Sailboat in Dire Situation Off Hawaii

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Zee, please stop this "it takes at least 4-6 weeks to sail from California (no matter how you spell it) to Hawaii.
Jim

some couple is about to row it and that will only take 6 weeks. (Does the article say if they are a couple of ding-a-lings?)
San Anselmo couple complete record row to Hawaii - Marin Independent Journal

I was thinking a light boat like that but taking the lazy way of just sittin' watchn the waves, drinkin' beer and drifting with the current could only take a week or two longer. A little bell for the end of the fishing rod - must remember to pack it...

[scuba0_1]

The men got into trouble while sailing the 42-foot Walkabout from California to Hawaii, Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Gene Maestas said. The Coast Guard said it received their message for help Sunday morning after the boat became disabled and started taking on water about 400 miles northeast of Oahu,, "As the storm was passing, it kept sucking us in with it,",,,



i cant seem to get the position of where they met the storm. i see the track the storm has taken and it said he was waiting it but it kept coming more east.so i assume he was on the east side of it. i was wondering why on Friday if not earlier would you not turn around and use the wind to push you away from it slowly to let it pass. i have never sailed in the pacific so any knowledge would be great.

[sparau]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

Wonderful and a rare ending to what probably should have been a tragedy. When you think about the boats sunk in the Atlantic the conditions were rough but on the moderate side compared to these boys.

Ah but they were sailing production fibreglass boats rather than a hand made ferro

[El Pinguino]

Thinking...safe semicircle etc.... no point just heaving to.... maybe this in the days of gribs etc is old hat... scroll down... Meteorology

"Diagrams below show typical paths of tropical storms and illustrates the terms dangerous and navigable semicircle. The former lies on the side of the path towards the usual direction of recurvature, i.e. the right hand semicircle in the N and the left hand semicircle in the S hemisphere.





The advance quadrant of the dangerous semicircle(shown in red) is known as the dangerous quadrant as this quadrant lies ahead of the centre. The navigable semi- circle is that which lies on the other side of the path. A ship situated within this semicircle will tend to be blown away from the storm centre and re-curvature of the storm will increase her distance from the centre."

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by nhschneider

(...)

Is it just a coincidence, my imagination or have there been a significant number of boats abandoned this year?

(...)

Hard to say.

In absolute figures, it should be more as there are more boats sailing each year.

But in relative figures, this may be about the same percentage since the start of the days.

Some make it, others do not.

b.

[Blue Crab]

The numbers would be skewed somewhat by the modern weather info, faster boats, metal spars and synthetics ... .

I'd think, in relative numbers, more make it these days than in the Hiscock era, to put a name on it..

[zeehag]

SINGLE HANDED TRANSPAC IS A RACE!!!!! when CRUISING yer NOT racing. .
it IS a 4-6 week trip to hawaii when you are NOT racing.
if ye dont believe it, try doing it in a cal 28. is definitely a 5 week trip. ask leslie manes who ran that tip in a cal 28.
i get my info from the folk s who just recently did the cruise. they also took 4-6 weeks across the pacific to hawaii... is a long trip when ye have a cruising boat

i believe not more--just more publicity about it.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Thinking...safe semicircle etc.... no point just heaving to.... "

I agree with you, in the dangerous quadrant get sailing out of it, as with the navigable... But there comes a point where the seas get too big to do so, the crests breaking, and you have a good chance of being rolled over. Then there are only three options: heaving to, jordan series drogue off the stern, or a parachute anchor off the bow (depending on your philosophy and equipment).

If its getting too difficult to survive sailing then I would have to hove to, no matter where the storms centre is, then if it got worse or the boat wasnt heaving to right then I would have to use my parachute anchor.

Look at the coast guard video, we know waves dont show up well on video, but have a look at the monsters they were lying ahull to! Thay are immense! Whoppers! Damn biggies!

The thing about sailing in teeny-weeny little boats like ours are to avoid these sort of storms. Once in them we are all in deep do-do.
As soon as they were closing Hawaii and that damn hurricane started to track more and more east they needed to head east at full speed, but they probably didnt do it early enough, probably prefering to slow down than turn upwind in 35 knots... And then turning upwind in 50 knots is almost impossible for a boat like that... Then 70 knots, then 90.

