Crew of S/V 'Sanctuary' Abandon Ship

[captain58sailin]

Captain Thierry Simon, thank you for your forbearance, candor and patience, in sharing your experiences on this forum.

[ShaunJ]

Boatman said it well,"this is a rare opportunity to discuss a 'real life situation' and the possible outcomes/options"
This is a great learning opportunity for all, I dont think it matters how much time we have on the water, we can all learn from this.

[Blue Stocking]

Right now it is mirror calm in front of my house here in Bermuda.
Go on Bermuda weather marine forecast, and look at what we will be experiencing in the next 48hrs.
(In my estimation, BTW, I think our forecasts are generally conservative)
This front is coming at us from the northeast, not the west, so I hope the armchair critics are comfortable, because any sailors out there will not be.

[SaltyMonkey]

No i disagree. Its a dead horse at this point. The deconstruction is endless and won't get you any closer to the truth - its all second source or incomplete or biased by who was there as a first. Lauding or bashing the capt leads to nothing except endless sea-sickness. Endless chop chop chop in virtual interpretations of whatever happened without ALL the facts - facts we can never ever ever ever know...not even the Cappy knows em...

It's not YOU. He made his choices. Yours would be different or the same but whats done is done.

- Is 44 years of experience better than 40? Why? Wheres the actual line? Plenty of experienced pilots with years of experience fly into mountains. The best sailors are the beginners because they are fricken worried. WOW!

- Heave to? Why? Its a bendie boat with a fin and a spade with a fricken large beam and no inner. Whats wrong with running?

- Why step into a hot tub with a bunch of inexperienced people and head off-shore with minimal gear, reliance on mechanics, in the worse part of a season? Why? tsktsk...shall we shake our heads and roll our eyes, or is he a professional just trying to make a buck and stepping up. If not him, then who? Leave it alone.

- Parday? Really? You mean they know everything? Geez. I better buy that DVD and sign up for a seminar, and salt my own pork, and learn to sing songs, and build wooden boats again and think I'm hot hot hot.

- Was his boat actually sinking or was it just inflated by panic and fatugue? do we know for sure? why not. could we have used a collision matte out of a body?

and so on and on and on on ononnnnnn....

The past is past.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by ShaunJ

Boatman said it well,"this is a rare opportunity to discuss a 'real life situation' and the possible outcomes/options"
This is a great learning opportunity for all, I dont think it matters how much time we have on the water, we can all learn from this.

Here! Here!

[DJBrookster]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

No i disagree. Its a dead horse at this point. The deconstruction is endless and won't get you any closer to the truth - its all second source or incomplete or biased by who was there as a first. Lauding or bashing the capt leads to nothing except endless sea-sickness. Endless chop chop chop in virtual interpretations of whatever happened without ALL the facts - facts we can never ever ever ever know...not even the Cappy knows em...

It's not YOU. He made his choices. Yours would be different or the same but whats done is done.

- Is 44 years of experience better than 40? Why? Wheres the actual line? Plenty of experienced pilots with years of experience fly into mountains. The best sailors are the beginners because they are fricken worried. WOW!

- Heave to? Why? Its a bendie boat with a fin and a spade with a fricken large beam and no inner. Whats wrong with running?

- Why step into a hot tub with a bunch of inexperienced people and head off-shore with minimal gear, reliance on mechanics, in the worse part of a season? Why? tsktsk...shall we shake our heads and roll our eyes, or is he a professional just trying to make a buck and stepping up. If not him, then who? Leave it alone.

- Parday? Really? You mean they know everything? Geez. I better buy that DVD and sign up for a seminar, and salt my own pork, and learn to sing songs, and build wooden boats again and think I'm hot hot hot.

- Was his boat actually sinking or was it just inflated by panic and fatugue? do we know for sure? why not. could we have used a collision matte out of a body?

and so on and on and on on ononnnnnn....

The past is past.

Yawn!

[DeepFrz]

Humans are not perfect.

Especially if we are stressed and tired.

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by DJBrookster

Yawn!

