(January 14, 2018; Leg 4; Day 13) – The 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race incurred a dramatic man overboard scenario as Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag crew member Alex Gough was washed overboard near midday local time today as the team competes in the leg from Australia to Hong Kong.

In winds of 15-20 knots, the incident occurred during a sail change where he had gone outside the lifelines on the outrigger. The team swung into recovery mode, and Gough was back on board within seven minutes, unharmed. Scallywag resumed racing immediately.

“It’s shown everyone how hard it is to see the guy in the water,” said skipper David Witt. “Even on a sunny day, 18 knots of wind… You wouldn’t want to be doing this in 20 knots in the dark.”

Gough wasn’t wearing a harness or a lifejacket. Witt says he should have been tethered, or at minimum have told the helmsman what he was doing, before he went outside the lifelines on the outrigger.

“I was pretty stupid, but luckily the guys were on to it. They turned around bloody quickly,” Gough said, who had gotten caught by a wave that picked him up and threw him off. “I’m good. I’m fine. It was a bit scary… but off we go again.”

Navigator Libby Greenhalgh provides this recap:
“Seven minutes from the call to Alex being back onboard. Sevent minutes that felt like half an hour. Seven minutes when 50% of the time we couldn’t physically see him in the water dressed in black.

“It was one minute before what had happened had woken me and I was pushing the Man Overboard button on my computer. It was 30 seconds before anything was physically thrown off the boat, by which point it was the best part of 300M away from Alex. When we picked him up he was roughly 100M away from where he had fallen in.

“The efficiency with which this was all achieved is testimony to the core crew and those of us that have gelled around it, who remained so calm under pressure that once Alex was back onboard and confirmed okay the crew simply slipped into the peel to MH0 that we had previously been discussing and carried on charging towards Hong Kong.”

Source: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2018/01/14/man-overboard-volvo-ocean-race/