Injured Nacra 17 sailor out of hospital

Danish sailor Christian Peter Lübeck who was injured when he fell overboard from his Nacra 17 and was struck by the rudder, was released from the hospital after two nights.

The Nacra 17 Class Executive met on Monday and discussed the incident.
They also discussed other reports of rudder strike incidents occurring to Class members in training this winter.

Yachting New Zealand are conducting an investigation to the incident which happened at the New Zealand Olympic classes Regatta.

The report continues… 

From a Class perspective our immediate concern is that rudder strikes are occurring too frequently to be called isolated incidents.

Further, the consequences of a rudder strike are greater than typically found in other dinghy or standard catamaran sailing due to the fixed/locked nature of the rudders and the increased speed of the boat on foils.

Many of the falls overboard (with subsequent rudder strikes) have been due to failure of the trapezing systems.

We recommend and encourage all sailors to focus on safety, particularly by inspecting the integrity of your trapezing system. See the Executive recommendations here.

The part that failed in this incident was a Ronstan trapeze ring.

Ronstan has responded to our request for comment, and has confirmed that this part was redesigned and re-released (RF17) in April 2017.

Editor: the old part incorporated a weld join, the new part is a one piece, pressed flat section and is made from a heavier guage material.

For those with older versions, extra vigilance must be taken.

The Nacra 17 Executive has also fielded several suggestions to reduce the frequency of board and rudder strikes in the longer term through engineering changes.

We have initiated an initial engineering review of the options communicated and we expect to hear a preliminary report by the end of February.

Other engineering study requests by the Class to Nacra Sailing have been suspended for this period so that investigating these safety related options remains the priority.

Nacra 17 Class Executive