Close menu

Fastnet Yacht Disaster

Sporting Witness

In 1979, a freak storm hit a prestigious ocean race in the Irish Sea, killing 18 people.

In 1979, a freak storm hit a prestigious ocean race in the Irish Sea, killing 15 sailors and 3 rescuers. Matthew Sheehan tells Sporting Witness how hurricane-force winds engulfed his yacht as it headed towards the Fastnet rock, killing his father. This programme was first broadcast in 2010.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Show less

Available now

9 minutes

Last on

Sun 10 Aug 2014 03:50GMT

BBC World Service Online

More episodes

Milkha Singh - The Flying Sikh

The Creation of Ironman

See all episodes from Sporting Witness

Sat 9 Aug 2014 13:50GMT

BBC World Service Online
Sat 9 Aug 2014 21:50GMT

BBC World Service Online
Sun 10 Aug 2014 03:50GMT

BBC World Service Online

The inside and personal story of the key moments from sporting history

Watch sporting heroes tell their stories of astonishing achievement

Sporting Witness

Personal stories of amazing moments from sporting history told by people who were there

Similar programmes

By genre:

Sport

By format:

Documentaries

window.bbc.isUKCombined().then(function(e){var t;e&&(e="https://static.files.bbci.co.uk/orbit/6ac54073cd036fe07db1b6e8b4b521b1/js/edr.js",(t=document.createElement("script")).type="text/javascript",t.src=e,t.async=!0,document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].appendChild(t))})<img src="https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=17986528&cs_ucfr=0&cv=2.0&cj=1">