I dont care what boat you have you can not sail upwind in 90 knots! Let alone in those monstrous swells.

I doubt many boats could even remain hove to in 70 or 90 knots. I know mine couldn't. So that brings them back to expensive equipment like a Jordan series drogue or a proper parachute anchor. And that boat didnt look like it could afford $2,000 for the kit.


Mark

[Arthur Garfield]

zeehag,
Well Duh!

Read what I typed.I certainly DID NOT say app.was for ANYTHING other than
ACCURATE wind speed at a moment at location-So,,, do me a favor and DON'T put words in anyones mouth and COMPREHEND what your reading before you make comments.
I suppose you're just living up to your nickname!

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by zeehag

SINGLE HANDED TRANSPAC IS A RACE!!!!! when CRUISING yer NOT racing. .
it IS a 4-6 week trip to hawaii when you are NOT racing.
if ye dont believe it, try doing it in a cal 28. is definitely a 5 week trip. ask leslie manes who ran that tip in a cal 28.
i get my info from the folk s who just recently did the cruise. they also took 4-6 weeks across the pacific to hawaii... is a long trip when ye have a cruising boat

i believe not more--just more publicity about it.

Aw come on, Zee! If you read my post, you would have noticed that I was not relying upon some one else's experience, it was my own. We did that passage in our CRUISING PRODUCTION 30 FOOT boat, NOT RACING, in 16 days. We have done the reverse trip, a longer and much more difficult passage, twice, once in that Yankee 30 and once in our Standfast 36. Those voyages took 21 and 24 days respectively, and were both plagued by bad weather being too late in the season. We were not racing, were short handed and we were, in the first instance, inexperienced and relying upon celestial navigation. While I personally believe that the Yankee 30 is a bit better boat than your friends Cal 28, it isn't that different, and has a similar LWL, and is not inherently much faster, especially in cruise mode.

Now as to your friends alleged passage: how can one passage take from 4 to 6 weeks? Seems like it's gotta be just one duration, not a group of varying times. And how in the world can one take 6 weeks to sail 2200 miles (more or less, depending where in California you leave from)? That's around 50 miles per day, or two knots average speed. As others have noted, some guys drifted across in an inflatable with no sails or motor in just a few days more than that.

You classify the SSS transpac as a race, not a cruise, and I agree with you. Yet many of the boats involved are indeed cruising boats, things like Westsail 32s (that surely meets your definition of a cruising boat), and yes, they are trying hard to go fast. But they are short handed like real cruisers usually are, and they manage to do the passage in a bit over two weeks. The real racers are making it in much less than ONE WEEK.

So again, I must say that your ideas of Calif to Hawaii passage times are simply wrong for most cruising boats.

Not sure why this bugs me so much, and I hope that I've not offended you, Zee, but for some reason your posts on a passage that I and so many others have actually done just stuck in my craw.

Jim

[roverhi]

25' waterline, sailing solo and not racing, 15 days from SF to Hilo. That seems to be about average for boats about my size. Smaller boats, shorter water line will take longer but not more than 3 weeks to Hawaii. Longer waterlines will take a few days less. Surfing boats, not matter the waterline, can cut a lot of time off the passage but it's not a cruise when you try and control a surfing boat with the sail area to make it possible.

THERE IS NO SAFE QUADRANT IN A HURRICANE, PERIOD!!!!!! There are quadrants that are less dangerous but not safe. Any hurricane is a survival situation not a sailing experience. Survival is as much luck as a well found boat and competent crew. To put it simply, stay out of there way if you expect to live to collect your SS pension. The right front quadrant is the most dangerous because the speed of the forward movement of the storm is added to the winds generated by the storm. If the storm is moving west at 18k and still a tropical storm with 50k winds, the relative wind will be 68K or hurricane force. Winds in other quadrants will be somewhat less because you subtract a vector of the storm movement effect.

