Sydney, October 11: The last words of veteran ocean racer Andrew Short were something his crew had never heard him utter before: “Help! Help!”
Mr Short yelled them after huge waves smashed his 80-foot yacht in the pitch-black night.
He had been standing at the wheel, desperately trying to get off a rocky reef near Wollongong, but the power of the ocean was too strong, The Sunday Telegraph reports.
Mr Short, 48, of The Spit, and his friend and fellow experienced sailor Sally Gordon, 47, of Darling Point, were washed overboard.
Their bodies were recovered by two of the 21 other yachts taking part in the overnight race from Sydney to Flinders Islet.
Mr Short’s 19-year-old son Nicholas was also washed into the sea but was saved.
Another son, 14-year-old Mitch, was among 15 crew members who survived after somehow scrambling onto the rocky shore of the tiny outcrop. He suffered rope burns to his hands.
Ambulance paramedics in a rescue helicopter later winched the 15 to safety in a three-hour operation.
It is the worst ocean-racing disaster since six men lost their lives in the Sydney-Hobart race 11 years ago.
Mr Short and Ms Gordon both survived the 1998 race.
Matt Pearce, one of the rescued crew, told how Mr Short, a veteran of 15 Sydney-Hobart races, was last seen trying to stay afloat.
“I heard him say, ‘Help! Help!’ – this from a man who never asked for anything,” Mr Pearce said. “He was so tough. To hear him saying `help’ was devastating.”
Mr Short’s yacht PricewaterhouseCoopers, formerly known as Shockwave, was rounding a mark off Flinders Islet when a series of waves hit it.
“All of a sudden, these couple of sets broke in front of us and out of nowhere I saw the reef,” Mr Pearce said.
“The bow came down, and we hit the ground hard. We tried to get off, but the keel was on the bottom.”
The crew pulled down the yacht’s sails and started its motor in a bid to stay clear of the rocks.
“The boat gybed and the rig (mast) snapped and went over the side,” Mr Pearce said.
“The boat came back over the other side, and a couple more waves broke on the boat … there was two metres of green water slapping the boat, dragging people out.”
Mr Pearce said he saw Ms Gordon washed overboard and Mr Short holding the steering wheel before the enormous force of a wave washed it off its pedestal, and the skipper overboard with it.
“I didn’t see him again. Then the boat just got lifted up (by a wave) and landed on the island on its side. We had a 30-second window of opportunity, and we all jumped.”
Mr Pearce said the next few minutes were a blur of chaos.
“This big set came in and just grabbed it (the yacht). It just destroyed it.
“It took five minutes, and the boat was gone.”
Sailors who had gone to the aid of the yacht when they saw flares indicating it was in strife said they were staggered at the amount of debris in the water.
Mr Pearce said he firmly believed he and his fellow survivors were lucky to be alive.
“Thirty seconds from death, yes,” he said simply.
The sailing community was yesterday struggling to come to terms with the loss of two of its most popular members.
Mr Short last year took Shockwave to fourth place in the Sydney-Hobart race.
He and Ms Gordon were again planning to sail in this year’s event.
Ms Gordon, also a veteran of 15 Sydney-Hobart races, had been due to sail in the World Masters Games tomorrow.
In 2000, she won the Ocean Racing Crew Person of the Year award.
Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Commodore Matt Allen said the race conditions had been benign and did not explain why the yacht had found itself in trouble.
“There were only moderate winds and a moderate swell. The experience of the crew was enormous,” he said.
Police have launched an investigation into the crash.
Inspector Jennifer Thommeny, of the Marine Area Command, said investigations would focus on all circumstances leading up to the incident, including the construction of the yacht and the weather conditions.
—Agencies