Yachting FAIL - Jessica Watson

[llyrisk]

Thanks Mark re the use of the motor. I was way off beam!

[12,800ft]

Jessica's vying for Jesse Martin's record of "youngest non stop, singlehanded, circumnavigation". This record was ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council which is part of the International Sailing Federation. This particular category has since been discontinued. At the time and still today for similar records, there are indeed very strict rules including:


(WSSRC Rule Book)
The Courses Offshore

21. SAILING RULES
a. (Applies to all records and performances)
i. A vessel shall sail by using only the wind and water to increase, maintain or decrease her speed, except for 21.b and 21.c. below and in exceptional circumstances which shall be reported to and get approval from WSSRC.
ii. The vessel must be capable of floating and supporting its crew when at rest.
iii. Prior to the attempt, the vessel must be at rest, afloat and must accelerate without assistance.
iv. No form of rating, handicap or sail area class is relevant.
v. Records are recorded historically by their finishing date and time.

Using a motor is not permitted other than for emergencies.


Jessica's "older" website set out the same rules. For one reason or another they forgot to transfer them to the new website. Perhaps packed up in a box with the online tracker sitting in the shed till they get around to it?

(Jessica's Original Site)
World circumnavigation route and rules

World circumnavigation route and rules

Sailing rules:

A yacht shall sail by using only the wind and water to increase, maintain or decrease her speed.

To sail around the World:

To sail around the World, a vessel must start from and return to the same point, must cross all meridians of longitude and must cross the Equator. It may cross some but not all meridians more than once (i.e. two rounding of Antarctica do not count). The shortest orthodromic track of the vessel must be at least 21,600 nautical miles in length calculated based on a ‘perfect sphere’. In calculating this distance, it is to be assumed that the vessel will sail around Antarctica in latitude 63 degrees south.

A vessel starting from any point where the direct orthodromic distance is too short shall pass one single island or other fixed point on a required side so as to lengthen his orthodromic track to the minimum distance.

No starting point will be permitted more south than 45C south.
1 degree of longitude at 63 degrees south will be taken as 27.24 nm

With or without assistance:

1. ‘Without assistance’ means that a vessel may not receive any kind of outside assistance whatever nor take on board any supplies (beyond the harvest of the sea), materials or equipment during an attempt. A craft may be anchored or beached during the attempt, but any repairs must be made entirely by the crew without outside resources or materials. It is never
permitted to take on board stores or equipment or get any other kind of help from another vessel whilst under way.

2. ‘With assistance’ means a vessel may enter harbour for repairs, alterations or stores as required. Crew, excepting the skipper, may be changed.

During any stops, the timing of the voyage continues.

Single-handed:

‘Singlehanded’ means there is only one person aboard. If a Singlehanded skipper accepts any kind of outside assistance then the voyage falls into another category or may be invalid.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

That would see her concluding her voyage around mid- to late-June.

In other words, no part of her voyage will be during the southern winter.

OK, you take your togs and go for a swim down there.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by TaoJones

Mark, you've mentioned a few times, now, about Ms. Watson sailing the Southern Ocean in winter, and you have me thoroughly confused. Winter in the southern hemisphere, as you know, does not begin until June 21, and ends on September 21 when the southern hemisphere spring begins.

Ms. Watson began her voyage just one month into southern spring, and, if she manages to keep to her planned 100nm per day average, will sail back into Sydney Harbour at the end of approximately eight months at sea. That would see her concluding her voyage around mid- to late-June.

In other words, no part of her voyage will be during the southern winter.

I suppose you could be referring to northern winter, but I don't see the relevance of that to her planned route.

TaoJones

Let me kick in here, TaoJ.

I am sure there are many definitions of the seasons and I know that I don't know them apart from the one that says southern spring starts on September 1. I can accept there is also a definition that says Sep. 21 .

I disagree with Mark in his assertion of the amount time spent in winter but definitions and times aside, I think the salient point is JW will be sailing below 40S for the greatest part of her voyage. As soon as she drops below 40S on her run from the equator towards the Horn, she will remain there for most the remainder of the voyage.

Given her delayed start and the time spent doing the equator loop at the start of the voyage, this means the time spent below 40S will be forced into approaching winter (I using this term loosely as anytime after the official end of summer). The inital question from llyrisk was about the cold.
I can't speak for the northern hemisphere but it gets very cold on the water below 40S well before June 21. In Perth (32S), I find it pretty chilly after April.

Another example from "bethandevans" website where they write about Cape Leeuwin (35S) on Oct 5, 2003 "...huddled under the hard dodger in the darkness, shivering with cold....the three layers of thermal underwear...(not) making the slightest bit of difference...."

Mark's assertion that it will be cold (winter or not) is correct IMO and time will tell as to when (and for how long) she will be cold.

As an aside, an Alaskan friend once told me "it doesn't matter what the temperature is, when you are cold - you are cold".

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by osirissail

- - To do the equator loop in the Indian Ocean would definitely be suicidal. she would have to track the east coast of Africa up by the Seychelles and Somalia to get above the equator and then turn south again to avoid India and the Indonesian Islands. The Somali pirates would have a field day with a pink boat and a female teenager.

Fair point - would it help if she converted to Islam

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Let me kick in here, TaoJ.

I am sure there are many definitions of the seasons and I know that I don't know them apart from the one that says southern spring starts on September 1. I can accept there is also a definition that says Sep. 21 ...

