Crew of S/V 'Sanctuary' Abandon Ship

[David_Old_Jersey]

Could be that sails came down in advance of the rescue? Albeit that does look a rather too neat job on the mainsail for 40 knots.........

Obviously the Skipper made the correct decision by pressing the big red button as all survived ......but I do wonder about the make up of the Crew - as 5 onboard is a decent number.

Being onboard may have been very unpleasant, but that not the same as dangerous.....I suspect family members as crew, and the Skipper gave there views and desires greater weight (than they merited?) than would have given to the opinions of casual crew.

[jzk]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

+1 on lack of any sail up - thinking maybe there was a reason why they elected not to hoist something to stabilize the movement - maybe a rigging failure or some steering issues.

? on the shape vs. rolling - I would think with the beam and the flattish bottom she would be pretty stable or at least more stable than a similarly ballasted wineglass hull (just speculating).

b.

As a Beneteau owner (47.7) I would much prefer not to have the sea right on the beam as the rolling can be pretty significant. But, that is a matter of comfort, not a reason to abandon ship. Even with no sail, she can be steered downwind in a more comfortable manner, but a little sail would do wonders for stability and, perhaps, help them make way for their destination. I have seen no reports of a more significant failure such as rudder or hull breach. Yes, I was not there, but if these are "abandon ship" conditions to someone, then they should not be offshore.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Tropic Cat

(...) Can you say washing machine?

(...) If they didn't have goggles on board, and none of the crew who left the rescue boat had them, you won't be able to put your face into the wind.

(...) fickle weather pattern in that part of the world in October. Someone took a gamble, and lost.

Washing machine perhaps earlier, apparently not at the time of the rescue.

Goggles fine, but there is the dodger, the wind/autopilot and the crew was large enough to take turns.

Weather pattern - as someone noted above this is the way North Americans sail to West Indies - to Bermuda first. I do not think they were sailing to Europe, do you?

b.

[Telekitr]

Heres hoping for a good phone call from your sister Nicoleb. I'm sure its very difficult waiting the hours and minutes to hear.
To the crew of the Norwegian liner, big praises. Its not easy to maneuver a ship of that size in big seas let along put out and recover a rescue boat.

I must ask that 350 miles out of NY? Thats 2-3 days time for even the slowest of boats. That would make it Friday setting out. Correct me if I'm wrong but watching the NOAA surface charts and GRIBS early last week, this storm did not "just pop up".

While I do understand that we were not there, captains going out in the NA in October should bear some responsibility for weather knowledge. At the very least, take the barbecue off the stern rail and look like you understand.

Here's truly hoping that something else went wrong in order for us to keep our faith in our fellow sailors.

[Tempest245]

The film is a little grainy, I'm trying to figure out what's on the bow.

Is that an inflatable? Also an outboard motor on the stern rail? It looks like the anchor is still on the bow roller. I see a bimini tied in the up position, but I can't determine if they have a dodger up? It almost looks like it's laying down on the cabin top? Can anyone make that out?

Could taking on water mean that they don't have companion way boards up, no dodger and the seas are pouring in below? Anyway that's as much guessing/wondering that I'll do.

Hud is right, there's no way of telling what the health or mental state of the crew was.
I've lost two crew to seasickness for 3 days, in conditions like that. It placed the burden on the remaining crew to hand steer in one hour shifts ( 1 on 2 off) for 24 hours a day to keep the boat moving. The worst part of the day for me comes around 3 A.M in the morning, when you're so exhausted you just want to get carried away by the next wave, so that you can get some sleep...lol...( the mind at 3 am plays tricks ) It's a chore to get food into you to maintain strength, it's almost not worth the expenditure of time and energy to get out of your foulies. The cabin is so hot, damp and stuffy you sleep on deck tied in.
The crew looked pretty healthy getting on board the cruise ship, but I've seen people suddenly rise from the depths of seasickness once back in the sight of land. My seasick crew rose from the dead and made record time to the airport..

[S/V Alchemy]

I would like to hear the full story on this one. Maybe something like a cracked rudderstock tube or something like that in a hard to reach and impossible to remedy (maybe) situation where they can't steer properly and it will just get worse if they continue...dunno.

But I agree those seas were nasty, but not so severe in my experience. The boat seems on her lines and I couldn't see rig damage...doesn't mean that boom isn't lashed down with a broken gooseneck or something.

I wonder if they dogged down everything? The boat might indeed end up in Ireland for Christmas if it isn't actually sinking due to a fatal crack or something.

Irrespective, that cruise ship showed excellent seamanship and nobody died, which is the important part.

[Hud3]

I have to agree with svHylyte that the seas don't look huge, even considering the fact that video won't do them justice. However, forty knots sustained will easily produce 18-20 footers.

Two factors to consider. First, the 1,000 foot cruise ship hove to upwind to create a lee-side "slick" for launch and recovery of the rescue vessel. The Beneteau would have benefited from that as well, so what you see on the video may not accurately represent what they were actually experiencing earlier when they called for help. Second, "comfort levels" experienced on board in such conditions vary considerably from boat to boat. I've been offshore passage making on a fairly lightweight fin keel in Force 8, and my IP 380 in Force 9. I could barely manage to get in and out of my foulies in the first boat due to the violent, unpredictable motion. Sleep was elusive due to rolling around like a log in the lee cloths. To the contrary, we were able to cook hot suppers and sleep well in the IP. The keel, shape of the underbody and 9,000 pounds of lead ballast in the IP made a difference, I suppose.

