First, please don't cross post. Second, if this story were true as
recounted, the coroner and next of kin should have had issues with the
race committee for starting a race with a "storm front" in progress. By
the way, I have never seen a documented case of a race being started in
gale force conditions (even though blowhard toughguy dinghy sailors
claim it often happens). It is my experience that untrained sailors
usually exaggerate the wind conditions by 5-10 knots by chosing to
describe the peak wind speed as if it were the average. On the other
hand, those same people do not appreciate that from the predicted
forecast, one should _expect_ winds with peaks that are 50% higher than
the number given.

Nevertheless, many things on a boat can maim or kill you. The boom is a
common source of injury but a good skipper should take account of the
risks associated with his course in high winds. If nothing else, an
uncrolled gybe in high winds can seriously damage the boat and even lead
to a dismasting. These should be unacceptable outcomes to a good skipper
who will take proper precautions to protect his vessel and crew. It's a
pity that testosterone seesm to get in the way of people retiring from
races when they don't really know how to handle the conditions.

Cheers FT

rhys wrote:

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:30:46 -0800, "Jonathan Ganz"
wrote:


For either the slow, stupid, or stunned, it's called the boom boom.


We had a regatta in my club in 2001 during which a fellow was killed
via "boom boom". A storm front went through creating 50 knot winds
that...unusually...stayed at 30-35 knots most of the day even as the
sun came out. During the races, a poor ******* got clipped in the
head...hard...during a crash jib (no preventers or concept of "duck",
I assume). He failed to fall down and got smashed on the opposite side
of the head a couple of seconds later.

They pulled the plug on him after a week in a flatline coma.

Even though I recall the boat was a C&C 29, the motion was so fast and
hard that even that boat's 10 foot boom had enough velocity to crunch
a skull.

So use preventers and watch sea-state roll in downwind situations.

R.