There are (at least) two ways to measure the seasons:
- Astronomical seasons (solar, determined by equinoxes)
- Meteorological seasons (weather, determined by temperatures, rainfall, etc)

For each of the four seasons, the astronomical season generally lags behind the meteorological season by about three to seven weeks.

Annual changes in surface temperature associated with the seasons are much larger over land than over the oceans. Surface temperatures lag the solar cycle by 27½ days over the United States, compared with 32½ days in mid-latitudes over the Northern Hemisphere as a whole, and 44 days in mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere.

The astronomical definition of seasons is reasonably appropriate over the oceanic regions of the Southern Hemisphere.
Over the continental regions of the Northern Hemisphere, the “meteorological” seasons in which winter is December, January, and February, agree reasonably well with observed events.

Due to the tilt of Earth's rotation, relative to the Sun, and the ecliptic plane; when it is summer in the North, it is winter in the Southern hemisphere. The vernal equinox occurs in late March (this is the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of fall in the Southern Hemisphere); the autumnal equinox occurs in late September (this is the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere).
Due to the tilt of Earth's rotation, relative to the Sun, and the ecliptic plane, summer is December 21 to March 21 and winter is June 21 to September 21. September 22 is the vernal equinox and March 21 is the autumnal equinox.

➥ Times Solstices & Equinoxes 2000-2010

[MarkJ]

Oh for gods sake someone else download the charts for the southern indian ocean and look at them for May, June and July. Then cut and paste the gale percentage days here. Then if any person want to go sail that in those months then all I can say is if you do and when you return I will revere you.

And anyone that says its an ocean fit for a 16 year old solo is a FOOL!

[MarkJ]

OK there may have been a word I shouldnt use in the last post.



Let me put it this way: Who has been down there in those months?


If you have say what its like.

[12,800ft]

April 2009 okay?

Read Minoru Saito's logs for April this year (scroll down), as he rounds the Cape and gets crippled in 45kt winds and 10m seas.

Includes all weather data points realtime at that time:

Daily logbook

And this is in a 56-foot steel-hulled cutter-rigged sloop, and the eighth time he's circumnavigating.

Read back into March 2009 and his approach encountering ice flows and winter hasn't even set yet.

Not fun anyway you look at it.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by 12,800ft

Jessica's vying for Jesse Martin's record of "youngest non stop, singlehanded, circumnavigation". This record was ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council which is part of the International Sailing Federation. This particular category has since been discontinued.+++++++

- - If the WSSRC has discontinued the category, and I think I read a few hundred posts ago that "the other" record keeping body also discontinued the category - then Jessica cannot displace Jesse Martin as he is the last record holder "on record." And that would also imply that there are "no rules" that she has to follow since the "official recording organizations" will have nothing to do with her. She is therefore strictly in the "unrecorded record" category.
- - Taking that a step further means that the motivation is not to "set a record" but to "sell a record" or in her sponsors cases, cosmetics, etc. and she is looking to the personal financial gain from books, media appearances, etc. Maybe is it like ancient Roman times and her parents are throwing her to the lions of waves and winds to make money.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by SabreKai

The watch officer on Silver Yang stated thats what he saw. I would also think that from his position up on the bridge, he'd be looking down at a pretty decent angle so it should seem obvious that this target is a yacht under sail.

When the yacht was close, then he would have been looking down at a decent angle; but not at 4 miles. Assuming a height of eye of 80 ft, his range to the horizon would have been roughly 10.5 miles - at 4 miles the yacht would have been well above the midline of the visible water, and only a couple degrees (at most) below the horizon. So angle alone wouldn't make it obvious that it was a yacht. That said, if the WK only saw a green light, and no masthead light (sidelights have a lesser range of visibility than steaming lights) then he should have determined it was a vessel under sail and acted appropriately.

Along that vein, does anyone here use the all-around red over green sailboat identification lights?

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Along that vein, does anyone here use the all-around red over green sailboat identification lights?

No. thats the lights shown by a tug when its barge is wildly out of control and his drift net is awaiting Quarantine.


I thought you would have known that.

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

No. thats the lights shown by a tug when its barge is wildly out of control and his drift net is awaiting Quarantine.


I thought you would have known that.

[SvenG]

Originally Posted by 12,800ft

The leaked Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) inspectors report indicated the following:

• Did not turn on a device that would have warned her of a potential collision

Which morphed into:

"I suppose one big thing is that really loud alarm we've got now so there's absolutely no chance of me missing the warning alarm of a ship approaching," she said.

Have they now got her telling fibs for the sake of this national do-or-die win at all costs "something".

This gets to the rub of why I have turned from an avid fan who has been following her since May or so, to someone who doesn't trust anything that comes out of her camp.


-Sven

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by osirissail

- - If the WSSRC has discontinued the category, and I think I read a few hundred posts ago that "the other" record keeping body also discontinued the category - then Jessica cannot displace Jesse Martin as he is the last record holder "on record." And that would also imply that there are "no rules" that she has to follow since the "official recording organizations" will have nothing to do with her. She is therefore strictly in the "unrecorded record" category.
- - Taking that a step further means that the motivation is not to "set a record" but to "sell a record" or in her sponsors cases, cosmetics, etc. and she is looking to the personal financial gain from books, media appearances, etc. Maybe is it like ancient Roman times and her parents are throwing her to the lions of waves and winds to make money.

In lieu of an official record perhaps CF.com could present her with a "Ronnie" ...........An award presented to those who set out with much optimism and gusto (arrival optional ).