The winds in a low blow into the center of storm across the pressure gradient lines on a chart. When the storm got close, the winds probably shifted more to the north and west sucking them into, not away from the storm. When the storm began tracking west, they should have tried get as much northing as they could get assuming to get out of the path of the storm. They were probably already too far south and initially reluctant to give up the distance travelled toward Hawaii. When it became obvious they were in the path, sounds like the winds didn't let them get out of its path. 4 or 5 days out from the storm, they could even have elected to head S or SSW, to get below the storm, BTDT. When the storm is only a couple of days away, you are pretty much stuck in trying to avoid it. You can only try and get into a position where winds will be less severe.

[cal40john]

Originally Posted by zeehag

SINGLE HANDED TRANSPAC IS A RACE!!!!! when CRUISING yer NOT racing. .
it IS a 4-6 week trip to hawaii when you are NOT racing.
if ye dont believe it, try doing it in a cal 28. is definitely a 5 week trip. ask leslie manes who ran that tip in a cal 28.
i get my info from the folk s who just recently did the cruise. they also took 4-6 weeks across the pacific to hawaii... is a long trip when ye have a cruising boat

i believe not more--just more publicity about it.

I did the trip from Neah Bay (not counting trip from Seattle) to Lahaina in 21 days on a Cal 34. We spent a day hove to due to worrying about a hurricane. Broke the boom when the autopilot failed. Took it easy on the repair for a day or so until we were confident the repair was strong. Not racing, 3 people, one person on watch.

Return trip was 19 days, had 4 people on the return trip, still only one person on watch.

[DoubleWhisky]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Not sure why this bugs me so much.
Jim

May be You are just nonsense-sensitive???

Cheers,

Tomasz

[Glenn.Brooks]

Originally Posted by scuba0_1

"As the storm was passing, it kept sucking us in with it,",,,

i cant seem to get the position of where they met the storm. i see the track the storm has taken and it said he was waiting it but it kept coming more east.so i assume he was on the east side of it. i was wondering why on Friday if not earlier would you not turn around and use the wind to push you away from it slowly to let it pass. i have never sailed in the pacific so any knowledge would be great.

Yeah, this is an interesting question. Looks like one of those situations where they could only have gotten out of the way if they had turned North 5 or 6 days before they intersected the storm. They would have been sailing a deep reach or perhaps down wind with the North East trades - heading southwesterly toward the main Hawaiian Island chain. Making around 120- 150 Nm per day. Julio formed out of a low pressure cell and raced across the eastern Pacific t Hawaii in 7 or 8 days time, moving around 18kts/hour on average, so crossed the Pacific twice as fast as the boat the traveling.

Then east of Hawaii, Julio curved northeasterly of Hawaii and in 36 hours recurved into the path of the oncoming boat. Wind angles of the NE trades would only allow the boat to sail basicaly north, if that, essentially along the same course taken by the storm, of course being overtaken and sucked into the eye of the cyclone by the counterclockwise circulating winds and strong surface wave pattern. So, no chance for them to escape the "dangerous" quadrant mentioned by another poster. BTW this scenario was discussed at length on the Single Handed Transpac forum eariler this spring, relating to how climate change and emerging el nino effects might cause a northward trending hurricane to overtake the fleet whilst enroute to Hawaii in late June- early July.

The skipper did report heaving to to let the storm pass. However, either he hove to much to late in the game, or the storm veered more northeasterly than he expected and he had no where to go.

For what its worth, Julio continued northerly as a tropical storm all the way up to 35 north and is still a nasty low pressure system with serious winds and rain half way to Alaska.

For me the lesson learned from all this is follow established sailing advise and dont go sailing into tropical waters during Hurricane Season. August is the wrong time to sail to Hawaii. Hurricane season for Hawaii runs from June to October. 147 recorded hurricane tracks have run up both sides of the Hawaii islands into the north pacific during this period of the year. Only a few hit Hawaii, but many go charging into the North Pacific.

[barnakiel]

Does anyone know what kind of wx services they had onboard? Fax? Radio? Gribs? Internet?

Could they interpret their wx data?

I am looking at the track that looks plain vanilla and US wx services are best you can ask for. It seems that a boat with wx fax onboard and with the most basic wx data reading skills should have been able to avoid getting badly hit.

Who has a radio, has a fax ... and a radio is obligatory in some countries.

b.