the Fastnet Storm.

When there is bad weather
on the way,

these races can't go ahead,

and that's exactly what's happened
since then.

A few days after the tragedy,

a memorial was held
at St Andrew's Church in Plymouth.

And since then, remembrance services
have taken place

at Holy Trinity Church in Cowes,

marking key anniversaries.

In the grounds of the church
stands a fitting reminder -

a piece of the Fastnet Rock,

commemorating those that perished

in the 1979 storm.

The Fastnet storm
is once in a generation.

This was the worst sailing
race disaster in history.

FRED DINEAGE: This was
the Titanic disaster of sailing.

After the Titanic sank,
ship safety was changed forever.

After the '79 Fastnet Race,

sailing safety
would never be the same again.

As meteorologists, it's ingrained
in the history of the UK Met Office.