Four crew rescued from disabled sailboat off coast of Nova Scotia

[Tillsbury]

It shows as “sale pending”, so presumably it has been sold and was being delivered for the new owner.

[bcboomer]

Yachtworld ad shows "Sale Pending"
Could be a delivery to the new owner and that would explain sailing the North atlantic in the winter.
Wonder who the owner was when she went down.

[jtsailjt]

Good photo of the rudder quadrant and the autopilot setup in the photo section.

[B-Baysailer]

That tiller arm connected to the quadrant just doesn't seem right might be the angle of the picture

[rognvald]

Well,
I find it amusing people criticizing the comments of Boatman--an admittedly experienced sailor with enough offshore miles under his belt to deserve respect and none, of which(his comments), were unreasonable or off the mark. Some on this Forum with a lot less serious sailing experience appear to picture themselves as consummate seamen that would have little or few problems floating a crippled/damaged/sinking boat to its final destination in 7-meter seas and 40-degree temps with the fanfare of cheering ,amorphous crowds waving banners at the dock in the gale force winds. The reality, however, is somewhat different. For those of us who have sailed the Northern climes and are familiar with cold weather sailing, we know that you have a limited window for the safety of your boat and your crew and that a minute too late for rescue would be a minute too late for your life. And, the unpredicted gales that can develop within hours are a factor that must be considered whenever you're in these waters as witnessed this September when we just missed a 40-60 knot gale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that developed quickly and sank/destroyed a local sailboat in the boulder-strewn shallows up to one mile offshore--fortunately with no loss of life due to the superb, professional efforts of the Canadian Coast Guard. I think, as others have noted, that we need to wait for the complete information before criticizing the efforts of the captain and to remember that NO boat is worth your life. Good luck and safe sailing . . . Rognvald

[EmeraldCoastSailor]

the article mentioned the boat was de-masted; are they referring to a blown headsail? Stick looks up to me. Maybe they had shroud damage that we can't see in pics.

[Rollo]

Here is a video of the Makena sailing in better times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukEPgVO196c

Hanse did have some rudder bearing issues that required replacement. I think the defect was a vender issue. Don't know if this boat would have been affected.

[kurtis king]

the article says the boat was "demasted".

[Brob2]

Originally Posted by tarian

No disrespect the North Atlantic covers a vast Distance and borders many countries , which I live in one , Winter sailing is not unheard off in fact it happens quite regularly , fishing boats also go out in all conditions do we chastise them.

Um, winter sailing doe not happen regularly off Nova Scotia, unless you include ice boating. Any marina with shelter will typically freeze over regularly and require a bubbled de-icing system for those who stay in the water. None of the lobster fishers in their 50 footers with 5 times the tonnage and 5 times the free-board will go out in January and February in weather that this guy experienced, and their range is way inshore of this guy. It was a very bad decision IMHO, to be out there at this time of year in that boat. Completely reckless. As to the decision to abandon, well I don't know enough to answer that.

And no, Steve the anchor at CTV doesn't sail, or in fact do much else outdoors. I've known him since high school. I finally contributed some info to the forum!

[jimcarrier]

There but for the grace ....go I. But...roller furling foresails are not made for bad weather. They "could" have put on a storm sail, a small trysail, and been fine, assuming steering was OK, and no one was hurt, details of which we do not know.

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "But...roller furling foresails are not made for bad weather."

Indeed! I have been wondering if the lead-up to the torn, roller-furling headsail we saw in the photos, was that the sail had been "furled" ( correctly stated: "reefed") to some area that was sustainable in the prevailing wind and wave, the mechanism had then failed, and the sail had therefore "unfurled" to its full area making the boat unmanageable, whereupon the sail had then blown apart, and there was no way to render the boat manageable again.

It doesn't take a lot of foresight to realize that if a roller-furl fails (whether headsl or main) in weather such as that prevailing that day, you are well and truly up the spout! To take a knife up the rigging to deal with the problem is such weather would obviously be an absolutely suicidal thing to do. So would going on the foredeck to fix a failed furling drum.

