A new adventure begins.

[SSgtPitt]

Wait a minute.....was that you on the link?
Give us the sea tale.

[SuttonCS]

I'm trying apparently it's too long for a reply I am trying to post it as a reply to my original thread I think its uploading.

[SuttonCS]

A new adventure ends.



So as an update the Beatrice is lost. I won't discuss the intimate details other than to say I was in mortal peril and survived beyond that it was a you had to be there kind of thing. I will say the very expensive lesson was experience with the information deficit that occurs when you lose access to the internet. Two simple google results may have prevented the loss. One showing the weather in the area and the other showing the history of the area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_of_the_Atlantic

According to the coast guard the situation that led to us deciding to beach was caused by a combination of events. The Cumberland current and Gulf-stream colliding making the area generally rough combined with a sustained 20 mile an hour wind from the south combined with storm surge from the surrounding storms combined with high tide. All of these things together produced 20-30ft rollers in multiple directions.

Information available in seconds in the comfort of my home.
However I didn't take the internet with me to sea.

Also before anyone gives the weather too much credit, while there were had been storms around since leaving Lake Weston and it had basically rained since we got there at the time we had our problem it was clear blue skies.

Let me be clear the boat never failed us she never took on water the engine never died the navigation gear worked till the end. Some locals said if we had continued out another 10 or 15 miles we would have cleared the danger. But to put that in perspective 10 or 15 miles would have been an additional three hours, we had no way of knowing the extent of the phenomenon, and turning even further out to sea is not intuitive. I had a distinct instinct to get to shore. After nearly being capsized a few times you begin to think about the distance you might have to swim and we knew the 5 or 6 miles we were from land was too far. In the end the real challenge was just holding on and staying on the boat and keeping the boat vertical and the fatigue of that exertion. I am happy I survived. Many locals seemed surprised that we did.

The thing is once I was home it took me mere minutes to find all this information. But I didn't take the internet with me to the Atlantic. I will say this has not scared me off forever, though it means spending a few years paying off this lesson before trying again. Please no lectures.

Also before anyone asks, yes we could have gotten some of this information from the coast guard but had received no response from anyone on the radio for days and by the time we were deciding whether to head for shore I really didn't have a hand spare to use a mic I was concentrating on maintaining contact with hard points on the boat to prevent being tossed overboard and not surviving. Also the decision to beach wasn't panic or rash it was 3 hours in the making. In fact we finally radioed our mayday once the boat was beached. To which amazingly we got an instant response. I am sure there are super sailors here that would have made a better call or done something differently perhaps heroic to save their dream I however am comfortable with my decision.

To be fair there was a man there from Florida who was parked on the beach watching us we met him the next day, he said that on at least four occasions he completely lost sight of the 46ft lighted mast and thought we had sank. We watched his headlights for a while but lost track of him that night.

[SuttonCS]

I would like to add a picture of the beached boat and a picture of today's radar for Hatteras island to the thread but I don't know how. After the wreck the volunteer beach rescue gave us a ride about a mile into town, I got a motel room walked about a half mile barefoot to a sports bar ate some chicken strips walked back got some sleep caught a ride to the boat, heard about the "tens of thousands of dollars" it would cost to return the boat to the water got my shoes, and immediately hitch-hiked out. The area was remote enough there were no rental cars or buses or anything so we paid a local 70$ to take us to the nearest car rental. They had no cars because of recent storms and flooding so we tried dare county airport while a few pilots agreed we offered fair fares none had the time to fly us to a major airport as they were busy giving tourists very lucrative 15 minute "tours" before today's storm hit, so we hired a shuttle to take us to Norfolk for another 170$ but that airport is tiny all the airlines were closed by 8. However there we found a rental car and drove 24 hours straight home, I was eager to hug my loved ones and return to my "safe space".

[SuttonCS]

I uploaded the relevant images to imgur https://imgur.com/a/6m489NG


Obviously the weather is from today and the wreck happened two days ago but the storm you see is what was forming on top of us.

[SuttonCS]

Also If I could have done one thing differently it would have been to beach a half mile further down to avoid the unmarked bird sanctuary. US Park Rangers can be remarkably obnoxious about such things, I got a very real impression he would rather we had drowned than to wreck in that particular 500 meters of the beach. Though at one point I'm pretty sure I told him he could either arrest me or send me angry letters for the rest of my life but either way in less than an hour I was going to sleep. He was very cranky the next day when my wet phone mistakenly thought headphones were plugged in making it impossible to use for voice calls. He probably called either me or my father over 20 times the following day as we were making good our escape from the area without any regard to our dwindling batteries. Thankfully I managed to salvage a solar charger from the boat.

[Southpass]

It's 1 am and I just rounded Cape Hatteras and litterally the spot where you beached. I just reefed for an approaching thunderstorm. I know the storm is approaching because I have radar overlaid on my chartplotter and Sirius Weather overlaid as well. I have a tablet and a phone with offline charts as well. I've been picking my way through storms and bad weather since we left St. Augustine the 28th. I'm in a 56' Cat. I cannot imagine being out here in your boat in these conditions. Your experience would deter most people from trying again. Glad you're safe and sound.

[SuttonCS]

In our defense we were reefed and under motor, I did have a laptop with relevant charts, I hope you are at least 20-25 miles off shore the locals tell me the further out you are the safer you are. Also we were also dodging those storms with fair accuracy in that when we went down we were under blue skies and windy but fair conditions.

[SuttonCS]

As far as being detered in spite of all this I dream of living on the water. My only delay is it will take me a few years to pay off the boat and likely a few more to find and purchase another. I still dream, just mostly now of bigger more well equiped boats. I had thought I could return the boat home to upgrade it with things like radar, I was wrong.

