Sad News Again Off Mexico

[sabray]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/29/us/cal...t-race-deaths/ no other information yet.

[Wotname]

Not good; any bad weather in this area... perhaps collision....???

[sabray]

It made me look. Interesting oyra web page shows no sign of the earlier disaster. This event had in it's web site nothing but adds. Can't tell so far what has happened.

[DiverChick71]

SOOO sad. News article that I saw said 6-8 moderate swells and fair weather. Sad.

[mbianka]

WAPO has a report of a suspected collision with a much larger vessel not an explosion:
Sailing group: Collision suspected in yacht tragedy that killed 3, left 1 missing - The Washington Post

To which I say huh?

[Cormorant]

Must've been a weird confluence of events -- watchkeeper on boat boats asleep or distracted. . . . Or watch on the sailboat awake, but couldn't get the engine started in light winds to get out of the way. How awful.

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

Must've been a weird confluence of events -- watchkeeper on boat boats asleep or distracted. . . . Or watch on the sailboat awake, but couldn't get the engine started in light winds to get out of the way. How awful.

That's what I was thinking. I could understand someone single handed who was sleeping and getting run down. But, a crew of four racing in shipping lanes? Even with an engine that would not start a VHF call might have prevented this disaster if the crew was alert enough that is. Unless there was only one person on watch and they dozed off like you said. The boat was being tracked should it should be easy enough to find out what ship might have hit them looking at some AIS signals in the area at the time.

[svHyLyte]

Four man crew standing 2-on-2 watchs with on-watch, 1 up/1 down. Charter boat with neither radar nor AIS, nor mast-head tri-color lights I'll guess. Night sailing south with moon to the southwest at 0100 Saturday AM. Maybe a few beers with dinner dulling senses and and tired watch-standers after 30+ hours of sailing already less than alert, maybe looking around every 10-15 minutes while a southbound freighter/coaster is to the northwest making 20 knts and covering 3 miles every 9 minutes. Freighter/coaster watch-standers looking southerly (maybe) into moon-light reflections off the water making it hard to see yacht's likely sole, near water level, running light, and little or no radar return on the scope.

Frankly, by the time the watch-stander aboard the yacht would have heard the bow-wave of that ship behind him, he likely wouldn't have had time to do anything more than yell "Oh Shi(p)". Maybe enough time for the below deck watch-standar to make it to the cockpit before they were hit.

A 37' boat wouldn't even be noticed aboard the ship--maybe a little shudder as the debris went through the props.

Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Hopefully it was over quickly for those guys.

Maybe AIS ship tracks from San Diego can determine which ships went through the wreck zone and when--maybe there'll be paint-scrapes on the bows/hull as in the case of the yacht run down off Hong Kong a few years ago.

There but for the Grace....go we all.

I wonder whether the Coast Guard will now decide to ban ocean racing in SoCal.

[John A]

This particular "race" is more a party than a "race". It usually has over 100 boats of So Cal folks many who have never been on a sailboat before in their life. They do wierd things like use their sails as a perjection screen for movies.
I'd suggest we wait for a complete report before we analyze this one to much.

[zeehag]

Tragedy strikes yachting race
By Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Updated 3m ago
CommentsReprints & Permissions

By Ken Steinhardt, AP
Boats tack for position Friday before the start of the Newport Ocean Sailing Association's Newport to Ensenada yacht race.
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By Ken Steinhardt, AP
Boats tack for position Friday before the start of the Newport Ocean Sailing Association's Newport to Ensenada yacht race.
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Three sailors are dead and the Coast Guard was looking for a fourth Sunday after a yacht apparently collided with another vessel during a race off the coast of Southern California.The accident occurred the same weekend that Coast Guard officials temporarily suspended offshore racing in the San Francisco area because another yachting accident killed five sailors two weeks ago.The 37-foot yacht Aegean disappeared early Saturday from a tracking system monitoring the race from Newport Beach, Calif., to Ensenada, Mexico, according to a statement from Rich Roberts, spokesman for the Newport Ocean Sailing Association.“A Coast Guard search was launched that led to discovery of the boat's wreckage, including the rear transom with the boat's name on it," Roberts said. “An investigation is continuing, but it appeared the damage was not inflicted by an explosion, but by a collision with a ship much larger than the 37-foot vessel."The Coast Guard and civilian boat found the dead sailors among wreckage in the water about 10 miles off the coast of Mexico and 10 miles south of U.S. waters. The names of the dead haven't been released, pending notification of relatives.The Newport race had 213 boats entered this year, and the accident marked the first fatalities in the 65-year history of the race, according to spokesman Roberts.In the April 14 accident, five sailors died when their 38-foot yacht smashed into rocks and capsized during a race near the Farallon Islands about 27 miles west of San Francisco. Three other sailors survived the wreck.The Coast Guard had already temporarily suspended yacht racing around San Francisco so that organizers could review safety plans and chart new courses for races that had been scheduled April 28 and May 12.“This temporary safety stand-down from offshore racing will allow the Coast Guard and the offshore racing community to further our common safety goals," Capt. Cynthia Stowe, a member of the Coast Guard in San Francisco, said in announcing the changes.Contributing: Associated Press