Roller furls are, IMO, a snare and a delusion. You can get away with having them on your garden variety August afternoon in the Salish Sea. For serious work, they are dangerous.

MySaintedMother used to say: "If you can't fix it with a shiv and a bit o' codline, don't go to sea in it!" :-)

TrentePieds

[jimcarrier]

A roller-reefed jib is not cut to handle storms. If this was a delivery, as previous posts suggest, then the captain had to deal with the sails he had. A delivery is freighted with deadline pressures to push on.

[TrentePieds]

Yes, I agree. Sailing for money is far from the same as being a Sunday-sailor :-) Sailing for money, you skipper what you are contracted to skipper - for better or for worse.

That, however, doesn't affect the relative merits of one manner of rigging a boat over some other manner, and it is apposite for each one of us to take lessons from these sort of incidents and apply those lessons to the way we equip and rig our own boats.

We must applaud this skipper for knowing when he was beat and taking appropriate action. Ultimately any skipper's first responsibility is to ensure the safety of his crew. This skipper did do that that!

TP

[capemiker]

Originally Posted by rognvald

Well,
I find it amusing people criticizing the comments of Boatman--an admittedly experienced sailor with enough offshore miles under his belt to deserve respect and none, of which(his comments), were unreasonable or off the mark. Some on this Forum with a lot less serious sailing experience appear to picture themselves as consummate seamen that would have little or few problems floating a crippled/damaged/sinking boat to its final destination in 7-meter seas and 40-degree temps with the fanfare of cheering ,amorphous crowds waving banners at the dock in the gale force winds. The reality, however, is somewhat different. For those of us who have sailed the Northern climes and are familiar with cold weather sailing, we know that you have a limited window for the safety of your boat and your crew and that a minute too late for rescue would be a minute too late for your life. And, the unpredicted gales that can develop within hours are a factor that must be considered whenever you're in these waters as witnessed this September when we just missed a 40-60 knot gale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that developed quickly and sank/destroyed a local sailboat in the boulder-strewn shallows up to one mile offshore--fortunately with no loss of life due to the superb, professional efforts of the Canadian Coast Guard. I think, as others have noted, that we need to wait for the complete information before criticizing the efforts of the captain and to remember that NO boat is worth your life. Good luck and safe sailing . . . Rognvald

My crew and I are very experienced offshore sailors and have lots of heavy weather sailing under our seaboots.
We were in that Sept. storm, approx 110nm off NS in our Shearwater 45 Staysail Schooner, heading South.
Thankfully we had an early warning message from Chris Parker and were able to turn and make harbour in Shelbourne, NS.
It’s hard for me to accurately estimate wave heights at sea, but during our SW run, our best guess was 20’-25’ waves at 3 to 5 sec intervals.
The passage was a handful and so rough we had to resort to hand steering with 15 to 20 minute spells on the helm. If a system had failed we would have been toast.
IMHO no matter the reason(s) the skipper did the right thing for his crew, as Mother Nature ALWAYS WINS in the end.
Just my two cents.......

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by capemiker

My crew and I are very experienced offshore sailors and have lots of heavy weather sailing under our seaboots.
We were in that Sept. storm, approx 110nm off NS in our Shearwater 45 Staysail Schooner, heading South.
Thankfully we had an early warning message from Chris Parker and were able to turn and make harbour in Shelbourne, NS.
It’s hard for me to accurately estimate wave heights at sea, but during our SW run, our best guess was 20’-25’ waves at 3 to 5 sec intervals.
The passage was a handful and so rough we had to resort to hand steering with 15 to 20 minute spells on the helm. If a system had failed we would have been toast.
IMHO no matter the reason(s) the skipper did the right thing for his crew, as Mother Nature ALWAYS WINS in the end.
Just my two cents.......

The 20-25' wouldn't be bad, it's that interval that would be an Oh **** situation.