Freak storm takes 18 lives in British yachting disaster
The warnings began crackling over the BBC just after midday, and by nightfall they were growing urgent: "Severe gale, Force 9, increasing strong Force 10, imminent." Most of the 306 yachts in Britain's 605-mile Fastnet race were already in the South Irish Sea, near the bleak rock for which the biennial blue-water classic is named. Running for shelter seemed unnecessary, perhaps impossible. Said Tom McLoughlin, a Californian aboard the French yacht Accanito: "We deluded ourselves into thinking that the weather was going to improve."
Then...
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