Rogue Wave Swamps Cruising Yacht

[Seahunter]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Why do you even make this statement? Do you personally know a lot of stupid satphone owners?

Um, actually, yes. But, I didn't say poor, I said "afford" and besides how many "poor" sailors out there are doing an Atlantic crossings? On top of it all, I didn't call anybody an idiot, I merely suggested a higher level of incompetency believing a satphone might be more important than having the right tools as well as the knowledge of how to take care of your battery connections or how to prime your diesel after a roll over, turtle or demasting. My thoughts are that from what they stated so far, the batteries became disconnected or even turned off. (No radio, no auto-helm, no navigation, no pumps, no engine start.) Getting the pumps working again would have been a relatively easy job in heavy seas, even for a moderately experience crew.
By the numbers, a broaching wave on a 45' boat would only have to be 22', the maximum height of the seas that day. My guess, with nobody at the wheel and the autohelm shut down because of stress, she went off course. With no one to hear the alarm(s) on deck, the boat broached. Game over. They're damn luck to be alive.

[atoll]

hey i'm a stupid satphone owner,comes in good use at times.....

UK sailor Alex Bond saves 24 starving Kanton islanders during voyage to Australia | Mail Online

[Seahunter]

I don't think anyone has said satphone users are generally stupid. I have one but hey I'm merely numb most of the time.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Seahunter

Um, actually, yes. But, I didn't say poor, I said "afford" and besides how many "poor" sailors out there are doing an Atlantic crossings? On top of it all, I didn't call anybody an idiot, I merely suggested a higher level of incompetency believing a satphone might be more important than having the right tools as well as the knowledge of how to take care of your battery connections or how to prime your diesel after a roll over, turtle or demasting.

OK, I called such people "idiots", and I believe that anyone who would think that a satphone is a substitute for proper preparation is probably an idiot. At best they are ignorant, and since they should be smart enough to see the need to learn this stuff before setting out, that means they are still an idiot. I know fairly well perhaps a dozen sailors who have satphones. Perhaps surprisingly, none of them are this sort of idiot.

True, I paraphrased your "can afford" as rich vs poor. The meaning remains obvious.

I was about to type a long rant about people who claim that those who buy hi-tech gear for their boat are doing this as a substitute for skill or experience. This seemed to be your sub-text.

But instead I will assume that we are just discussing the fellows who were swamped by the "rogue wave", and you aren't trying to generalize. I wasn't there and won't judge them, but, hypothetically, if things were as I imagine them, then they were idiots for being so unprepared. Things may not have been as I imagine though.

Look, I'm sitting here trying to avoid working on what looks like will be a long and difficult project. Picking a fight on the internet is just my way of procrastinating. It's nothing personal.

[sabray]

No but having a sat phone makes you more likely to make bad choices. It has been shown that owners of sat phones will sleep through there watches. Knowing that if something bad happens help is a phone call away. And sat phone users are googling you tube posting when they should have been checking their battery connections.I think sat phones will be the down fall of civilized sailing. Smiley devil face with a horn ir 2 winking at you while a moderator is spanking a dead horse with an oar icon.

[sarafina]

how about we all let this one pass so I don't have to get all cranky and mod it up?

I got packin ta do!

[MarkJ]

A Sat phone is one item that should be mandatory imho for passages more than 100 nms offshore.

They are great!

Any person on board can use them without prior knowledge because they are just like a mobile phone. And for the poor people like me, we can SMS for about 50 cents per SMS.

The sailing idea that only the skipper has the knowledge and licenses to operate equipment on board is so old fashioned it chunderous.

Even my EPIRB needs to have the instructions taped to it because its just not intuitive to push the 'Test' to send out a real distress message.

Who is stupid? The ding-a-lings who designed that, or the crew who is meant to remember in an emergency to push "Test" and "GPS I/O" together? What the hells I/O?

It should be a big red button saying "Distress". Like the VHF et al.

Everyone from a 6 year old kid can work a mobile phone. It helps if the SAR is listed in the phone memory and with short cut dialing too.

[sabray]

Right about the epirb activation. If the sticker label and the card fell off mine I'm not sure anyone could activate the thing. My comments about sst phones were way tongue in cheeck I really don't like blanket statements and sometimes use them
To show how way off they are (satire). Not find if speculating on someone elses disaster either. I've seen enough small things lead into bigger things when compiled to know. Sometimes a bunch of small issues compound and come together to make something that has a larger effect.

[hummingway]

This thread has had me scratching my head a number of times and I'm going to guess most of the folks going off on the guys sailing the boat probably didn't listen to the interview?

They are described as having "circumnavigated more times then they can count". Both the noonsite article and the interview describe them as "experienced sailors" but the interview says their destination was the Azores though that might have been just a stop. They were delivering the boat for a friend. The seass were three or four meters and they think the wave that hit them must have been about 10 meters.

To me the fact that they were down below seems perfectly reasonable. One of them was checking the instruments and the other was in his berth. I've read accounts from sailors who have faced rogue waves. Slocum climbed the mast and hung on for dear life. This is not an option for most of us. Amyr Klink realised the only hope for survival was to go below and hope for the best which is the decision others have made. Both were either able to get their sails down or they were down.

A rogue wave is beyond anyones sailing skills to deal with. You hang on and hope to survive. Personally I don't wish to ever be hit by one.

[Zednotzee]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

What the hells I/O?

Input/Output

It should be a big red button saying "Distress". Like the VHF et al.

Agreed. The chances of operating complex equipment correctly when under stress & fatigued is low. Actually, it's even difficult to perform simple tasks under these conditions.

[Seahunter]

This whole thing has become surreal. A big "red" button? What happened to seamanship? These guys were pulled off a floating boat.

[hummingway]

Yeah, a boat that was dead in the water, no mast and no power and a hole in the cabin roof. I suspect you've been in this circumstance yourself, rigged an oar and a hanky to sail a 1000 nm through stormy seas to your destination but these guys made the call to get pulled off.

[jitait]

@LakeSuperior MRCC Falmouth: +44 1326 317575

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Seahunter

A big "red" button? What happened to seamanship? .

Thats my point exactly!! The only person on most boats who knows the ships facilites is the skipper.
What happens when he dies, goes overboard, has a heart attack, gets brained by the boom, etc?
You expect the wife who has been dragged along on some guys 'dream' to know all the equipment? What about the children on board?
What about the guests?
Or is cruising restricted to no children? No guests? No friends? Just the thorny old folks that can't use a computer but know a sheepshank?

Thats why 'seamanship' is the highest level of wank in my opinion.

How rediculous to prefer an 'I/O' button (thanks for explaining it Zednotzee) and a 'Test' button pressed simultaneously to a big RED DISTRESS button.

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Or is cruising restricted to no children? No guests? No friends? Just the thorny old folks that can't use a computer but know a sheepshank? .

Yeah, well that's me in a nutshell. And as a singlehander, I know a lot more about sheep than their shanks! That's why I keep one as a pet onboard. Phooey on yappy little mutts. Man's real best friend is a snuggly sheep. All baaaa, no humbug.

Baaaa!