Loss of KELAERIN Rescue of Crew June 2018

[Snowpetrel]

I am pretty sure I can see the ripped off handrail on the starboard side. Looks like the wood broke, but a close up photo would be nice.

In this picture what looks like a big liferaft is visible between the dodger and the dinghy. It was also torn away, along with the entire cockpit cover/dodger and the teak coaming.

https://goo.gl/images/JsN2VL

So whatever hit them was a fair bit of water with a lot of punch. Maybe the securing meothods are not up to scratch, but I have sailed with dinghy's secured like that through a lot of nasty weather and not had an issue, and your typical soft dodger does not get ripped off the boat everyday.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the bulk of the wave force was concentrated amidships, explaining why the stern and bow didn't get as damaged as badly.

Interesting to look at the GGR boats. A lot of their liferafts don't look to me to be very well secured. For that run I would want an inside raft as well.

I wouldn't be surprized to find that the skipper in the cockpit got some pretty nasty bruises from the steering pedestal. It was probably his body that did part of the damage.

From memory the KP44's have a lot of tankage in the bilge, so it wouldn't take a huge amount of water to fill them up. And with the boat bouncing around the surge makes a little water go a long way. This video of her being towed in makes her look a fair bit lower than some of the pics. https://www.dvidshub.net/video/61509...escuing-owners
Hopefully more details will emerge as time goes on.

[El Pinguino]

Picked up by Barracuda on a routine patrol - presumably by chance...
https://coastguardnews.com/coast-gua...rs/2018/07/24/

Obviously not too far out of their way to take her in tow and hand her over to an inshore boat...

Sounds like a good outcome.

Amount of water down below? You need an awful lot before it shows on your waterline...

I hope that when it all turns to custard for me I don't have to suffer the same degree of second guessing by inet.....

Another point... you pop your EPIRB... you have pretty much said you want off... when the helicopter turns up you can't really say 'she's right sport... ' but it does happen...

Know of one case off Isla Desolación that pulled that stunt and then complained about the shiphandling of a fishing boat that came to assist... then carried on sailing...

[Snowpetrel]

She looks to have been about 100mm down on her waterline, given LWL is about 11.8 meters and beam is 3.9 (use 3.6 at waterline?) That makes about 2.3 tonnes of water below.

11.8m x 3.6m x 0.1m x 0.55 = 2.34 m^3

A fair bit of water to bucket out of a boat.

In a few of the photo's you can see what appears to be a significant aft lean to the pedestal.

It occurred to me rereading the original article that the water she mentioned pouring through the compaionway might be water squirting through the gaps in the closed aft companionway.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by ka4wja

Belize,
In addition to the crew being US Coasties, as Ping pointed out, it is a USCG boat (47' MLB)...pretty hard to mistake it for anything else....
You can see the top of the big orange stripe (and the white and blue stripes, just aft of it) on the forward hull, just below the gunnale...

...

Good eye, I do see the stripe now.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

In this picture what looks like a big liferaft is visible between the dodger and the dinghy.

Are you thinking the blue covered item is the life raft? Perhaps a valise raft stowed in a sunbrella cover? If so, that would be hmmm 'unapproved' raft stowage?

Abstracting from the details of this incident . . . . I know this sort of deck 'clutter' is quite common among tropical and coastal cruising boats . . . . But I will express the opinion that it is perhaps not the best seamanship approach for boats planning to do passages above 40degrees - where (in my opinion) clean (or at least much cleaner) decks are much preferred. All this clutter (a) gives waves and lines things to grab hold of and make a mess of (potentially creating 'cascade of emergencies' when you don't want them), (b) making moving around the decks more difficult, (c) reduces visibility from the cockpit, and (d) reduces boat stability and ability to sail upwind.

I would also express the opinion that tieing large items onto wooden handgrips (you can test them . . . the normal wooden hand grip is really not all that strong and does noticeably decay with time) is perhaps not the best most secure option for long-term passage making.

