Two sailors die in Sydney to Hobart yacht race

Sailors on two separate vessels were killed when they were struck by a sail boom.

Transcript

00:00And in both cases we believe that the member of crew was hit by a boom.

00:05I have no other information as to how that came about and what the circumstances were,

00:10so I'm afraid I can't elaborate on that today.

00:13When we do find out, we will share that with you.

00:17There are 16 retirements now. There was a total fleet of 104.

00:2216 have retired. Three were dismastered.

00:27Two had mainsail damage.

00:29And the balance, there were various equipment failures that caused them to retire.

00:34But we still have 88 boats that are continuing in the race.

00:41There is one good story that I heard overnight.

00:44On the boat Poco Rosso, a person was swept overboard.

00:52That is one of the most terrifying experiences that you can have.

00:57And this was at 3.14am.

01:00So it was at night, which makes it tenfold more scary.

01:04Fortunately, there are developed systems and procedures

01:09to cater for that situation and to retrieve the person.

01:12They wear a personal location beacon that was activated.

01:16It sends a satellite message to the Australian Maritime Survival Centre, AMSA.

01:25They then were able to contact our race committee and all the procedures were put in place.

01:31The boat was able to start searching for the person.

01:35They had, we believe, been washed about 1.2km away from the boat.

01:40AMSA set out a plane to start searching.

01:44New South Wales Police were ready to dispatch a boat and a helicopter.

01:49And a boat in our fleet was diverted to try and help with the search.

01:53And fortunately, the boat from which the crew member fell was able to retrieve that crew member.

01:59And they are healthy and well.

02:02I prefer not to have the experience, but they're healthy and well.

02:05So that's a good news story.