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Old 15-08-2006, 17:48   #1
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Reader's Digest Story of the s/v 'Emerald Jane'

Wondering if anyone has read this story before? My wife brought an article home about a cat running aground. I found it online and thought I would pass it along. It is in the July issue of Reader's Digest.

http://www.rd.com/content/openConten...ontentId=28004
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Old 16-08-2006, 02:39   #2
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More on the Silverwoods and the “Emerald Jane”, including photos:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/f...1c18wreck.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/f...1c19wreck.html
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Old 16-08-2006, 05:07   #3
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This just reinforces the simple rule of sailing.

Keep the water out of the boat.
Keep the boat off the ground.
Everything else can be worked out.
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Old 16-08-2006, 15:17   #4
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Well, at least the wreck wasn't dramatized. I had never heard about it until the other night, but it seems like when things like this do hit the media, they are blown out of proportion. At least the articles aren't professing what a danger sailing is and that no one should go offshore because of this.

I'll bet that guy goes back to sea one day.
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Old 17-08-2006, 04:58   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mack
I'll bet that guy goes back to sea one day.
He already has started sailing again. I read this story a little while ago in a different publication and it had a footnote that showed him sailing and snorkling...

Lori, Rick and Shadow
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Old 03-09-2008, 22:50   #6
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Wondering if anyone has read this story before? My wife brought an article home about a cat running aground. I found it online and thought I would pass it along. It is in the July issue of Reader's Digest.

Shipwrecked: "Reef!" | Action Stories | Reader's Digest
I've just started reading it yesterday. Very graphic account of running into a dry bit. Not the best book to get people interested in sailing if they haven't yet experienced it. My advice when passage making "keep to the wet side of the dry bits, keep the boat under the mast" and she'll be right mate.
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Old 12-09-2008, 03:06   #7
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"John took a GPS reading, looked at his chart and concluded they were about seven miles from Manuae. He set the sails and the autopilot for a path he believed would keep them well clear of the island.
They sat down to dinner but were interrupted by a noise. A pin that connects the boom to the main sail had broken. They worked on it for more than an hour before lowering the main and tying the boom in place. John figured he would repair it in the morning, in daylight.
As night settled in, and the kids gathered in the main salon to watch "Drop Dead Gorgeous," Jean went to a stateroom to watch "The Road to Perdition" on a laptop computer. She was worried the boat problems would make them late to Fiji. Friends were flying in to meet them there.
John came down and told her they would get to Fiji on schedule. He had the jib up and the engines running. It was about 7 p.m.
Then they heard scraping on the bottom of the boat."

After reading the story, it appears to me that from the time the boom became disconnected from the mast, there was no one on watch until they hit the reef, drifting with the current for most of the time it would seem.

Clusters of atolls are unforgiving in this respect. And 7 miles doesn't offer much of a comfort zone.
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Old 12-09-2008, 06:15   #8
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The sad part of it is he saw the atoll. Then went below to eat. UNIMAGINABLE!!!!!!!
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Old 12-09-2008, 08:40   #9
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The skipper screwed up. He knows it better than anyone and it almost costs him everything near and dear to him.

But for the grace of your god and a little bit of (bad) luck, it could happen to anyone who relaxed at just the wrong moment.

At times like this I thank my lucky stars that I have been spared such a lesson and salute those who have and survived!
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:14   #10
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I would have eaten my dinner in the cockpit. Isn't this a known area for misbehaved currents? We all make mistakes, but it just seems this was a simple one to avoid. Don't turn your back on that boat eating atoll when you see it.

My BEST WISHES goes to his family, and of course the skipper himself. I love the fact he is back in the water snorkeling, and I think I read he is sailing too? Bless him for the courage to get back onto the horse that threw him.....i2f
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Old 12-09-2008, 11:55   #11
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Foolish mistakes have this tendency to bite us!