[SuttonCS]

Also I noticed something important was missing from my responses. Safe Seas! I know where you are and first hand how things can quickly become scary, I'm sure a 56'ft cat is very different ride but not enough so that I would have liked to face a few of the waves we saw (including a couple near misses with capsizing). I hope you round this treacherous area in good time and have a wonderful time for the rest of your cruise.

[GrowleyMonster]

Wow what a tribulation! Glad you are okay. The E. Coast capes can be deadly and the locals are correct, further offshore things are way less hairy as a rule.


AM broadcast radio is good for pretty far distances offshore at night. This is a commonly overlooked resource that is really cheap. HF SSB is worth having, too. You can usually find a used rig and tuner for well under $2k, sometimes closer to $1k. There is a learning curve to getting the most out of it. There are a few rigs with channel masks that can be modified for HAM use, which is a cool thing if you don't mind the very minimal hassle of getting at least a General class HAM ticket. VHF as you discovered sometimes just doesn't cut it even on a coastwise voyage. Even a SW receiver can be useful for getting weather charts, reports via voice, NAVTEX, etc if it has a BFO and you have means to demodulate the data. Voice is simple, though. You just listen.


USCG HF VOICE PRODUCT LISTING
SSB Voice Weather


A couple of links to help you get started.

[Southpass]

Originally Posted by SuttonCS

Also I noticed something important was missing from my responses. Safe Seas! I know where you are and first hand how things can quickly become scary, I'm sure a 56'ft cat is very different ride but not enough so that I would have liked to face a few of the waves we saw (including a couple near misses with capsizing). I hope you round this treacherous area in good time and have a wonderful time for the rest of your cruise.

One of the problems with those shoals is the incoming ocean swells are coming from hundreds of feet deep to shoal depth. If you merely avoid running aground and don't stay out of the breakers you'll be in trouble. We rounded Diamond Shoals and all the capes with plenty of room to spare. Just put Oregon Inlet bridge in the rear view.

FYI, when I was in the Navy and stationed in Spain in the early 80s I was swept offshore at Trafalgar lighthouse on a windsurfer and spent several terrifying hours clinging to a nonskid covered board in 12' seas and 40 kts wind. The Spanish LaGuardia Civil told my wife there was nothing they could do for me as there was no rescue agency and gave her binoculars to watch me go over the horizon. 6 hours later, with hypothermia, I was rescued at sunset by a passing sailboat being delivered into the med by Danish sailors. I'm very very lucky to be typing this. I have huge respect for what mother nature can dish out. Not to mention acute awareness of my own mortality. Some here were making light of my advice to you as you were preparing and urging you to just go have fun with it. I'm sure you and I will never venture offshore without being as informed and prepared as possible. Good luck.

[SSgtPitt]

Wow, glad you’re safe. That’s quite a tale and couldn’t imagine being in that same washing machine.......I could but it gives me nightmares.
Are you going back to the boat to salvage it or anything on it?

[SSgtPitt]

7 days. From the first post to the beaching, 7 days. I bet that beach felt pretty sweet compared to the bashing you were taking.

Well, hoping the boat didn’t cost you too much, you’re safe and the experience from this short adventure will make a big difference in how you prepare for the next one.

[Fiveslide]

Originally Posted by SSgtPitt

7 days. From the first post to the beaching, 7 days. I bet that beach felt pretty sweet compared to the bashing you were taking.

Well, hoping the boat didn’t cost you too much, you’re safe and the experience from this short adventure will make a big difference in how you prepare for the next one.

I generally don't criticize sailors when they've save their own lives, and I'm not going to criticize his decision to beach his boat.

Sutton, you never should have been out there. There's a nice little ditch that bypasses that dangerous piece of the East coast. I thought your plan was to take the ICW?

Originally Posted by SuttonCS

Also If I could have done one thing differently it would have been to beach a half mile further down to avoid the unmarked bird sanctuary. US Park Rangers can be remarkably obnoxious about such things, I got a very real impression he would rather we had drowned than to wreck in that particular 500 meters of the beach. Though at one point I'm pretty sure I told him he could either arrest me or send me angry letters for the rest of my life but either way in less than an hour I was going to sleep. He was very cranky the next day when my wet phone mistakenly thought headphones were plugged in making it impossible to use for voice calls. He probably called either me or my father over 20 times the following day as we were making good our escape from the area without any regard to our dwindling batteries. Thankfully I managed to salvage a solar charger from the boat.

Originally Posted by SuttonCS

I would like to add a picture of the beached boat and a picture of today's radar for Hatteras island to the thread but I don't know how. After the wreck the volunteer beach rescue gave us a ride about a mile into town, I got a motel room walked about a half mile barefoot to a sports bar ate some chicken strips walked back got some sleep caught a ride to the boat, heard about the "tens of thousands of dollars" it would cost to return the boat to the water got my shoes, and immediately hitch-hiked out. The area was remote enough there were no rental cars or buses or anything so we paid a local 70$ to take us to the nearest car rental. They had no cars because of recent storms and flooding so we tried dare county airport while a few pilots agreed we offered fair fares none had the time to fly us to a major airport as they were busy giving tourists very lucrative 15 minute "tours" before today's storm hit, so we hired a shuttle to take us to Norfolk for another 170$ but that airport is tiny all the airlines were closed by 8. However there we found a rental car and drove 24 hours straight home, I was eager to hug my loved ones and return to my "safe space".

I will, however, criticize your attitude about your beached boat. Your attitude about it is very inappropriate, no guilt at all for leaving your mess behind for others to clean up? Just hitchhike out of town as fast as you can, huh? Who's picking up the bill for the clean up? I'm really trying to put this nicely, please answer these questions for us.

What made you think you could do it this way?