Loss of KELAERIN Rescue of Crew June 2018

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

.......
Again look at this wave at 10 seconds. I don't think anything short of a Series drogue is going to help you if end up right in front of it as it breaks. You can forereach or heave to all you like but the result will still be basically same as running bare poled.

How would a series drogue have helped Tzu Hang avoid pitchpoling when a simple drogue didn't?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

How would a series drogue have helped Tzu Hang avoid pitchpoling when a simple drogue didn't?

D/M-1 Monohull, Bermuda Ketch | Victor Shane's Drag Device Data Base









They were trailing a 3" hawser which was popping out of the tops of the waves. It might have worked if the end had been weighted. Weighting the end of a series drogue is essential for this reason.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

How would a series drogue have helped Tzu Hang avoid pitchpoling when a simple drogue didn't?

Tzu hang was towing a series of shorter warps from memory. They just wouldn't have had anywhere near the drag to stop that heavy boat surfing down the front of a very steep and big wave and pitchpoling.

When she hove to after rebuilding her in Valparasio she was capsized in similar conditions.

The series drogue has far more drag than most single element speed limiting drogues drogues, and they in turn typically have much more drag than a warp. From memory a SD has about 4x the drag of a normal drogue, but much less than a sea anchor.

Full report here.
http://www.jordanseriesdrogue.com/pd...uardreport.pdf

I don't know if you have read Jonny Wrays south seas vagabond, but ultimately he ended up surviving a cyclone by towing a makeshift series drogue after being rolled and severely damaged while hove too. I think he was also knocked down badly in storm bay while hove too, as was Tilman a couple of times from memory.

[Snowpetrel]

Hopefully this will be readable, but I think it was some of the most advanced thinking for the time. He pretty much nails it in the 1940's. This was after he survived a rollover on Ngataki. The book is most definitely worth a read.

[Eight Sails]

Originally Posted by daletournier

The other thing is the hatches. I have Lewmar like most. It concerns me that they lost a hatch. My last boat had Bomars, they seemed more substantial?

There's also Atkins & Hoyle, still making fine hatches after all these years, but don't market aggressively and aren't a big player in today's production yacht or aftermarket chandlery business. They make new hatches and davits and also have an OEM spares and hatch reconditioning service, with support for every hatch they've ever made. OEM on both of my Contessas (26 and 32). Pretty bombproof stuff. I got replacement lenses for all my deck hatches from them several years ago.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Suijin

They were using their wind vane and the boat was moving at 4-5 knots. I've been in the exact same circumstance, at night, and trust me you don't doze off. You sit there staring at the instruments (because it's pitch black) and ensuring that the wind vane is properly adjusted and doing it's job, which you are thankful for because hand steering by instruments in those conditions (bare poles, pitch dark) is incredibly exhausting.
He was not clipped in. If conditions are dangerous, you clip in. It's just habit. If I was hand steering (or even sitting watch with the windvane steering) in conditions where a broach seemed possible, I would be clipped in. In fact running bare poles I would likely be clipped in anyway, but that's just me.

Another reason I think it was a rogue wave is that the helmsman did not have an explanation for what happened, such as yawing into a broach or the wind vane taking a dump. If there was a cause that he was aware of he would have told his wife and she would have almost certainly included it in her story.

I think I agree with Evans. If conditions were such that their boat was doing 4-5 knots bare poles (probably 40-45 knots sustained, given their boat), those are heave-to conditions and fore reaching would have kept them moving and given them some rest. That said, they have have had concern about the conditions not following the forecast and been concerned about it worsening and then the maneuver to turn the boat.

Having hand steered solo for days/weeks at a time I am not surprised he did not have an explanation for what happened.. one starts to glaze over after a while and.. if you have not been doing long periods for a while the shoulders start to sieze up and ache with the unaccustomed exercise.. you get the main rythmn of the sea and lock into a response pattern without realizing it so when the patterns broken its easy to respond to slow or even go the wrong way before snapping out of the glaze..
Just glad they survived and came on line to tell the tale.
No blame from me.. it could have happened to any of us.

