Rogue Wave Swamps Cruising Yacht

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Hummmm...

Two boats, two stories, two weeks, very similar.

Too similar.

[sabray]

Why did the computer navigation die.? Hard drive get to rattled or wet. Kinda argues for a real chart plotter. Engines die because of low oil but the batts should have held. Thought that was a interesting.

[sarafina]

one boat, one story...

problems before new york and then big problems after, but only one boat.

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by sarafina

one boat, one story...

problems before new york and then big problems after, but only one boat.

What/where is the previous story?

[category4jay]

Come on guys these guys lost their boat in the North Atlantic. Were these guys the best of sailors? Probably not but I doubt they "were up to something." But..... stranger things have happened.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Ed_Sail

This is too bad, I'm sorry to see this happen - glad they are ok - I wonder how long it will take for this to become a blue water discussion considering the boat manufacturer - who I like!

I'm sure most folks realise... any boat can suffer this event...
some things are just that bit beyond 'Blue Water Capable..'
and beyond autohelm capability's...

[smurphny]

A guy I used to know, a charter boat Cap't. out of Montauk used to tell the story of a rogue wave that hit him in broad daylight on a calm day in the same general area around the Hudson Canyon and various fingers coming up onto the continental shelf. It's where the Gulf Stream spins off eddies and lots of strange stuff seems to happen. He saw a wall of water coming, headed into it as it broke over and engulfed the 45' boat, tore the bimini off the flybridge and left all aboard in astonishment. He said if it had hit him broadside, it would certainly have capsized him. These things are not all that uncommon.

[stevewrye]

We will never know if it was rogue wave and we all have a different ideas what a rogue wave is. I remember all the knock downs and the demasting in the 08 crossing from Bora Bora to Samoa when a large compression zone move way north and caught everyone by surprise. Everyone that had an accident said they were hit by a rogue wave on the nightly ssb check in. Later after a few anchorages, calm seas and plenty of beer it was mostly the case of true confessions, " I was down below making a sandwich" "Ya I did have too much sail up for the conditions." There were waves about 20 to 30 degrees off the swell train once in a while but all waves were no more than 4 maybe 5 meters, they were steep and close. Plenty of power in a wave of that size and steepness to knock a boat down that has crew not paying attention or a boat with too much sail up.

On this rescue of the German boat some here see warning signs. I do too, How did they have so many problems on their first trip into NY. How do you have two sails destroyed , loss of auto helm and was it GPS all at once? Maybe there was a good reason but was the equipment too old in poor repair or maybe crew not paying attention. I just have never seen that much go wrong in one situation on a boat with a crew and boat on top of their game. On the most part there are always a lot of the same boats that have continuous problems ocean after ocean, port after port. One begins to recognize the boats, to be fair I don't know if this was one of those boats but the red flag went up anyway. I wont get into the boat they were sailing, I know a couple who made it to Aussy in one such boat and said they would never do it again, but god love them they made it and had a great time doing it on the most part.

[Seahunter]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

I would have thought more useful to have had someone on deck actually sailing the boat..............

Aye.

[sarafina]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

What/where is the previous story?

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ent-59785.html

[svtadpole]

Always sad to hear of a boat lost at sea ... but in this case very happy to hear that all hands were rescued unscathed ...

Inevitably .... questions arise ...

1. If it was so "choppy" as to roll the boat why was there nobody at the helm & keeping proper watch ?
2. If seas had built up to such a degree they had to be wind-driven ... how much sail was she flying & what course was she sailing in relation to wind & oncoming waves ?
3. No EPIRB ?
4 . No storm anchor or Jordan drogue or any thought of HEAVING TO ?
5. The batteries were likely flooded since they say that the bilge pumps were not working ... did neither of them consider grabbing a bucket & BALING ?
6. No mention of any attempt to hand-crank the diesel ? (with the motor running the boat could have been kept bow to the seas ... the engine cooling seacock could then be closed & the cooling hose quickly disconnected & used to pump out the flooding ) .... the mast etc can then be lashed securely alongside ... if that is not do-able then cut it free .... from where they were reported to have rolled they could have motored to Nantucket reasonably easy ...

On a lighter note ...
These guys used a satfone to call a buddy in Germany .... check this vid on YouTube ....

YouTube - ‪Berlitz-help we are sinking‬‏

[Khagan1227]

No EPIRB
No one at the helm
Atlantic crossing early in the season

Very lucky to be alive.

[Sabbatical II]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Damn you! Thats what I was gunna say: Grab a video camera and log onto YouTube

Make sure the boat is pitching down when you take the vid so the wave looks bigger and be sure to shout: "looks like 150 feet!" and "Break out the Rum!" and "Wheres the Virgins?"

Glad to see you back on the air Mark. it's been so boring lately. I've even been criticised for poor spelling and one of the moderators kindly corrected it. Just as well she was good looking!

Greg

[sarafina]

heh.... that's what happens when we make an ENGLISH teacher a mod...

WHAT was we tinkin????

an don't even get her started on thread titles ; -)

[cwyckham]

There sure seem to be a lot of people drawing a lot of conclusions with very little data. Remember, the information we have is from journalists. Journalists often suck at providing complete or even accurate information. I would welcome these two gentlemen's first hand, detailed account of what happened as we might learn something, but we'll have to wait until we talk to them to speculate much.

- Why no EPIRB? Saw no mention of them not having one. Just that they used a sat phone. Better option if you have both.
- Why didn't they bail with a bucket or jury rig and sail home? Don't know what the conditions looked like or how big the hole in the cabin top was. A mast can tear a bloody great hole in a boat when it comes off. How fast was the water coming in?
- Why didn't they hand crank the diesel? I have heard of but never seen a diesel that can be hand cranked. Could this one? I don't know. Could they have gotten power to the starter? I don't know. Maybe. If they were taking on a lot of water, then I doubt it would have helped that much.
-Why wasn't anybody on deck in such nasty conditions? They said the conditions were big but not scary. I wouldn't have been at the helm. Guy on watch was at the nav station. Many boats have most of the nav equipment below at the nav station out of the weather. Maybe he came down for 30 seconds or so to check something. Who knows? Could he reasonably have done anything different on deck except maybe get hurt?