Ken Barnes' Description of Situation

[Trim50]

Originally Posted by henkmeuzelaar

Not even if you were soloing in the Screaming Fifties?? How long, exactly, were you planning to stay at the helm?

Long enough to find a harbor.

Originally Posted by henkmeuzelaar

How many aspiring circumnavigators do you know that leave port without setting up some kind of website??

Plenty!! They simply use email and HF

Originally Posted by henkmeuzelaar

I hope we can all agree on that last quote, though.

It's kinda the reason we have a cruising forum, i.e. to discuss cruising and sailing topics.

As far as calling us blowhards, I think Lats needs to reconsider who is paying their bills.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Something makes me think that the coverage was helped once the media saw that the daughters were somewhat "Photogenic"............

To be honest, in this f#cked up world, it probably IS a good rescue strategy for someone who is way "off piste" to have the folks back home try and get events into the media spotlight to help along any rescue decisions...........call me cynical.


Weather wise, I was under the impression that he wasn't "buttoned up down below" through neccessity..........otherwise he wouldn't have had the mizzen sail up - and would probably have a drogue out. Either he was down below having a well needed kip or was getting some food etc - or he thought that leaving things to the AP whilst sitting down below was an acceptable plan.

I am just glad (for my sanity!) that he hasn't announced that he is trying again, this time with a Lagoon, in company with the Bumfuzzles. Yet

[Trim50]

I'm sure things would have been different if his girlfriend lived in Ohio and not Newport near the media capital of the world.

Even so, the hypocrisy coming from these people with web sites is like 30 knots on the nose.

[CSY Man]

I am just glad (for my sanity!) that he hasn't announced that he is trying again, this time with a Lagoon, in company with the Bumfuzzles. Yet

I hope he does.

Should make for lively threads, I for one will bring out the pop corn and beer and watch the fights begin....

This thread was hopping for a while until they kicked out CAVU's arse...

No one kicked cavu out. He left of his own accord.

[capt lar]

Pure evil, CSY guy . The mod squad will be after you next and we won't try to save you.

As to the website comments - I find more and more people do so. People put up family web sites with all kinds of crap about their amazingly dull lives. Seems everyone needs attention or recognition. Generation Next kids talk about IMing (jeez - I made a new word?) with their 500 closest friends".
I would not make anything out of how someone uses the internet.

One of my favorite lines is from a Hal Roth book. He had met up with a sailor in the South Pacific who stated that his goal was to "sail around the world and not write a book about it".

[capt lar]

Damn it Kai - I didn't post in time. You are too easy !

[capt lar]

Hey CSY - sometimes when you drop a fish, if you quickly cast to the same spot, they will bite it again. Think you can catch him twice ?

[CSY Man]

No one kicked cavu out. He left of his own accord.

Sorry, my mistake, I thought he, uh got in trouble with managment and got some time off without pay...

Hey CSY - sometimes when you drop a fish, if you quickly cast to the same spot, they will bite it again. Think you can catch him twice ?

Hmm, good idea but I am not really a fisherman, too much blood and guts in the cockpit. Gets smelly ya know?

I may be easy, but I ain't cheap

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by Trim50

Because Ken is (was) my neighbor, I have reframed from comment on this subject. The one thing I will comment on is that I believe Epirb should be reserved for a situation in which you are boarding your life raft because your vessel IS sinking or crew is critically injured. I am with CAVU in being concerned that we will all eventually be paying for ocean rescue no matter how warranted the rescue. I believe I read somewhere that the tab for Ken’s rescue was somewhere around $300,000 US. If insurance is faced with paying these kind of bills…I’m sure cruising insurance will become prohibitive to most of us.

Also, I think CAVU provided excellent content.

You nailed it. How many more of these rescues will occur before you hear the rescue squad answer back, "Will that be MasterCard or Visa?"

[henkmeuzelaar]

My question:

Not even if you were soloing in the Screaming Fifties?? How long, exactly, were you planning to stay at the helm?

Sean Sullivan's answer:

Sorry, I have the exact opposite point of view with most of what you say........ Of course, you can't stay at the helm all day while in rough seas.

Trim50's answer:

Long enough to find a harbor.

Aw cmon guys......I can get more serious answers than that on alt.sailing.asa!

It's not hard to see why these threads run on & on & on & on here.

Drop the hook at Project MARC's humble HQ in the Maskelynes (Vanuatu) someday and we'll have a Tusker beer.

Have fun

Flying Dutchman

[dana-tenacity]

Trim, you haven't been in big enough seas then. You are right, an autopilot won't do it, you must get the boat to orient itself to the seas on its own then get below.It's safer there, and no-one can hand steer a boat for over 48 hrs

Henkmeuzelaar, I understand your point. Realistically, when taking on a challenge such as Ken did, there will be times where you would be required to be at the helm, and just deal with the exhaustion. It is part of the challenge. It is not clear to me why Ken was below, or for how long. It is also not clear to me if he was sleeping, or had just gone down to check his charts. I do know that, like everything else, it is a calculated risk. He miscalculated. Had he waited 5 more minutes to go below, this may never have happened. There are certain sea conditions that just can not be handles with a vane or auto pilot. The best a single hander can do is to try to find a small break in those conditions to take care of whatever is necessary (like eating, navigating, checking weather fax etc. Finding a safe harbor was not an option in this case. Not leaving the helm until the seas calmed may not have been either. A clear understanding of the limitations of the auto pilot or vane, and of the current sea conditions is a must. I have no idea if the conditions appeared to warrant delaying whatever it was Ken was doing below deck, but it is not unreasonable to believe that he considered the conditions, and the ability of the auto pilot to handle them for the time he needed to be below, and calculated that the need to go below outweighed the danger. He was clearly mistaken.

[Raven]

Below is a passage from Donna Lange's log, as posted on her web site. (She is the sailor who was in the vicinity of Ken Barnes when he rolled.) The entry was from her passage across the North Atlantic a few years back. Early in the voyage, her windvane failed and she spent most of the remaining voyage at the tiller. (Her 28' Southern Cross uses a tiller rather than a wheel.)

"Personal Journal Entry: I was to hit my first 9-force gale 250 miles off New Foundland. Two days of gales culminating in 25 plus foot seas and 45 naught winds. Steady winds. In the night, I was to lose the trim tab and rudder to my steering vane. Another backhanded gift I was to receive. I decided that I could somehow make myself steer the boat for the next 2100 miles without it. If prisoners of the Holocaust can survive weeks of trains heading for torture and death, I could sit and endure three weeks of sitting in one place steering toward my dreams. But it was to be an endurance challenge beyond my imagination that would teach me the meaning of true mediation. Life where time had to stop being relevant. Time was my enemy. I would panic as the next storm would appear on the horizon. At one point, ten straight days of gale force winds rolled over me including one 8 and one 9-force blow. The last one, only 300 miles from Ireland and two weeks without sleep. The storm was to track more NE but at the last moment it turned due east driving directly over me. But that was to be the last gale of the journey."

Then, of course, there was the circumnavigation of Joshua Slocum aboard his 37' "Spray" back in 1896 (becoming the first person to circumnavigate single-handed). His "autohelm" was achieved by carefully balancing the sail trim and tying his tiller into a fixed position.