[zeehag]

also in lectronic latitude 38 special edition....
SPECIAL REPORT: Fatalities in Newport-Ensenada Race

April 29, 2012 – Coronado Islands, Mexico


(Click on the photo to enlarge it.)
The Newport to Ensenada Race, which started on Friday, has reported that three sailors are dead and one is missing. © 2012 Lexus Newport-Ensenada Race

For the last two weeks, the California sailing community has been reeling over the loss of five of our own, and yesterday we lost at least three, but probably four, more. Rich Roberts, press officer for the 65th Annual Lexus Newport to Ensenada Race, reported late last night that the Hunter 376 Aegean apparently collided with a large vessel off the Coronado Islands.

"The first indication of the incident was at 1:30 a.m. Saturday when the boat's image vanished from the online race tracking system in place for the race," Roberts wrote in a press release. "A Coast Guard search was launched that led to discovery of the boat's wreckage, including the rear transom with the boat's name on it.

"An investigation was continuing, but it appeared the damage was not inflicted by an explosion but by a collision with a ship much larger than the 37-foot vessel."

A USCG helicopter directed a Vessel Assist boat to two bodies and a third was later retrieved. A fourth is still missing. The search for the fourth crewmember has resumed this morning. Names have not been released pending notification of the victims' families.

The annual race, which had 213 entries, started on Friday off Newport Beach. Many boats finished on Saturday, while the rest were expected in today. Roberts reports the weather conditions were lighter than usual in the area of the accident, with boats reporting 1-2 knots of wind.

"These would be the first fatalities in the 65-year history of the race," Roberts said.

We'll have more in tomorrow's edition of 'Lectronic Latitude.

[susanna reiter]

Google "Newport Beach Patch" for complete update on this latest tragedy. It appears the s/v "Aegean" was owned by a corporation the CEO of which was the captain and was reportedly on board for the race. The bodies of the deceased have yet to be identified pending notice. Those of you who have sailed around or close enough to those monstrous cargo ships know well how this could have happened. Horrible.

[sww914]

THIS pisses me off-
From the Lectronic Latitude article
"A USCG helicopter directed a Vessel Assist boat to two bodies and a third was later retrieved. A fourth is still missing. The search for the fourth crewmember has resumed this morning. Names have not been released pending notification of the victims' families."

WTF! The Coast Guard has a small boat station about 15 miles from the accident. They have two 41's, two 21's and four 25's and they zip around the border day and night looking for smugglers and terrorists but they send the Vessel Assist to drag bodies out of the water?
********!
When we were broken down off of Santa Cruz in the fog at night with a dead GPS and no wind they wouldn't help us, all they would do was send Vessel Assist. Is their job description now law enforcement only?

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by sww914

THIS pisses me off-
From the Lectronic Latitude article
"A USCG helicopter directed a Vessel Assist boat to two bodies and a third was later retrieved. A fourth is still missing. The search for the fourth crewmember has resumed this morning. Names have not been released pending notification of the victims' families."

WTF! The Coast Guard has a small boat station about 15 miles from the accident. They have two 41's, two 21's and four 25's and they zip around the border day and night looking for smugglers and terrorists but they send the Vessel Assist to drag bodies out of the water?
********!
When we were broken down off of Santa Cruz in the fog at night with a dead GPS and no wind they wouldn't help us, all they would do was send Vessel Assist. Is their job description now law enforcement only?

Ever since they moved under homeland security they don't seem to put as much resources towards non life threatening situations. Honestly, as a tax payer I'd rather you deal with Vessel Assist on your own dime instead of marshalling federal resources.

If life is in danger, declare mayday. If you can't navigate without GPS that's much more about your responsibility than theirs.

[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.