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Widows sue yacht club over 1998 race

SYDNEY, Australia -- The widows of four sailors who died in the 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race are suing the event's organisers and the weather bureau for negligence, the Associated Press has said.

The action was launched against the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA), which organises the race, and the Bureau of Meteorology late last year, club spokesman Peter Campbell said.

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Mike Bannister, John Dean and Jim Lawler drowned after using a life raft that broke apart after the yacht Winston Churchill foundered during a storm on December 27.

Phil Skeggs, of Launceston, Tasmania, drowned when the yacht Business Post Naiad rolled and trapped him underwater.

Shirley Bannister, Penny Dean and Denise Lawler named the CYCA, the Bureau of Meteorology, the yacht's owner, Richard Winning, and the supplier of the life raft as defendants.

John Gibson -- a survivor from the same life raft as Bannister, Dean and Lawler -- has also filed a suit against the club.

Six sailors died in the race and another 55 were rescued as the fleet was battered by cyclonic weather conditions.

It is the first legal action taken against the race in its 57-year history, Campbell said.