Nicholson 38 sunk on Baja Ha-Ha

[shrspeedblade]

Out of curiosity, while I was fiddling with my 20 year old garmin chartplotter yesterday, I plugged in the (certainly out of date) card that gives depths for Pacific Mexico and took a look at the Bahia Tortuga entrance. There labeled right off Kelp point: several *Dangerous Submerged Rock*. I could even make a pretty good guess which one they hit based on the pictures from this thread.

A little prudence can often go a long way.

[requiem]

I'll just leave this here. Since the scale's a bit hard to read, I'll point out that it's showing the 500 m / 2000 ft distances.



Edit... just realized this is the same location as the satellite overlay posted in the first few pages.

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by psk125

If they had waited to fix the boat, BBG would still be afloat. If they had sailed carefully, piloting without using the modern stuff -- autopilot, chart plotter & depth sounder to follow the 30' contour -- BBG would still be afloat. If the most experienced person aboard wasn't fixated on autopilot issues and was instead watching where they were going, BBG would still be afloat.

You don't actually know that. The decision to follow the 10m depth contour was a fatal decision, and I don't know that having a working autopilot would change that. As much as Ray blames the autopilot for making a turn, the track shows the boat turning to stay on the 10m line, not turning towards shore. Maybe it turned on its own, and maybe not. But regardless, he probably would have hit a rock anyway by sailing in only 10m of water. BBG went down due to a poor navigation decision, and I don't attribute equipment problems to it at all.

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

<snip>
Ultimately the accident happened because of a series of bad judgments. They should never have left in the first place. Because there was doubt about the rig they tried to keep out of the wind by staying dangerously close to the coast. They used the autopilot close to shore even knowing that it could turn suddenly. He failed to update his waypoints for the new, and dangerous, track. While trying to mitigate the power problem the crew got distracted from the task of course following. It seems that there was a single source of nav data, his laptop presumably located below decks. And there was no indication in his telling of the story that he was aware of the likelihood for high, compressed wind at the point (and which may well have played a part even if he was unaware of it).

Don is critical of the comments. That is a mistake. We should be commenting about these mistakes so that others don't do the same thing in the future. The "captain" seems to want to move on and leave this in the past. I appreciate that this is not his proudest moment, and not something that is going to help with future business. But not confronting and fully understanding the mistakes of the past just dooms him, and us, to repeat these mistakes. On a personal level I have sympathy for all involved, but sympathy doesn't make us better skippers.

Greg

If I were delivering that boat, I am certain the delivery would have been without incident. Of all off the problems Ray discussed, none were IMO dealbreakers; none made the boat unseaworthy. That might be what Don was getting at with his delivery that had some similar issues. There is no blame on the boat, and it is pretty normal to make a delivery with some minor inconveniences. That is what many deliveries are, moving a project boat to somewhere else to get worked on.

I have sailed many thousands of miles without autopilot. The navigation lights might have been wired strangely, but they worked. He had a working navigation system. The engine worked, the sails worked, and the steering worked. The boat was not taking on water. They had a full crew, and even had a person on a rail while Ray worked that spotted the rock.

The decision to leave port, based on the publicly available information, was not a bad one. The decision to sail in such shallow water was.

[CarinaPDX]

Originally Posted by wholybee

If I were delivering that boat, I am certain the delivery would have been without incident.

I believe you, but I also think that you might have made different decisions were you to know the actual condition of the boat. But I disagree about there only having been a single fatal mistake. I take the multiple 12V issues not as deal-killers themselves but as an indication of a 12V system that had been hacked by at least one very incompetent person (which continued to be a problem), and representative of the poor condition of the boat (which led to the lack of confidence in the rig).

Deciding to hug the coast was a fatal decision, as you say, which he did because he did not trust the rig to stand up to fresh winds. Either the rig was dangerously weak (and he should not have left) or it was OK but led to his fear and hence bad decision to hug the coast. Either way it should have been a deal-breaker based on his judgement of condition. My guess is that it was not a problem other than he thought it was, but that was enough to lead to the bad routing decision. Without the lack of confidence in the rig he would likely not have sailed where he did so it was a contributing factor. The power problems led to the distraction at the critical time - no power problems then they might have noticed the danger before hitting the rocks. The nav computer problem may similarly have contributed but that is hard to say for certain. The autopilot was a known problem and the "captain" chose to use it anyway, while also operating close to the rocks. The error there was to use the autopilot - hand steering would have worked out better assuming that they would have cleared the rocks without the sudden course change. My point is that our "captain" made multiple bad judgment calls, and might well have arrived safely at anchor had he not made one or more of them. Even the bad routing decision was survivable had the helmsman reacted quickly to the sight of the rocks - and of course there would not have been a sudden course change towards the rocks without the autopilot.

