How a Shipwrecked Crew Survived 10 Days Lost at Sea

[RUSTYNAIL]

I hope we all push our fellow sailor friends to invest in an EPIRB and possibly a small 406 PLB. When I bought my last one, ACR had a deal and I got a free PLB with it.In 52 seconds of activation, some country's Coast Guard can be aware of the vessel's position. I'm not in favor of lots of new regulations, but sailing farther from shore than you can swim can be a killer, and long searches for overdue vessels cost someone other than the boater a lot of money.

[MicHughV]

The loss of the mast going unnoticed while everyone was apparently below is completely unbelievable to me.
There is simply no way, a mast going overboard will not still be connected to the boat by surviving stays/shrouds, booms, sails, sheets, halyards, etc..and making an awful ruckus in the process.

And all this must eventually be cut loose to make forward progress.

Something does not jive here.

[robert 56]

Can't resist

My mast is broken and I can't get up

[argonauta1]

Well folks, having crossed the Pacific and a couple of other oceans, I do not share the negative views of some expressed here. Recognize that these guys were without navigation aids. Trying to hit anywhere on the Hawaiian Island Group under this crew's circumstances would be a "Hoper Grope" at best even with a fully sailable vessel. Did anyone see the word SEXTANT in the report? Hell no and it is likely its use would be a mystery. I knew a guy who left US Samoa without a GPS but with a sextant and it took him about a week once he was in the area to find his destination looking for clouds and birds. Granted it was Niue, somewhat smaller than the Hawaiian Islands. No, I think we have all read of skippers who have abandoned more sailable boats than these guys had.

My main criticism would be watch keeping. With a crew of three, it is normal and the responsible thing to maintain a 24/7 cockpit watch. Just my wife and I always did that. Single handers usually use a 45 minute or maybe a 1 hour sleep period. But these guys just went below and trusted to ??? Once things had gone south, I think they handled the situation well.

[austinsailor]

Originally Posted by er9

isn't a snapping shroud and a catastrophic dismasting a very loud and violent event? I would think even being stoned and drunk I would notice. how do you not notice this? very confusing but iv'e never experienced it personally.

We were doing a delivery across the Gulf of Mexico some years ago (That story is here: Other People's Boats ) and lost an inner shroud, the chain plate broke. I was asleep and I can tell you it would have raised the dead. I shot up like a rocket. I can't imagine losing the whole mast and not hearing a thing. But I wasn't there. On many passages up to a week, with only my wife and I, we never had a time of more than 10 minutes with nobody on watch.

And - I guess my signature line says the rest.

[preventec47]

This is an interesting quote from the third link provided.
" It was reported by the Coast Guard that “the crew had 500 gallons of fuel, two weeks of food, one month of water onboard, and an orange life raft aboard as of December 19.” I dont know what the date of the accident was but if it was before Dec 19 they were merely inconvenienced I would say with these
kinds of provisions assuming they could still motor along.

[liz.w.]

How do you loose your mast, your water, and all your food (which really makes no sense- where did it go? Was nothing in cans??) but keep your Bimini? And in good enough condition to make it into a sail? And what kind of even beginner sailor, not to mention one that’s been sailing all their life, heads out into the open ocean without waterproof gear? And then allows their crew to just jump in the water and swim after something while the boats moving?
Seems to me like this guy is too stupid to be lucky enough to survive more than a day sail on someone else’s boat- let alone skipper a delivery. Sounds like BS for sure!

[tony.keel]

Originally Posted by svMarite

Pathetic to criticize from behind your electronic screens. They were out there and they survived. Good job guys pulling it together and making it!

Here here.
Teddy said it all. We have all been armchair critics. Ask yourself what displeases you in your own daring or performance.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

[Discovery 15797]

Originally Posted by tony.keel

Here here.
Teddy said it all. We have all been armchair critics. Ask yourself what displeases you in your own daring or performance.

I don't think anyone is criticizing the men.

As I said in my earlier post they dealt with a tragic ordeal and survived.

There is good reason why rescue crews and those rescued are 'debriefed' as soon as possible after an incident.

But, as a "story" becomes more embellished it becomes a less valuable learning experience.

When the "story" crosses the line to barely believable it becomes a reality tv show or a hollywood movie.

[StoneCrab]

One question that I had was how did the mast go missing? I could see it breaking but then the remaining parts posing the greatest threat.

The article makes it sound like the mast was held on by a single shroud. Most masts have many shrouds and I would imagine that the one that snapped would be the least problematic in this scenario since the remaining shrouds would hold the remaining bits of the mast close to the hull where they could do the most damage.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by StoneCrab

One question that I had was how did the mast go missing? I could see it breaking but then the remaining parts posing the greatest threat.

The article makes it sound like the mast was held on by a single shroud. Most masts have many shrouds and I would imagine that the one that snapped would be the least problematic in this scenario since the remaining shrouds would hold the remaining bits of the mast close to the hull where they could do the most damage.

When we were dismasted, the mast had had single lowers, and a babystay. Over the side, it was still held by all the remaining shrouds, and also the staysail sheet and the main sheet. We let it go by pulling the remaining clevis pins, and cutting the two lines. It was a fairly fraught moment, 5 winches on the mast, all those rigging screws, and the lights and antenna and radar, all off to Davy Jones.

The magazine story was so lacking in anything believable that I doubt much of what was reported.

There is also the issue of vessel preparedness, but I'd stake my life on the fact that unless totally deaf, anyone would hear what happens when the mast breaks, even if you're asleep at the time, as I was. The KA-POW! reverberates through the boat. I'll never forget the sound of the mast bearing on the hull in the swells, with the still-attached sails dampening the motion.

Even the time when the main sheet shackle broke, it was quite a BANG!, as it was when the boom broke, but neither was as loud as when the mast broke and fell alongside, with the broken butt of it up.

Ann

[MicHughV]

exactly......the noise of a mast breaking or going aboard and slamming into the hull would wake even long dead people.
Mind you under the stupor of mind inducing drugs, yes, it's possible such an event would go unrecorded...." hey, wassup, dat tall stick thingy is gone....hey you, wake up, pass me dat joint and come looky at this"....
I can't think of any other plausible reason that such an event went unnoticed, not just by one person, but the entire crew.

[JPA Cate]

Or, MicHughV, the article is simply untrue. So one can't trust any of it, because of the obviously false in the beginning. At least, that's my take on it. I'll butt out again, for now, but this has nothing to do with disparaging the people who spent time at sea in a damaged boat. It does have to do with a less than ingenuous relation of the happenings.

Ann

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Smokeys Kitchen

Thanks for posting Gord.

And thanks Arlo Guthrie for the lines ...

..though I've never eaten at Alice's Restaurant

And, in case you're interested, Alice gave up the restaurant business some time ago to focus on her art.

https://alicebrock.com/

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Or, MicHughV, the article is simply untrue. So one can't trust any of it, because of the obviously false in the beginning. At least, that's my take on it. I'll butt out again, for now, but this has nothing to do with disparaging the people who spent time at sea in a damaged boat. It does have to do with a less than ingenuous relation of the happenings.

Ann

Ann,
You are right on. You can't believe a thing put out by the media.