[Eight Sails]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Hopefully this will be readable, but I think it was some of the most advanced thinking for the time. He pretty much nails it in the 1940's. This was after he survived a rollover on Ngataki. The book is most definitely worth a read. Attachment 173352

Thanks for sharing -- looks worth reading and won't clog the pumps. Re his remarks about the necessary strength of sea anchors, cordage and sail fabrics to withstand the enormous loads of anchoring or heaving to in extreme conditions, this was written in the era of Egyptian cotton and Manila hemp. The greatest concerns expressed about today's techniques seem to be chafe and strength of deck hardware -- chocks, bitts and such.


Another interesting item of that era is the short, 16mm educational film produced by the US Power Squadron in 1938, titled Black Friday at Manasquan. Now on YouTube. It shows a number of fishing boats broaching as they attempt to enter the inlet (and the CG motor lifeboat getting into trouble with a line around its prop). These are power boats entering a harbor not sailing yachts offshore, but have a look at "Another Broach" at 3:05. The boat is on track and square to the wave, but wallowing and not moving fast enough at the crest, which swings it through 90 degrees in an eyeblink and broaches it. Another fishing boat guns it and totally nails the entrance with a "New Jersey Sleigh Ride."

[owly]

I just finished wading through all 21 pages of this thread!! It would be easy to come away more confused than when I started reading this. What of course stands out are the various small things one can do. The shredded books........ whodathunkit? Replacing old sea hatches, setting up very solid latches, and tie downs for absolutely everything.


Importantly, dry suits / survival suits. One suggestion that was excellent is wearing a helmet in rough conditions and at night, and of course ALWAYS have a safety harness clipped in when on watch at night or in rough weather.


There are a number of seeming contradictions here. Most nobably the original account talks about the roughest steepest waves I've ever seen, or words to that effect, yet they seem not to be particularly alarmed, sailing on southward under wind vane steering.


My first reaction of course was that a sea anchor would have made the most sense.... assuming one was available.... Moving southward away from Cape Flattery and Neah Bay. Seems like a good time to deploy a sea anchor on a bridle and hold position, batten down go below, and get some rest.


I know from personal experience that it is easy to look back at decisions made under pressures of various sorts and question them. I recall making a very costly survival decision back in 1979, involving my life and the life of the person with me. It was the ONLY viable decision to make at the time and I do not regret it, but I experienced a similar "postmortem" examination of my actions by others that was often very critical. Every choice I made from the moment I realized the gravity of the situation was calculated toward one goal above all others. Survival. A series of poor choices combined with some ignorance, and the indestructible confidence of youth led me to that situation, and I can look back and identify every single one of them. From the crisis point onward, I will not entertain ANY suggestion that I made any wrong choices of poor choices. It became a matter of survival under incredibly dangerous conditions, and we both survived with no ill effects or injuries. It would have taken only one deviation to have resulted in far more serious consequences than just financial loss. My friend had confidence in me, and in the wisdom of the choices I made in pursuit of our survival, and feels as I do. Nearly 40 years later, we both are here to tell the tale...


The anatomy of a disaster is invariably complex, and often goes much farther back than we tend to look or examine. The sea can be a harsh and unforgiving mistress, though it often is beautiful, gentle and benign. Most of us never face these situations, and precious few sail off into gale conditions just to experience them.... I've read a few accounts of people doing just that, and there probably is some wisdom in it, though it seems like madness to even flirt on the "safe side" of a storm. If one knows the sea only in her gentler moods...... as we strive to do, we can forget how dangerous it can be.



It's clear to me that these people made the correct choice under the circumstances, where it had become a survival situation. It's also clear that the coasties are adept at putting a lot of very subtle psychological pressure on people to evacuate. Their job is to save lives, and leaving someone on a disabled boat is not conducive to that objective. This seems to be the case everywhere. If you make a mayday call, EXPECT to abandon ship. If you trigger an EPIRB EXPECT to abandon ship. You've already made the decision, all that is left is to come to terms with it. If you plan to save the ship...... don't make those calls, they set in motion a train of events that only has one logical conclusion.