It really is a package deal: he made multiple bad decisions that added up to the loss of the boat. And TBH reflects badly on his judgment generally. Sometimes boats are lost due to a single mistake, and all of us have made mistakes, but this is something else.

Another thing that bothers me about this tale is that our "captain" appears not to have been the annointed master of this boat, which would leave the owner as the captain. But it also appears by his own words that he had made certain that the owner and other crew understood that he was the most experienced (and presumably should be deferred to). IOW he wanted to have it both ways. It appears that he was de facto captain, but didn't want to take the responsibility. Or at least not after the fact.

I think the folks commenting here would likely have all either declined to go at that time or would have had a successful passage, as wholybee says he would. I'll bet every single one of them would never have come so close to that rocky point. Most if not all would have left the AP off and hand steered - particularly since there seemed to be a problem with 12V power supply (why run the batteries down?).

The good news for the "captain" is that there is life after disaster. Even Capt. Hazelwood (Exxon Valdes) got a job as a professor at King's Point (U.S. Merchant Marine Academy) after being drunk on duty, resulting in our largest oil spill to date.

Greg

[Amustad]

My two cents: I was the one who responded to Boat Bum Gal's "mayday" call in Turtle Bay. I have it recorded on my phone. It appears we were the only boat that monitored the VHF. We were able to contact the Spanish speaking harbor nightwatchman in TB and translated the emergency. He responded immediately.

We then hopped into the dink and drove out to the entrance ourselves. I was relieved to see the nightwatchman arriving first. He took the three crew aboard his panga and towed their worn looking dinghy behind.

The night was pitch black, around 0115. The offshore winds were less than 10kts and the waters calm. I could not see any breaking white water around the rocks.

Judging by his AIS track and the fact he was using Explorer to navigate; I surmise he was entirely on auto-pilot -- 10 left, 10 right -- while playing coastal Russian Roulette and staring at the laptop. He was obviously on watch for the entire time between Isle Narividad and Turtle Bay, at least some 16nm. I know this because his crew, inexperienced as they were, wouldn't dare close in on a pitch black coast on their own, scalloping their way to TB.

I my opinion, the autopilot and all the other excuses he made had zero to do with it. It was simply that Skipper Ray has demonstrated a history of unnecessary risk taking and unprofessionalism.

Furthermore, the Pacific coast of Mexico was last surveyed by the USS Ranger in the years 1890-1900 (converted to WGS84) and has only been updated here and there and for major cargo and passenger ports. In fact, a rock outcropping south of Ensenada (Pt. Santo, 1nm offshore) has just recently made its way to most proprietary charts. The charts do a poor job of indicating the location of rocks, even at Turtle Bay, and in some places the coastline itself is a mile off its stated position.

It's obvious to me Capt. Ray does not possess the experience, knowledge, aptitude, or skills necessary to call himself a "Delivery Skipper." He has tarnished my profession. I only say this because I have reviewed his job history and the many statements by those who know him.

Arnstein Mustad
Mustad Marine Yacht Delivery

[donradcliffe]

There is a tendency on social media to pile on when someone makes a mistake. When I read about major incidents like abandoned or destroyed boats, I always look at the incident to determine the root cause, but I never criticize the decisions of those involved, because I was not on that boat. Many times seasickness and fatigue could be considered the primary cause.

I have been in and out of Turtle Bay about a dozen times, 2 or 3 times at night, and I never have gone near Kelp Point. In my experience, a land ridge going down into the water is continued in an underwater ridge. I will give any point a wide berth unless I know it has been thoroughly surveyed. Coming in at night you don't get the ability to see the ridges. In the case of Turtle Bay, there is a long underwater ridge on the south side of the entrance which extends from Cabo Tortolo out to Entrance Rock.

I'm not buying rigging issues as an excuse because I don't see any sails up on the sunken boat. They were motoring into an offshore breeze with very little fetch, but probably had some onshore swell.

If you ask me, I would say that the loss of the boat would probably have been avoided if the full crew had been up on watch in the last hour before entry. Ray tried to do everything himself, and got overloaded when things went south. I am more apt to trust an autopilot than a crew at 0100, but if the autopilot was known to be dodgy, I would have put my best helmsperson in the wheel, and given them courses to steer from the navigation computer. If the navigation computer craps out at a critical time, my rule is to STOP THE BOAT until you have figured out a plan without it, and that plan may be to stand offshore until dawn. I would have also had additional lookouts. Coming in the middle of the entrance, you would have seen the town lights on the left, and a load of anchor lights on the right.

I have come into Turtle Bay twice with the Navionics app on my phone because the boats navigation system was down, and it is plenty good enough. For fun, I looked at Google Maps--it doesn't show any of the rocks.
I came in a couple of times in the 1970-80s (pre GPS) but I came in during the day. If I lost all GPS and charts, I would call someone in the anchorage to vector me in or stand off until dawn.