We all make them (well I do), most of the time we get away with it. Sometimes we dont. If nobody gets hurt then it is a good learning experience (but costly).
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Old 12-09-2008, 14:37   #12
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"John took a GPS reading, looked at his chart and concluded they were about seven miles from Manuae. He set the sails and the autopilot for a path he believed would keep them well clear of the island.
They sat down to dinner but were interrupted by a noise. A pin that connects the boom to the main sail had broken. They worked on it for more than an hour before lowering the main and tying the boom in place. John figured he would repair it in the morning, in daylight.
As night settled in, and the kids gathered in the main salon to watch "Drop Dead Gorgeous," Jean went to a stateroom to watch "The Road to Perdition" on a laptop computer. She was worried the boat problems would make them late to Fiji. Friends were flying in to meet them there.
John came down and told her they would get to Fiji on schedule. He had the jib up and the engines running. It was about 7 p.m.
Then they heard scraping on the bottom of the boat."

After reading the story, it appears to me that from the time the boom became disconnected from the mast, there was no one on watch until they hit the reef, drifting with the current for most of the time it would seem.

Clusters of atolls are unforgiving in this respect. And 7 miles doesn't offer much of a comfort zone.
I did not quite recognize Manuae in the picture. This is what I found after some digging.
The picture above shows Manuae in the Cook Islands.
Manuae (also called Scilly) in western most French Polynesia,
where this incident happened,looks like this.


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Old 13-09-2008, 02:01   #13
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The picture above shows Manuae in the Cook Islands. Manuae (also called Scilly) in western most French Polynesia,
where this incident happened,looks like this.
You are right - I pasted the wrong one, and stand corrected.

Very treacherous, a coral reef with a diameter of around 6 miles stretching around the spit of land you can see, most likely camouflaged by the stormy seas prevailing at the time. And night was falling ...

I can't help thinking that they were in somewhat of a hurry to get to Fiji, and the skipper under pressure as a result, otherwise why do a nighttime passage through a potentially hazardous area which you unfamiliar with?
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Old 13-09-2008, 03:20   #14
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You are right - I pasted the wrong one, and stand corrected.

Very treacherous, a coral reef with a diameter of around 6 miles stretching around the spit of land you can see, most likely camouflaged by the stormy seas prevailing at the time. And night was falling ...

I can't help thinking that they were in somewhat of a hurry to get to Fiji, and the skipper under pressure as a result, otherwise why do a nighttime passage through a potentially hazardous area which you unfamiliar with?
All these Polynesian names!!! A mix up i easily achieved.

I noticed that it was the wrong picture only because I have been to Manuae twice. Once on a copra schooner(small cargo vessel), and once on a fishing boat. Both times I had my own boat anchored in the lagoon of Maupihaa (Mopelia).

If you are in a hurry or not, to get from Raiatea to Fiji, you still have to come up with a sensible passage plan. There is no way such a plan would take you within 7 miles of Manuae night-time. Not in my book. I used to stay 25-30 miles away from atolls I did not plan to visit and heave to at similar distance to wait for daylight if I planned a landfall (if at all possible). This was pre GPS and no radar. Don't let these aids to navigation fool you into a false sense of security.

Look at the chart below. I can see two alternatives here that could work as a plan.
1. A waypoint 30 miles south of Maupihaa.
2 Pass ~10 miles S of Maupiti, 20 - 25 N of Maupihaa and then a waypoint halfway between Manuae and Motu One. There is about 40 miles between these atolls.

It could be worth considering leaving Raiatea just before sunset, and
pass through these atolls in daylight.
It is hard to find an excuse, not to have a watch on deck, especially when within 7 miles of an atoll night time. Same goes for not monitoring your progress with gps/radar.

Let this tragic incident be a warning to us all. More or less every atoll I have seen has at least one of those Japanese/Chinese/Korean fishing boats wrecked high and dry and rusty as a warning sign. I used to tell my self: "Do you really think that you are a better navigator than each and everyone of the captains on those vessels."
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Old 26-10-2010, 17:12   #15
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It looks like the Silverwoods' story has been reenacted in a episode of "I shouldn't be alive". My Tivo recorded the show but I think it originally aired last week. Maybe someone can find a link to the schedule?
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