If the skipper used the VHF he shouldn’t have. If he didn’t then he should have used it.
Sleeping…go figure
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All boats of the ‘Vendée Globe’ have AIS and radar alarms installed, and they use them always, at least with their own survival in mind.
About half the boats, including the one running into the trawler, have a new, still experimental system called OSCAR on the mast top. Three forward-looking cameras (one color, two infrared) search for patterns indicating something floating just on the surface, like growlers, logs, containers, sleeping whales etc.
The incident with the trawler was some 200 miles off the finish line, at some 20 knots.
The German skipper was certainly not going to sleep in the Biscay, known for the huge mass of fishing vessels, and battling for the final victory.
He said, he heard none of the three alarms…
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Literally 7 seconds into his video he says he was sleeping.
I don’t care how much technology you have, it’s not going to help if you’re asleep.
IMHO The entire thing is completely reckless.
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STEAMING HOT BOWL OF KARMA.
Fishing boats require a lot more persuasion that bulkers. They sleep more that yacht skippers and don’t have an office to explain it to.
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You can’t have it both ways. If you expect power boats, even ones 1,000 feet long, to get out of your way per COLREGS you can’t expect people to not be annoyed when you go to sleep and run into them, which per those same COLREGS they could expect a lookout on your boat 
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He was expecting “Mr Automation” to be his lookout (the various alarms) and wake him but that didn’t work out as planed.
Odd that trawler hasn’t been identified. Wh colour was the antifouling/paintwork.
I thought it was odd in his video that he showed no concern for the trawler he just hit and no mention of the trawler’s crew. It was all about him - how his sleep was interrupted, his boat damaged, and how many places he was going to drop in the results
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Too much lockdown watching ‘The Mercy’ and ‘Capricorn One’, methinks.
Song for Boris, substitute ‘Malizia’ for ‘Hecuba’.
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Yes, karma is a bitch, isn’t it?
The poor Vendee Globe skipper obviously is ignorant of the Law of Superior Tonnage. Ignore that law at your own peril.
Is it really unexpected though? It would appear as though the WAFI nature extends all the way to the top.
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https://www.explica.co/some-hakes-in-the-middle-of-the-world-tour-sports/
Here is the story from fisherman’s perspective. You can’t make this stuff up.
His boat, longline fishing 80 miles off the French coast, with thousands of hooks thrown into the sea, saw a sailboat approach its stern at full speed. “He did not have time for anything. It was half past eight on Wednesday night, we had all the position lights on. It was an approach ”, remembers the Basque skipper, 55 years old; “It gave us an impression of shock.”
Perplexed, Zaldunbide and the other fishermen accompanying him on the boat approached his port side, which had stopped the sailboat in its tracks. “The tails of the candles had been caught with our lights,” he explains. After the blow, a person came out of the cabin from the other boat, tore off the lights, got rid of the hitch and continued on its course.