Very hard to evaluate, given what we've seen on videos and read in the news articles. I do hope we can learn more from the crew. Incidents like this happen just about every year during the migration to the islands from the US east coast. Usually no lives are lost, only boats. It would be good to be able to have a "lessons learned" from this one.

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

... on the shape vs. rolling - I would think with the beam and the flattish bottom she would be pretty stable or at least more stable than a similarly ballasted wineglass hull (just speculating).

The shape of the hull coupled with the lack of much lateral plane below the water-line seems to allow the hull to roll quite easily as we observed when we were looking for a new boat before we purchased our First 42. While aboard a brokerage boat in Jupiter, we noticed that the hull rolled down a bit with only my weight (165#) as I stepped on the rail to board. A few minutes later the boat began to roll quite dramatically while we were below. We had been "waked" by a passing power boat in the ICW and the successive waves, and waves reflecting off the adjacent bulkhead, really got the boat moving. The broker commented that the boat became much more stable with a little sail up.

Of course, these are only my own opinions based upon anecdotal evidence. Owners of the boats--such as MarkJ (if/when he returns)--would be much more worthwhile.

Any boat will roll in big seas without some stabilizing sail up, tho' some more than others. Our boat seems quite stable in 40 knot wind and 15-20 foot seas with a double reefed main. With a backed storm jib, she'll sit like a big fat duck. Of course, we've never had to deal with such conditions for more than a few hours at a time in the Gulf.

[YADO]

"Hud is right, there's no way of telling what the health or mental state of the crew was."
Hud is right.
I confess!! At times sailing offshore in bad weather can be torturous: Sleep deprivation, constant noise, constant stress, water torture (Hatch failure over my birth at 3am.) some degree of hypothermia, bad food if any, sea sickness, exhaustion; bruised, twisted and broken body from being tossed about......etc....... siphon (swallow) diesel in the middle of the night in rough weather, on the rail, holding a jerry can, engine down, sumps not working, crew sick, back stay failure, etc....

You just can't know how you will react until you've been in that situation. You can't even extrapolate. I too was a go fast wind surfer, hard core dingy/small boat sailor, and what I describe above is something completely different. I confess, I'm less smug about it than I was when I started sailing offshore. It can be brutal.

One of the funniest things I've read on this site was how to introduce your wife to offshore sailing. Something like, "Take her on a roller coaster ride, and at the top of a curve (or something), hand her a bucket and ask her to use it as a toilet,", something like that. If she doesn't like it, than she may not want to sail in bad weather. The original was funnier.

We don't yet know what happened to crew on Sanctuary or why they abandoned. They must have had, what they considered, was a good reason for doing so.

I play pretty hard but always have in the back of my mind, "I don't want to be that middle-aged guy who shows up on the news form getting lost in a forest, skiing off of a cliff, needing to get rescued, etc....." Nope, don't want to be that guy so I try to be careful, but sometimes stuff happens.

[David_Old_Jersey]

One other thing I noticed (although picture angle may be deceptive) is that boom is quite high - lines up with the Bimini. Makes sense to prevent regular decapitations , but raises the centre of effort (for the mainsail) a bit higher than looks "right" (to me anyway).....won't matter 95% of the time, but this appears to be part of the 5%.

[Alecadi]

I will not dare criticizing the skipper of that boat...
I'm not salty enough..
Even experienced sailor can have accidents (stupid ones): Yesterday Florence Arthaud felt overboard off Corsica.. during the night.. she needed to pee, and she tried to relieve herself from the deck, without being attached.. you understand what happened... luckily she had a waterproof cell phone and rescue came after 2 hrs. She was in hypothermia and quite exhausted but safe...

[gravosa]

as far as i can see on the video nothing wrong with beneteau boat. they could easily put the sails up.definitely nothing wrong. no grave situation. i think they panicked and called rescue.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

(...)
The shape of the hull coupled with the lack of much lateral plane below the water-line seems to allow the hull to roll quite easily as we observed (...)

Yes. Must be so. Stability at the dock does not equal stability in rough water.

As someone noted above there was some form of protection from the cruiser which perhaps explains why we seem to see conditions as generally acceptable.

[/I]

[Tropic Cat]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Washing machine perhaps earlier, apparently not at the time of the rescue.

No.. look at that video again and time the wave period. If you missed that, what else did you miss? In 40 or 50 knots, dodgers where I live get blown down or off the boat, or are removed before they rip off. Life rafts become sails. That's in Tropical Storm conditions, which is what we are talking about here.

I've never seen a gathering of Monday morning Quarterbacks like this.. I would suggest you wait until the captain posts here and then judge him.. We don't know the boat's condition or the captain's blue water experience.

How can we even try to figure out what happened until more facts surface?

[Vasco]

I think it's a bit fruitless to second-guess the skipper. If anyone here has seen extreme sea-sickness they would realize that it can completely incapacitate the person(s) who get afflicted. And going to sea in a small boat will certainly bring it on to those that are susceptible when the sea pipes up Dying sometimes seems preferable but getting off the damned boat is the number one priority. I think it takes a lot to abandon your boat. Who knows what happened here.