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Just for comparison...here is Hawk on passage . . . Outboard is drained and stowed low in laz locker. Dinghy is deflated and stowed in workshop . . . essentially nothing on deck (the red bag at the mast base is the trysail hanked on ready to go). And nothing on deck is the slightest bit 'weak'. (note: wave breaks around the edges of the hatches, which also keep lines away).



But I do appreciate that what we see with KELAERIN is not unusual today. But in a discussion about safety priorities . . . I personally feel this is an issue.

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

It occurred to me rereading the original article that the water she mentioned pouring through the compaionway might be water squirting through the gaps in the closed aft companionway.

yes, my first thought when I saw those slots/slats in the aft companionway - those should really have solid backers or replacements for offshore work when the cockpit might get filled.

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

it looks as if the mainsail shredded itself

Yes, agreed, looks much more like 'flutter' damage than 'wave burst' damage. I've seen exactly that sort of shredding several times when people have been double reefed for a week or so in strong winds and the bunt of the sail fluttered against the lazy jacks. The stack pack damage IS probably wave/knockdown damage.

[hpeer]

618 gallons is 2.34 cubic meters.

No saying how much the 4 bulge pumps handled.

[hpeer]

Yes the “clutter” is an issue. We have our priorities and they differ.

I’ve got a big arch, wind gen, 630 watts of solar. None of that is coming down for a passage. I have stripped the bimini when going North.

We all make our different compromises and risks. I just hope it doesn’t bite me.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Yes the “clutter” is an issue. We have our priorities and they differ.

. . .

We all make our different compromises and risks. I just hope it doesn’t bite me.

yes, agreed . . . trade-offs.

Knowing you a bit, I am guessing your stuff is at least 'strong'

BTW, different point . . . I don't know how commonly aware people are . . . that if the boat is knocked over and typical dorades are submerged, they can upflood the boat - if they are submerged they are like 5" holes in the boat bottom. They all come with sealing plates or plugs - but few people keep or use them. I've known two boats to sink from that cause.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

yes, agreed . . . trade-offs.

Knowing you a bit, I am guessing your stuff is at least 'strong'

I think that's ultimately what it comes to. It's either got to be very strong, or sacrificial. If you think your superior storm handling techniques and fancy weather routing will compensate for a weak boat and poor preparation you are just asking for trouble.

In this case the cockpit cover and the dinghy were not really a major issue, they were sacrificial and went cleanly enough without damaging the boat, unless somehow they ripped open the hatch.

It was the water below, and the loss of the liferaft, radio, pumps, pedestal and engine that made it dangerous.

To me the liferaft looks like a normal raft with a canvas cover over it. It's in a much safer location than those very weak looking rail mount liferaft holders you sometimes see touted as a good idea. At any rate valise or not it was apparently the stainless mount that failed.

My folks boat has been to hell and back with a wooden 12 foot dinghy securely tied to wooden handrails. The handrails are throughbolted, but not massive. They haven't let go, but most likely a big enough wave could do it, and prehaps heavily bolted padeyes might be a good idea. Though at what point do you end up making stuff so strong that the structure of the boat gets damaged rather than the fitting breaking?

It may also be that overall a big cockpit cover adds to personal safey by reducing the risk of skin cancer more than it adds to the risk in a blow?

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

yes, agreed . . . trade-offs.

Knowing you a bit, I am guessing your stuff is at least 'strong'

BTW, different point . . . I don't know how commonly aware people are . . . that if the boat is knocked over and typical dorades are submerged, they can upflood the boat - if they are submerged they are like 5" holes in the boat bottom. They all come with sealing plates or plugs - but few people keep or use them. I've known two boats to sink from that cause.

I would never leave my dorades rigged offshore. Beyond the water ingress issue they are themselves deck clutter and magnets for fouling lines etc. My sealing plates are in a collection of oft used and easily accessible gear.

To your point about wooden handrails, some friends of mine took a big wave over the deck of their Valiant and it not only carried off their life raft canister and cradle but the handrails and everything attached to them. He said all that was left were the bolts sticking up.

They now carry the life raft in the cockpit well in a specially designed compartment.

