NSW yacht suffered problems before crash

Racing yacht Shockwave V would have experienced a series of critical problems before
it crashed onto rocks off the NSW coast claiming the lives of its skipper Andrew
"Shorty" Short and fellow yachting doyen Sally Gordon.
Middle Harbour Yacht Club commodore Martin Hill said Mr Short's 24.4 metre maxi
yacht had "overstepped" Flinders Islet, near Wollongong, before it rolled onto one
side, snapped its mast and sent Mr Short and Ms Gordon into the water.
The yacht, entered in a night race as PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was rounding the islet
about 3am (AEDT) on Saturday when it experienced a "Chinese gybe", Mr Hill said.
A Chinese gybe, also known as a death roll, happens when a yacht is sailing dead
downwind in windy conditions, and it suddenly starts to roll back and forth with
increasing amplitude. It reaches a point where the boat actually broaches to
windward and is also turning sharply to leeward causing it to gybe uncontrolled, or
crash gybe.
Mr Hill said he spoke to a crew member who told him Shockwave V overshot the island,
which acts as a turnaround marker for the yachts to head back to Sydney Harbour.
"You go around that rock yourself and you know it well and you just know that there
must have been a terrible set of circumstances that created this tragedy," Mr Hill
told AAP.
"The original report says the keel fell off but my understanding is that the boat
did this Chinese gybe.
"But it rolled into windward so the crew which were on the high side were somehow on
the low side underwater .
"And the mast broke so the boat was immobilised and then was in threat of being
washed up on to the island."
Mr Hill said Mr Short was most likely tethered to the wheel, which snapped off and
probably sent him overboard.
The remaining 15 crew members, including two of Mr Short's sons Nicholas 19, and
Mitch 14, abandoned yacht and were later rescued by emergency crews.
"All boats go around it (the islet) but in their particular case they had
overstepped it so they were coming back to the island," Mr Hill said.
"Which then meant they had to come at this funny angle into the mark, being the
island."
"The boat, in an unfortunate position, was trying to bear away (at an angle)
probably more than what they would normally want to do in sailing yachts."
The boat rolled windward and there was no time to recover, with it drifting onto the
rocks, Mr Hill said.
"It's like having your brakes failing when you're just about to round the corner. It
was the wrong time to happen," he said.
"The other thing too is ... at three o'clock in the morning you're freezing cold.
Simple things such as putting a shoe on can be extremely difficult at that time."
He also said the crew member told him one of the two GPS devices located near the
wheel was not working.
Mr Short would have had to stand to one side with a partially obstructed view, Mr
Hill said.
"So they're the type of things the (coronial) inquest would have to work out what
happened," he said.