Tragically News: 16 sailboats have died after sailors boat pole strikes in Norway yacht race this morning due to terrible…..

Tragically News: 16 sailboats have died after sailors boat pole strikes in Norway yacht race this morning due to terrible

The men suffered head injuries on their yachts in separate episodes, as participants faced challenging weather conditions.

A view of the ocean with a large number of yachts during a race.

Yachts during the start of the Sydney to Hobart race on Saturday

Two sailors taking part in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race died in separate accidents overnight during wild weather, the Australian authorities said Friday. They were the first deaths in decades during the annual race, which is one of the most prestigious in the world.

 

The annual 628-nautical-mile race, which began Thursday in Sydney, attracts teams from around the globe. It is known for challenging conditions that in the past have sunk yachts as they made their way south to Hobart, the state capital of Tasmania. But it has been 26 years since it last claimed lives, when six sailors died during the 1998 race in severe storms.

A view of a white yacht with its sails folded next to a pier, where an ambulance is parked.

A screen grab from a video shows the Flying Fish Arctos moored next to an ambulance at Jervis Bay in Australia on Friday.Credit…AUBC, CH9, CH7, CH9, via Associated Press

The police said the first victim in this year’s Sydney to Hobart race, a crew member on the Flying Fish Arctos, was hit just before midnight by a boom, a horizontal beam that attaches a sailboat’s main sail to its mast.

 

The boom was “moving violently through the night with the challenging sea conditions,” Joe McNulty, a superintendent of the New South Wales state police, said at a news conference on Friday.

 

The police identified the crew member as a 55-year-old Australian. The yacht was near Ulladulla, a coastal town south of Sydney, when he was struck.

 

The second victim, a 65-year-old Australian man, died on another yacht farther south, near Batemans Bay, around 2:30 a.m., according to Mr. McNulty. The police initially said he had been struck on the head by a boom. But race organizers later said he had hit his head on a winch, a device that raises and lowers sails, after a sail threw him across the boat.

A yacht with a white hull and black sails that say “Bowline Chambers” in the water, with other yachts in the background.