I replaced my wooden handrails with stainless, each of the four installed with 15 1/4” bolts. All the same I try not to use them as tiedowns offshore. Strikes me as asking for trouble.

I’m wondering if the CG towed Kelaerin in out of environmental concern. Probably a lot of fuel on that boat.

[daletournier]

Another thing regarding handrails is, boats are getting old and so is the stuff on them . I've had stainless steel hand rail bolts break when I've grabbed the rails. My last boat was 1984.

[kmacdonald]

It looks like to me that cold water sailing has an additional risk I didn't think of-----hypothermia if everything gets wet. Warm clothes in a dry bag would solve that----maybe. If this happened in warm water and climate they would have never abandoned the boat.

[estarzinger]

just back from bike ride . . . a thought about perhaps one way to think about this incident . . . . there are always a whole lot of trade-offs made on a cruising boat . . . . we have discussed some on this particular boat (deck clutter, crew size, paperback book storage, pump availability etc) and each of the individual trade-offs was 'understandable' . . . . but in the end, bigger picture, they all were (seem to have been) made erroring toward the side of convenience and comfort rather than as a balance between convenience/comfort/seamanship/safety. That meant they all piled up in the incident as a cascade, rather than a few of the trade-offs acting as 'safety stops' to the cascade.

idk - I have not thought that completely thru. I do know that we were unusual in that we made essentially all our trade-offs the other way, for offshore seamanship, rather than for convenience anchor life.

And on a different 'philosophy' point. I have always felt that 'a learning mindset was the most important factor for offshore cruising success'. To continuously and very honestly evaluate what goes well and what could be improved and to then actually make changes. None of us will ever be perfect. We will make mistakes, and the ocean will occasionally be very harsh. The best one can do is to learn and improve, but never ever expect to be perfect. I think even on our very best most successful passages I have identified a dozen things I could have done better, and then made changes to actually try to do them better. I made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I tried not to repeat anyone of them.

On that line, I am bothered by the notion(s) that these particular folks 'did everything perfectly and could not have done anything better except perhaps put their pictures in ziplock bags', and that 'experienced seamen should not be questioned or critiqued'. That don't seem to me to reflect a learning attitude, and thus don't seem to me to reflect excellent seamanship. Now that said - I know (I do know personally) how harsh it feels to be criticized after an incident, and the reflective instinct to defend oneself, and how this incident must be terribly difficult especially with their apparent self-image as perfect seamen. So, I mean no direct or personal criticism with this comment, but I would like to make the greater point that really blunt honest self-assessment and learning and taking concrete action from that learning are (IMHO) essential seamanship attitudes - perhaps the single very most important thing for safety.

It was useful for us to hang with folks like the high latitude crowd and the Bermuda race crowd, and the last of the 1960's (pre-gps, pre-furling, pre-epirb) cruisers, because those groups accumulated more harsh experiences and more mistakes than typical, providing more opportunities to learn (than just for example from the coastal and tropical cruising groups). Their environment and objectives were different than ours, but if one looked, there was still vast learning which could be applied.

[kmacdonald]

estarzinger, I agree. There are always those that don't feel we should keep score in games or give grades in school. I'm not one of those.
I myself am very lazy and not safety conscious. I know the same or worse could happen to me but the odds just don't favor that. I am comfortable with my decisions and don't feel the need to make cruising safer. I guess I'm risk tolerant. Now if I were sailing in cold waters I might do things a little differently. What's reasonable to one is foolish to another.

[Seafarer7]

Coast Guard Rescues Sailing Vessel
Published on July 25th, 2018

The US Coast Guard found the 46-foot sailing vessel Kelaerin on July 22 after it had been abandoned on June 16 by its owners who were sailing from Hawaii to Bellingham, Washington. At the time, the Coast Guard rescued the couple from the boat 180 miles off the coast of Grays Harbor, Washington when they encountered difficulty in rough weather and seas. The vessel was found more than 440 miles south-southeast from its position when abandoned.
http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/20...g-vessel/Coast Guard Rescues Sailing Vessel
Scuttlebutt Sailing News - 16h*ago