[CyKlop]

Originally Posted by massnspace

As someone who has it in their plans to potentially do the haha in the next few years, I have to ask: With a chartplotter, is it NOT safe to enter that harbor at night? Isn’t there at least a half mile swath of safe, deep water?

It is actually quite safe to enter the harbour. However, the sailing instructions AND most (if not all) cruising guides do tell you to sail past and then enter from the south west rather than cutting that point closely.

However, when I did the Ha Ha, we elected to simply stand off until morning light, which was only a couple of hours away, just as an added safety margin.

[wholybee]

We do all make mistakes. I hit a reef at almost 5 kts in Fiji. Muddy water so even in bright sun it was not visible, and I was following waypoints that were "guaranteed" to be safe.(from Curly for those who knew him) We had a good watch, and saw breaking water about half a mile ahead, and so I made the decision to stop and reevaluate our waypoints, and while slowing the boat hit the reef. Still far off from the breaking water, but it wasn't due to lack of watch. Even on the reef looking straight down I couldn't see it. Neither Navionics or CMAP showed a reef in the exact spot, only vaguely in the area.

I got lucky, it just hit the tip if my keel and there was only some scratched paint.

More similar to this incident, entering Cocos Keeling at night. As I approached the atoll, my tablet failed. So while I had some backup navigation, my best charts were not available. As I approached the entrance, still a few miles off, I became disoriented. I was fumbling with my tablet to try and get it working again, Then I got hit by a surprise squall which knocked me off course a bit. There were lights where I did not expect them, and the entrance looked very different from what it should be based on my chart. So I turned away from the atoll and hailed for boats inside the atoll. To my surprise, an Australian navy vessel responded. It turned out they were anchored in front of the entrance, and were the lights making the whole atoll look wrong. They gave me advise on the entrance, which buoys to look for and how to stay clear of the reef. As I entered, another cruiser came out in a dingy to guide me in.

That incident could have very easily gone badly. But when things didn't go right, I was a couple miles off, and could pause and figure it out. Heaving to and waiting until daylight would have been simple enough had my radio call not been answered.

I do like to give skippers the benefit of the doubt, as we were not there. And even good skippers will make a bad judgement from time-to-time. In the BBG case, it wasn't for lack of watch-a crew member on the rail as lookout saw the rocks and called out before the collision. The cause was being too close to shore. Full Stop. Even if someone was hand steering and you told them to follow the 30 ft depth, the would have hit that rock. Ray claimed to have entered Turtle Bay 4 times prior. Maybe it was overconfidence?

[Amustad]

Originally Posted by wholybee

We do all make mistakes.

[Redacted]
Ray has wasted no time in trying to get another gig. In fact, he offered to deliver someone's Baja Haha boat days after the sinking (as posted on FB). He was laughed off the thread.

There's been no contact with the owner, no remediation, and no remorse shown. Ray hasn't taken more than "partial" responsibility. All she had was Mexican liability insurance, that's it. It's a total loss!

There is a GO FUND ME for her.

[Redacted]
I am sure we haven't heard the last of Ray McCormack.

[sv_pelagia]

Thank you for the GO FUND ME link
.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/sailor-wh...ource=facebook


I don't normally do these, but this one is an exception. She DESERVES help.

[serah]

Originally Posted by CarinaPDX

Yes, not getting this. Don had a boat to deliver which had a failed autopilot which he was unable to repair; he judged that he didn't require it so left and made a safe passage. Seems right to me.

The skipper in question wrote:

This means that he was paid (for the travel) and asserted primacy in decision-making due to his experience. I.e. he owns this.

Further:


So he knew that there were multiple existing problems before discovering that the boat's 12V system was not functioning correctly. His repair of the 12V problem turned out to be inadequate, as other 12V problems showed up when starting out again. And he also learned that the autopilot was unreliable, with sudden 30 degree turns and a 20 second delay on turning off - in other words it should never have been used. But he carried on anyway. The point I make is that you don't take a boat to sea that is not ready for that passage: no excuses. This boat was not ready, and leaving with these known problems was bad judgment. And using a misbehaving autopilot, especially close to shore, was reckless - hand steering was both possible and the safe approach.


This is what I expect from a noob, not a USCG Master. If you are not ready for the passage such that you are confident that you will not need assistance then you are not ready for that passage. You cannot count on anyone else bailing your ass out of a situation that you could reasonably have anticipated. Thinking that it's OK to take a boat with serious issues out on a significant passage because there are other boats to help out is an abdication of responsibility. FWIW this thinking is common among noobs around many rallies and it is flat out wrong and dangerous. If you aren't ready to do it then you have no right to to go anyway and assume you can lean on others to save you from your foolishness.

