Pictures of Crashed Catana in St. Martin

[sailingaway221]

As I understand neither insurance company covered the damages.. the other boat apparently was worse off and had to be hauled immediately.

[SaucySailoress]

Originally Posted by webejammin

Too many boats going and coming from the islands with out an experenced captian and I'm guessing there sound systems were turned up too loud to hear any alarm if it was on.

I'm guessing they were both very experienced skippers who had the confidence to sail on without a lookout. An inexperienced captain would be more afraid of making a mistake and therefore more cautious.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by hummingway

What are the odds that two boats are going to be on a collision course without a watch in either boat? I think these guys are candidates for the Frane Selak award.

The World's (Un)Luckiest Man

G'Day Hummer,

Well, here's what I bet was going on: Each of these boats had the same cruising guide. In the guide were some waypoints for this particular passage. Each skipper programmed his chart plotter and auto pilot to follow the route between said WPs, one going thisaway, one going thataway... and dang if those pesky chartplotters didn't do a... errrr... bangup job of following said route. End of story is another example of satellite aided collision. Not all that uncommon, unfortunately, but not often reported so well.

Cheers,

Jim

[hummingway]

SAC - satellite aided collision ... it has a catchy name!

[AllezCat]

I don't think its a problem with experience - problem with attitude.
To quote the pro-golfer character from The Great Gatsby - "it takes two to have a crash - let them get out of the way".
Seems like 2 of those types...
No excuse on a high traffic short route...

[Zonker]

Looks like it's a Catana 52x - a pretty expensive boat.

Sigh ... some ppl wish to buy such one and some ppl like to crash such one.

[callistov42]

sailingaway221:
Do you know where those pictures were taken. We left Anse Marcel yesterday after spending a week in St Barts and we didn't see or hear anything.

[Kettlewell]

Have you ever sat in the cockpit on one of those things? The only way to see anything ahead is to use one of the helm seats perched way out to the side, where there is very little shelter from the wind, etc. I bet it isn't very comfortable doing that for long on a night watch. From people I talk to, this seems to be standard operating procedure on a lot of the big cats: autopilot, chartplotter, and radar on and everyone else either asleep or doing something else.

[Boracay]

I've found that there are quite a few boats, and the big one seem to be the worst, that cut their margins very close.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to make a major course change as I feared collision.

Sometimes it feels like they deliberately change course towards me, or that could just be my imagination.

Given that wind and wave action can combine to alter the course of a boat in the twinkling of an eye I do treasure a decent safety margin.

So maybe my paranoia is just a little justified...

[Dulcesuenos]

Why would insurance not pay? I thought insurance still covered "Stupid" People accidently burn down their home deep frying turkeys and the ins co still pays.

Would they really have both sunk if they werre mono's? I ve seen monos bounce off of stuff with minimal damage.

[Khagan1227]

I think the skipper's mottos were:

What, me worry?

[hummingway]

Originally Posted by Dulcesuenos

Why would insurance not pay? I thought insurance still covered "Stupid" People accidently burn down their home deep frying turkeys and the ins co still pays.

Would they really have both sunk if they werre mono's? I ve seen monos bounce off of stuff with minimal damage.

I've heard that if they are pretty much bow to bow the bow waves will act as a cushion and reduce the blow. Depends on the angle.

Not having a collision myself this is 3rd hand info and I don't recommend testing the theory.

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by callistov42

sailingaway221:
Do you know where those pictures were taken. We left Anse Marcel yesterday after spending a week in St Barts and we didn't see or hear anything.

I'd also be interested in how sure you are about this story. There isn't anything else about it on the net. Do you know for a fact that it was a collision between two boats? I'll be down in a week and will have to get the low down from the guys at Budget.

All the supposition is hilarious. It will be funny to see what actually happened.

[David M]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

If they had been Monos they would have missed each over - just. But a miss by a metre is as good as a mile

Don't you know fiberglass has magnetic properties? Ask the racers.

[sailingaway221]

Originally Posted by callistov42

sailingaway221:
Do you know where those pictures were taken. We left Anse Marcel yesterday after spending a week in St Barts and we didn't see or hear anything.

I took them about a month ago.... just put them up!