DANGER ON THE HIGH SEAS : A Roll Call of Near-Disaster Mounts in the BOC Challenge Solo Around-the-World Sail Boat Race

None of the solo sailors in the BOC Challenge race around the world, currently in its second leg, is likely to forget the Indian Ocean as the second week of gales up to 65 knots and massive seas pounded the fleet.

Virtually every one of the 19 boats in the race, which began in September off the shores of Rhode Island, has reported at least a knockdown--the mast in the water. Several have reported being rolled--having at least the mast beneath the level of the sea.

The roll call of near-disaster mounted each day.

Harry Harkimo reported being swept off his 50-foot Belmont Finland in a knockdown. His lifeline saved him.

Harry Mitchell of Britain, at 60 the oldest man in the fleet, reported being thrown from his companionway ladder in a violent sea and knocked unconscious. He came to--eight hours later--in a pool of blood on his cabin floor.

France’s Jacques De Roux, who lost his boat in a roll-over in the first race in 1982-83, was rolled again last week.

When his Skoiern IV righted, it had lost both its wind-vane steering and its steering wheel apparatus. De Roux installed an emergency tiller but must now hand-steer for up to 20 hours a day. He considered diverting to a port on the west coast of Australia, but fellow racers urged him to keep on course for Sydney, which, for the time being, he is doing.

De Roux, however, was losing ground to his rival for the Class 2 lead, Mike Plant aboard the American entry Airco Distributor.

Guy Bernardin, aboard Biscuits Lu, reported being knocked down repeatedly over the past two weeks. The last time, his radar dome was carried away.

Warren Luhrs, America’s best hope of winning before the race began, continued to have trouble aboard Thursday’s Child. He reported a broken boom, which he replaced with a spinnaker pole. The rivalry between South Africans Bertie Reed and John Martin took a turn for the worse for Reed, who radioed that he was diverting for Albany at the southwest corner of Australia for treatment of a virulent allergic reaction to diesel fuel.

Reed suffered the same problem in the first race but treated the resultant arm infection successfully. This time, he reports, it is much worse and generalized over his body.

Reed’s diversion will allow Martin to reach Sydney ahead of his countryman, barring mishaps. Martin, on Tuna Marine, won the first leg of the race from Newport, R.I., to Cape Town but has been slowed during the second leg by auto steering failure, which has forced him to hand-steer for hours on end daily.

Meanwhile, Philippe Jeantot has been relentlessly gaining on leader Titouan Lamazou as the two Frenchman streaked toward the treacherous Bass Strait between Australia proper and Tasmania.

Jeantot’s gain of 200 miles on Lamazou in a week was due in part to Aquitaine’s loss overboard of a large sail, called a booster, that drives the boat efficiently in following winds. In the same roll-over, Aquitaine lost his Argos radio position transponder. As a result, he is being tracked by his own radioed position reports, rather than by satellite.

The first boat into Sydney will almost certainly set a solo record for the second leg. Jeantot’s 35-day mark for the second leg of the first race could be cut by as much as seven days--barring trouble in the Bass Strait, a narrow body of water that is choked with islands, rocks, reefs and offshore oil rigs.

In the first race, most of the skippers petitioned the race committee to require the fleet to sail south of Tasmania to avoid the strait. The committee rejected the request, leaving the race route from Cape Town to Sydney “by any course.” Since the Bass Strait is shorter, all but two boats elected to go through it, hazards or not.

On Dec. 18, 1982, Gypsy Moth V, with Desmond Hampton on board, ran aground on Gabo Island in the Bass Strait and was destroyed. Hampton escaped injury.