Ultimately the accident happened because of a series of bad judgments. They should never have left in the first place. Because there was doubt about the rig they tried to keep out of the wind by staying dangerously close to the coast. They used the autopilot close to shore even knowing that it could turn suddenly. He failed to update his waypoints for the new, and dangerous, track. While trying to mitigate the power problem the crew got distracted from the task of course following. It seems that there was a single source of nav data, his laptop presumably located below decks. And there was no indication in his telling of the story that he was aware of the likelihood for high, compressed wind at the point (and which may well have played a part even if he was unaware of it).

Don is critical of the comments. That is a mistake. We should be commenting about these mistakes so that others don't do the same thing in the future. The "captain" seems to want to move on and leave this in the past. I appreciate that this is not his proudest moment, and not something that is going to help with future business. But not confronting and fully understanding the mistakes of the past just dooms him, and us, to repeat these mistakes. On a personal level I have sympathy for all involved, but sympathy doesn't make us better skippers.

Greg

I'm the same serah from Sailing Anarchy, who did the Hawaii trip with ray last year.


I can't speak to the details of BBG, but please don't take Ray's commentary as facts. It's one side of the story.

[sgwright]

Originally Posted by CyKlop

Leaving off the opinions - not because they're nivalid, but because they are opinions or because they are valid or invalid, but because right now I'm more interested in facts and not potential arguments



No. The trip was terminated and the vessel returned to port of origin (the port from which we had left). At that point the discussion turned to how to best offload the fuel to be able to properly access the engine room and effect repairs. The starboard fuel bladder was offloaded and it became clear that the repairs would take longer than the weather window would allow, so all crew returned home. I believe another attempt to make the delivery is scheduled for late November.



I don't recall the exact time of departure from the fuel dock, but the voyage had been under way for something in the neighbourhood of 6 hours,
something like that, when the voyage was terminated and the return was initiated.

So a vessel powered solely by engines departed on a 2000NM+ voyage without proper access to the engine space? So what would have happened if this had occurred 600 miles into the voyage instead of 6 hours? Sounds like another poor judgement call to me.

[CarinaPDX]

Originally Posted by serah

I'm the same serah from Sailing Anarchy, who did the Hawaii trip with ray last year.


I can't speak to the details of BBG, but please don't take Ray's commentary as facts. It's one side of the story.

I just read the first 10 pages of the SA thread. First thing to say is that I am so sorry you had that experience, both Ray's terrible behavior and the other man's sexual assault. There ought to be a special place in hell for men who take advantage of the isolation to misbehave. Too many women have been scared off sailing by such men. I'm glad to hear that you are still interested.

As you will have noticed we have a much more genteel approach on CF than on SA. Criticisms tend to be more muted and carefully couched. Note Don's criticism of the critical comments about Ray as an example of encouraging these standards. By comparison SA is positively libelous. It is a bit of a shock, but also refreshing. I appreciate the sharing of the history of Ray's misadventures, and especially yours.

Without the first hand reports of the others on board we only have Ray's side of the story. I was reacting to that, which I found incredibly damning even if clearly intended to be flattering to Ray himself. I was starting to realize that there was likely some dishonesty in his telling; still without the other side I won't call the man a liar. Now after reading SA it is hard to believe anything that he has said.

I have known a good number of delivery skippers in my time, and with most it is SOP for the owner to pay for the delivery skipper to survey the boat before departure, followed by a negotiation as to making any repairs if required. The good ones walk away if the owner won't pay for the repairs. That is how the pros work. Of course many boats are delivered with problems, just not ones that would put the boat and crew at risk. In this case I consider the various boat problems to have contributed to the loss but ultimately the boat was lost due to Ray's failings, especially as the helmsman when she ran aground. Other skippers would have gotten the boat there safely, even with the problems.

I have to keep reminding myself that getting a USCG Masters license is not very difficult, and is certainly no indicator of competence. Had I chosen to go that route I would have probably self-certified the 720 days at sea - something that would be very easy to fake. It also doesn't guarantee that the applicant has actually learned anything or ever learned by crewing with competent skippers. In the end it is just a piece of paper.

Thanks to your contribution, and those of others, he is going to find deliveries much harder to get. But he really should just get out of it on his own: with his history if he ever has to appear before a USCG Court of Inquiry he will be in deep trouble, possibly criminally.

Fair winds Serah.

Greg

[CapnSlappy]

Hi everyone, I am late to this conversation but I do want to clear up a few things I have read.

Ray absolutely DOES NOT have insurance so the owner of BBG has indeed lost everything. I know Ray in real life, not just on facebook. He lives across the river from me and I run into him from time to time on the docks and I have repaired a few of the boats he has damaged locally. He is well known and has a reputation for making poor decisions, wrecking boats, and never taking responsibility for any of it.

I would recommend that, when reading his account for what happened to BBG, take it with a grain of salt. He will always blame the boat and inexperienced crew.