H.W.

[estarzinger]

(abstracting from this specific incident to more general situation) i'v been giving a little thought about what in particular would cause me to raise my personal probability of a rogue or major off-axis wave high enough to actually consider it tactically - which I have done at times and in specific situations but more by 'feel' and intuition and had not really thought about what factors were going into my feel. Generally feeling a significant crossing wave pattern, or particular steepness raised my antennae.

Essentially I concluded two factors - more energy (like 40kts sustained) raises the probability and a source of chaos (a strong secondary low, strong squalls or fronts with wind shifts, on the edge of a shelf or other shallowing, ocean current, etc).

I do believe that waves don't spontaneously form from no-where. Basic physics says the energy has to have a source. And at least in my experience you can usually (yes, not always, sometimes it is either too subtle or complicated) find/see that energy source in the met or geography.

Sometimes either the source of energy or the source of Chaos is small or narrow (like say the gulf stream) and the best thing one can do is go for it and get away/get out of from that area rather than just be a sitting duck. Other times both the energy and chaos are pretty wide area and you can't get out of them and then you need to take whatever turtle tactic is best for your boat and situation. Our two boats liked quite different turtle tactics so I do not believe there is anyone best answer here, and also there is no magic silver bullet which will prevent all damage but for any boat and any situation there are (imho) some tactics which will minimize/prevent more damage than others (which again depends on the boat and situation).

I also believe the science and physics clearly suggest that more boat momentum (eg speed) makes things worse in a crash. That speed might make things possibly better before the crash (better steering, shrug off wave hits, less apparent). But when you get thrown down that momentum pretty much always increases damage. On our boat's 'before the crash' there was always a 'sweet spot' in speed - just slow enough we were not barrelling out of control, but fast enough to have great rudder control and maneuverable. That sweet spot was different depending on how we were steering - human steering (with an alert human) was pretty fast, slower with autopilot and slowest with wind vane.

And I guess there are 3 distinct sources of potential damage you should try to minimize - water damage - keep water out of the boat - this is fundamental and really should not be all that hard (in a properly designed sea boat - may in fact be one of the mythical factors which determines the 'blue waterness'); knock down and rotational damage - can be minimized by tactics; and green water strike damage - probably the hardest to minimize.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

I do believe that waves don't spontaneously form from no-where. Basic physics says the energy has to have a source. And at least in my experience you can usually (yes, not always, sometimes it is either too subtle or complicated) find/see that energy source in the met or geography.

The problem is that"basic physics" does not account for nonlinear effects, and it took quantum mechanics to explain some of the odd wave behavior, by people like Al Osborne. The BBC has some good programs on this stuff, now around 15 years old:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x225ztn

I remember reaching in a 35 ft mono, confused seas of maybe 3 meters, 15 knots of wind. This was only 10 miles offshore in southern California, and the dominant pattern was a "hurricane swell" from the Southwest that the local surfers were eating up. In addition, I think there was the normal train from the West (travelling with the onshore breeze), but smaller.

We would go minutes of crossing the dominant swells, then a few seconds of weird, almost violent yawing, then then back to the rhythm. Every once in a while off either side you could see a weird peak come out of nowhere and reach for the sky at maybe 4 meters (sometimes higher), then dissipate. We were slapped a couple of times by such "peaks", but no damage- just a wet surprise.

I would hate to see a monster version of one of these weird peaks. Worse yet, to meet one in the dark. My crew mate referred to this not as confused seas, but STUPID seas. I later saw a simulation for visual effects in movies and video games that looked oddly similar...
(at 0:52)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muxh_9ni80Y

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by cyan

The problem is that"basic physics" does not account for nonlinear effects,

Nice video.

I am familiar with (but certainly not an expert on) the 'recent thinking' on wave sizes (and the increased probability of large waves).

It does not change my point. Waves need energy, and that is just as true with non-linear theory.

