David Oliver Hayes, Professor at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres (Canada) and skipper of the Hunter 410 ‘Morning Haze’, will be gathering data for his research during this year’s ARC Europe. As a clinician and sailor he is interested in offshore sailing injuries among long distance cruisers. Since we aim to provide a safe and secure environment for cruisers to do ocean offshore passages, we can only applaud his effort in trying to bring new light in this area.
The most interesting part is that he and his family will sail along fellow cruisers in this year’s ARC Europe Rally. Taking part in the friendly competition can only benefit his work as it will provide him with first hand knowledge of the conditions and the realities of offshore sailing. He will also do a presentation of his research project on friday during the skipper’s briefing.
"Last november I decided to participate in the 2013 Caribbean 1500, before undertaking this research, in order to gain a better understanding of the organization and how they go about preparing crews to for their first offshore passage", said Hayes. He went on to add "I was very impressed with the level of knowledge and commitment of the rally staff. All taking place under a friendly and relaxed athmosphere on the docks". In the end, we can only hope that results stemming from this kind of research could potentially help better prepare crews in future events.