Sad News Again Off Mexico

[John A]

Originally Posted by sww914

We can navigate without GPS, it was just one more thing that night. The harbor entrance lights were broken that night as well, one or the other would have been nice.

How about doing the prudent thing and standing offshore until daylight? Why put you, your crew, and your boat at risk just because you arrived at your distanation after daylight? And then demand that the CG spend resources to accomodate your errors?

Point two: This particular race of 213 boats probably had vessel assit boats closer than CG boats.

Point three: If you don't want a nanny state then don't expect the Government to come to your rescue everytime we do dumb things. Maybe in their effort to balance their budget for this month, rescuing people was not a option.

Please don't take much needed funds from the CG and expect them to continue as if nothing has happened.

[dennisjay]

May have collided with freighter at night. Very sad.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012...er=rss&emc=rss

[Cormorant]

More details coming out today:
U.S. News - 'Gone through a blender': No signs of distress before yacht race tragedy

The part that gets me is: "he stumbled on sailboat shards that were mostly no more than six inches long strewn over about two square miles."

This is morbid thinking, but I've wondered about it before: given the bow shape and hull shape of most freighters and tankers, it always seemed to me that if you were run down by one, most likely your boat would be pushed violently aside; and if not that -- if you were run square over -- I still don't understand how your boat (or fragments thereof) wouldn't pop up alongside the ship's hull rather than somehow running underwater the full length of the keel to be shot through the props. Just having trouble envisioning exactly how a 38-foot boat could be sent through the blender like this. Horrifying thought.

[susanna reiter]

Oh dear....the most horrific thing most people don't know...unless you've sailed in a place like SF Bay..where big container ships are constantly in and out ...is that there is a draft created by being too close to one that I have been told by a competent authority...thankfully not having a first hand experience ..from which I would not have lived to tell...will suck you under the monstrous vessel and indeed chop you up and spit you out...so...even if you are not hit directly, the suction of this draft pulls you into and under the vessel...I think that must be what happened to the Aegean and her crew....horrible to contemplate... there are other more knowledgeable sailors from the Bay that can correct me if I am misinformed...or further clarify this phenomenon...all I know is you must give these vessels a very wide space...at all times...

[Curmudgeon]

If the boat was indeed ground up by a container ship's prop, I can't believe that the crew of the freighter would not have noticed. Also, it is curious that the bodies that were recovered were not similarly chopped up. Maybe they jumped first?

Very sad and very puzzling.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

More details coming out today:
U.S. News - 'Gone through a blender': No signs of distress before yacht race tragedy

The part that gets me is: "he stumbled on sailboat shards that were mostly no more than six inches long strewn over about two square miles."

This is morbid thinking, but I've wondered about it before: given the bow shape and hull shape of most freighters and tankers, it always seemed to me that if you were run down by one, most likely your boat would be pushed violently aside; and if not that -- if you were run square over -- I still don't understand how your boat (or fragments thereof) wouldn't pop up alongside the ship's hull rather than somehow running underwater the full length of the keel to be shot through the props. Just having trouble envisioning exactly how a 38-foot boat could be sent through the blender like this. Horrifying thought.

That's what I was thinking too. Ironically, there is a video of a sailboat (watching a race) getting broadsided by tanker:
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: TANKER VS. SAILBOAT GUESS WHO WON?
All on the sailboat survived but, the boat had quite bit of damage but was still floating.

[Yotboss]

As a participant of this year's Newport-Ensenada Race who has done the N2E many times, here are some facts to consider:

The race often sees conditions like those on Saturday night: little wind - under 5 kts -, calm seas, typical Pacific swell. The visibility was very good. By 0130, it was nearly calm - maybe 3-4 knts. of wind, with glassy seas.

The rhumb-line course takes you several miles off Point Loma and inside the Coronado Islands. Curisers typically take that route. Boats only go outside the Coronados if there's wind out there and not inside.

Aegean was in the cruising class. Cruising class boats can run their engines (and take a penalty for it.) They may well have been motoring, obscuring the sound of any approaching vessel. The wind often starts to die just after sunset - as it did Saturday - and cruising class boats often fire-up after an hour or two of wallowing.

By the time you are off the entrance to San Diego, you are looking at pretty much a wall of city lights to the East from Point Loma to Tijuana. It is difficult, to say the least, to pick out running lights with that backdrop.

We were approaching the Coronados at the time of the incident; we didn't see any commercial shipping - not that it wasn't there, we just didn't see any. In fact, there is relatively little commercial shipping in San Diego compared to other West Coast ports so we don't often encounter commercial traffic. From what I've read, other crews did see a ship and heard it being hailed on VHF.

I hope the speculation about this tragedy will be of a constructive nature. We obviously have something to learn here.

[avb3]

Some more details in this story.

The message of this whole tragic case perhaps enforces the importance of the watch at the helm especially at night.

[sww914]

I just talked to a returning racer on the docks, he heard the whole conversation on the radio. He heard the yacht contact the freighter twice, called it by name, and the freighter answered, guy with broken English. He said several times- "Do you see me, do you see me?" The witness said he couldn't make out what the freighter said in return.

[avb3]

Originally Posted by sww914

I just talked to a returning racer on the docks, he heard the whole conversation on the radio. He heard the yacht contact the freighter twice, called it by name, and the freighter answered, guy with broken English. He said several times- "Do you see me, do you see me?" The witness said he couldn't make out what the freighter said in return.

Memo to self:

Ensure that there is a spot light to light up the sails!

[Cormorant]

It sounds like the race directors didn't realize the boat had vanished till someone found the wreckage the next morning, even though their GPS tracker ceased transmitting at 1:30 AM.

Which got me wondering about their EPIRB (which I assume all the boats in the race were required to have). . . . No time for a manual activation, or no one thought of it in the chaotic last moments. And either they did not have a hydrostatic release model, or it released and got chewed up in the props. End result in any case, no EPIRB signal. So if anyone had actually survived impact badly injured, and floated there, no help for 8 or 9 hours. . . .

Again . . . just horrifying.

[John A]

Very tragic!
Memo to self, after many years singlehandling, a 180 course correction is sometimes required.

[dpons]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Honestly, as a tax payer I'd rather you deal with Vessel Assist on your own dime instead of marshalling federal resources.

The fundamental error in your statement is that the taxpayer still pays for the CG, with less retribution than ever to the boaters.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by sww914

I just talked to a returning racer on the docks, he heard the whole conversation on the radio. He heard the yacht contact the freighter twice, called it by name, and the freighter answered, guy with broken English. He said several times- "Do you see me, do you see me?" The witness said he couldn't make out what the freighter said in return.

Wow...the plot thickens...Surely the CG has the same info and are looking for marks on the hull of the ship.

[sww914]

Yes, the Coast Guard must know this, it seems very unlikely that in a casual conversation I would speak to the only racer who heard this. I'm really quite amazing, but I doubt that I am that amazing.