Stolen sailboat from Halifax

[Sailor_Al]

ChrisJHC. I think that’s the start of a good book

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by Sam Woodbridge

Didn’t the boat have a VHF radio with access to the weather band on it? Or I’m I missing something?

Probably...but how smart are drug smugglers and thieves?

[NSboatman]

Originally Posted by Sam Woodbridge

Didn’t the boat have a VHF radio with access to the weather band on it? Or I’m I missing something?

There may have been a vhf aboard- most likely even. But the coastal forecasts that he could have received gave little indication of Larry at all. It was a non-issue here- Larry went well south and east of most NS forecast areas, so it would have been easy to miss.

Sure, if he was properly paying attention and caught the synopsis in either French or English once an hour or so, there would have been some mention that should have caught his attention. But he was probably half starved, a bit freaked out, running like hell and clearly not thinking that clearly.

It’s quite impressive he made it as far as he did!

[Sam Woodbridge]

Originally Posted by NSboatman

There may have been a vhf aboard- most likely even. But the coastal forecasts that he could have received gave little indication of Larry at all. It was a non-issue here- Larry went well south and east of most NS forecast areas, so it would have been easy to miss.

Sure, if he was properly paying attention and caught the synopsis in either French or English once an hour or so, there would have been some mention that should have caught his attention. But he was probably half starved, a bit freaked out, running like hell and clearly not thinking that clearly.

It’s quite impressive he made it as far as he did!

Ty NSbostman, I still wonder if he is still on the boat and staged the whole thing. Oh well - thanks again

Sam

[Celestialsailor]

How do you stage sailing through a hurricane? The EPIRB gave the position.

[Tetepare]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Probably...but how smart are drug smugglers and thieves?

The top guys are as sharp as any business executive, these are businesses, just not compliant with laws. The mules are not too bright, and expendable. The book Freakanomics did an interesting analysis of criminal enterprise

[ChrisJHC]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

How do you stage sailing through a hurricane? The EPIRB gave the position.

Technically all you have is the position of the EPIRB.
You are then assuming that it is still on the yacht.

[GILow]

What I took away from this story is that the coast guard didn’t even start looking for anyone until AFTER the PLB battery had died.

Instead they spent the time making phone calls. Hardly a lightening response.

[NSboatman]

Yeah, there are questions about the timing of the search, and the length of it. I think there’s a bit more to it tho.

When the guy who owned the boat was initially contacted by the uscg, I was told he said something to the effect of ‘hell no, that can’t be my boat, it’s tied up at the yacht club’. So, no search.

Then, some number of hours later his wife checked on the boat - it wasn’t there - and then he called the uscg back and told them that.

We have no information on how long this sequence of events took. 6 hours? 12? 48?

Also- My understanding is that It was not a proper epirb, but rather a smaller plb. The only real difference between these units is battery life… hence the short location transmission time.

That in jtself is a lesson for offshore voyagers- it doesn’t take much to use up 24 or even 48 hours of time, so go for an emergency beacon that is going to continue transmitting for the longest possible time!

[Sirzones]

This is the stolen boat