Very little of the 'real world' is actually linear (it is just convenient for modeling) - but conservation of energy in time is still true, even in quantum mechanics (although it is a bit more complicated there). If I remember correctly, quantum suggests the larger waves steal energy from the surrounding wave field.

It is a long time since I studied it but I seem to remember there is some uncertainty about conservation in special relativity for the entire universe as a whole. But hopefully, we don't have to worry about that on our boats

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Generally feeling a significant crossing wave pattern, or particular steepness raised my antennae..........
I do believe that waves don't spontaneously form from no-where. Basic physics says the energy has to have a source. And at least in my experience you can usually (yes, not always, sometimes it is either too subtle or complicated) find/see that energy source in the met or geography.

I also believe the science and physics clearly suggest that more boat momentum (eg speed) makes things worse in a crash.

As you and basic physics say, waves need an energy source.
I've had two crossings of the the Tasman, both without autopilot. First experienced gusts over 50knts but energy sources - both wind and waves(6 to 8m) - from the sw so reasonably manageable.
During the second time there was a period with 3 main energy sources, two lows in upper Tasman with wave trains from 2 directions and residual swell from the south. Wave patterns irregular and after it cleared a little you could see around the horizon lumps of water jumping much higher than the average. I'd say good dynamics for the formation of a rogue. We had one partial knock-down but generally the chance of a lumpy one hitting was quite low.

Basic physics also says a heavier vessel, i.e. more inertia, helps lessen the violence of the roll when one gets slapped by a big one.

[foojin]

Thanks for this. We just pulled into Port McNeill and have cell for the first time for awhile. So sad to hear Jim and Joy lost their boat, so great that they are all right. We met Jim and Joy aboard Kelaerin in Sandakan, Borneo and again in Subic Bay a few years back. For what it’s worth, they struck me as serious sailors who knew their stuff, and they were smart and fun, and hope to soon see them again.

Jim and Lynne

[cyan]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

It does not change my point. Waves need energy, and that is just as true with non-linear theory.

Absolutely. Good point- and that's what is disconcerting. Where does the energy come from? Most of the time you can see the wave train and you know roughly what's coming and roughly when. You can SEE the energy. Feel it.

Even in confused seas, there is often a rhythm that we really bored sailors can almost predict after a few hours of the same... while playing that game of look-mom-no-hands, trying to demonstrate that your sea legs are better than the rest.

However, when the sea starts to "prairie dog" with peaks popping up for no apparent reason, the necessary wave energy is a mystery. It does not arrive from a predictable direction, in a predictable size. There is also typically a low trough next to the prairie dogs, but not always.

To be fair, I have limited experience in this type of sea state, and I'm happy about that. As an engineer, I can cope with the math behind crossing nodes of two wave trains, but mysterious peaks are head-scratching. Dr. Osborne's nonlinear equations that show one wave "stealing" energy from its neighbors is the stuff of my nightmares. Oh, and I can't remember exactly who on my boat coined the phrase "prarie dogging seas", but it seems about right. I'm sure there is a proper term, but I'm sticking with this one.

What exactly did you call it, DumnMad?...

Originally Posted by DumnMad

...after it cleared a little you could see around the horizon lumps of water jumping much higher than the average.

[Snowpetrel]

^^ There is also some interplay between the surface waves and the Internal waves along the thermoclines. This may be a source of weird wave patterns. I suspect this is the real source of the change in wave patterns near the shelf.

Deep sea currents also play a part, especially around seamounts and the shelf. Also ocean currents have much more in the way of eddies than the charted simplistic one way flows. It would be easy to cross an eddy line in and find yourself suddenly in some nasty stuff.

I wonder what happens to the waterflow when a big plunging breaker throws a huge volume of water down its front. Prehaps that aerated water goes a fair way down and then rises again disturbing the water behind it, or even forcing changes in the deeper water. Prehaps in the same way a thunderstorm can disturb upper airflow and pull squalls, downdrafts and mircobursts. We only see the top layer of a very complex 3d system.