HAMILTON, Bermuda — Sailors have been falling off boats for as long as there have been boats. Even the world’s best are not immune.
With a place in the America’s Cup match at stake earlier this month, Nathan Outteridge, Artemis Racing’s helmsman, slipped off the back of his team’s foiling catamaran and into the aquamarine depths of Bermuda’s Great Sound.
In February, while preparing to defend the cup on the same scenic body of water, the Oracle Team USA grinder Graeme Spence went overboard off the front of his boat and hung on to its platform for a moment before being swept under the catamaran perilously close to one of its sharp-edged dagger boards and its two rudders.