Post #276...

[ShaunJ]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

No i disagree. Its a dead horse at this point. The deconstruction is endless and won't get you any closer to the truth - its all second source or incomplete or biased by who was there as a first. Lauding or bashing the capt leads to nothing except endless sea-sickness. Endless chop chop chop in virtual interpretations of whatever happened without ALL the facts - facts we can never ever ever ever know...not even the Cappy knows em...

It's not YOU. He made his choices. Yours would be different or the same but whats done is done.

- Is 44 years of experience better than 40? Why? Wheres the actual line? Plenty of experienced pilots with years of experience fly into mountains. The best sailors are the beginners because they are fricken worried. WOW!

- Heave to? Why? Its a bendie boat with a fin and a spade with a fricken large beam and no inner. Whats wrong with running?

- Why step into a hot tub with a bunch of inexperienced people and head off-shore with minimal gear, reliance on mechanics, in the worse part of a season? Why? tsktsk...shall we shake our heads and roll our eyes, or is he a professional just trying to make a buck and stepping up. If not him, then who? Leave it alone.

- Parday? Really? You mean they know everything? Geez. I better buy that DVD and sign up for a seminar, and salt my own pork, and learn to sing songs, and build wooden boats again and think I'm hot hot hot.

- Was his boat actually sinking or was it just inflated by panic and fatugue? do we know for sure? why not. could we have used a collision matte out of a body?

and so on and on and on on ononnnnnn....

The past is past.

You can drop the thread any time you want, there are some of us that want to continue it.

[AfterHoursNLCT]

Cudda, Shooda, Woodda, I'm kinda glad they're alive.....LL

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by AfterHoursNLCT

Cudda, Shooda, Woodda, I'm kinda glad they're alive.....LL

exactly...

[avb3]

I'm one with a lot less hands on experience then many on this board, and for me, I find it instructional listening to someone who had to make a life and possibly death decision.

I don't have enough knowledge to even attempt to second guess any part of the decision of the journey, but man, I sure can attempt to learn from it so that perhaps in the future I don't have to face a similar decision.

I do hope the thread continues, not with second guessers, but with knowledgeable contributors.

Why do you think this thread has only 280 posts and 14,491 views? I would suspect because there are many like me, who revisit it to see what new information there is that may be a teaching moment.

IMHO only.

[SaltyMonkey]

Well, here goes

What becomes contagious and irksome is the constant battlement between those with the sycophant kudos, and those with the smirky second guessing...gurgitating and deconstructing every pad-eye on the boat and the weather in order to facilitate a position or a "lesson". It comes a head to an explosive, that you just wanna shake everyone to say "no you're missing the point here."

And what is the point? The only lesson I think - it's really very simple, and we've heard it again and again in our lives:

- Know your limitations.
- Err to the extreme conservative if you are forced to evaluate the limitations of others.

I give great credit to Cappy for bringing us his story in full here. Takes a lot of guts to lay it out online so soon after the history. But nothing we can deconstruct or hope to learn from the details of the experience will add much to our bucket - an accumulation of mistakes aligned to some chaotic theoretic mathematic formulae or not? What matters is that he read the "limitations" and where the "accumulations" were going and made a decision. Neither are literally repeatable since we don't have the exact same limitations or his circumstances given to us.

If you want to deconstruct, why not deconstruct the blame where it should be - on the owners of the boat who failed to give conservative flexibility or equipment necessary or a crew to get the job done right?

To sum up...know your limitations and act accordingly.

[ShaunJ]

What a salty thread killer.
You could have just stayed away......

[avb3]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

To sum up...know your limitations and act accordingly.

Me better stay at the marina in that case

Just kidding, but I get what your saying. On the other hand, had the Captain of the Sanctuary not came on here after so many second guessers had suggested X, Y or Z, I certainly would not be as educated as I was after his outlining the situation, and some informed discussion there of afterwards.

Gotta luv this forum, it is full of teaching moments.

To all of you who, like Salty, have the years of experience and examples of situations you went through, thanks for your continued contributions.