Missing Cat

[Sailcraft]

Interesting comments about this tragedy. We had a gun at our head to move a new Seawind 1250 from Pattaya Thailand to Fremantle, we sailed on New Years Eve and NOTHING and NO amount of advice would convince the new owner that Bali to Fremantle leg was a very poor idea until after the cyclone season. So we had a great run down to Bali (without owner) and I spent my time formulating a way to abort the second leg to Freo. The end result was easy as the boat had multiple faults with nobody willing to pay us to repair the boat in Bali. Three days later NPO (next plane out) and then I terminated the contract on the grounds of "Defective unsafe vessel". The Leopard 44 (and there were 2 of them on the same route) went missing at similar time and place as we would have been if I had sailed from Bali. The pressure on delivery skippers is immense, if the Leopard crews had refused the next crew in the unemployed line would have sailed.

[atoll]

looks like the capsized hull has been sighted 900 miles from Mauritius,no apparent life onboard

Missing yacht ‘sighted’ - Daily News | News

[monte]

Good to see it floating. Mauritius can't help till it's 3 miles from the shore!? It's a pity the photo is blurry

[atoll]

Originally Posted by monte

Good to see it floating. Mauritius can't help till it's 3 miles from the shore!? It's a pity the photo is blurry

island nations have limited resources.....but the good news is what we pay for a beer in the bar here in the uk will buy 10 beers in Mauritius...must be a moral there somewhere......any ways RIP sunsail crew

[monte]

Yup RIP

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by monte

Good to see it floating. Mauritius can't help till it's 3 miles from the shore!? It's a pity the photo is blurry

Limited resources perhaps. But THREE miles? BDA often dispatches private salvage guys, frankly usually just on big sport fishers, to assist mariners 50 or 100 miles out. Or at least it did when I was living there.

Anyhow, yes, it is good to see it floating and not merely that, but with both keels and (appears to be) both rudders intact. Leopards are strongly built boats, though I repeat my statements about this particular model being a poor example for such an extreme passage (given time of year etc) on account of the huge forward overhang and secondary companionway forward with large patio style doors). We shall perhaps see how they fared.

Extremely unlikely that there are survivors, but there have been cases of long term survival in upturned hulls, even in fairly cold waters, and cat hulls in particular. I consider an upturned cat hull, in many ways more survivable than a liferaft.

Hope yet? Perhaps… but only the merest flicker.

[monte]

Well, I wouldn't give relatives any chance to hope there are survivors. 900 miles is a long way to float and anyone on board alive would have heard the ship engines at that range. And 4 months like that. Hopefully the end was fast for them....

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by monte

Well, I wouldn't give relatives any chance to hope there are survivors. 900 miles is a long way to float and anyone on board alive would have heard the ship engines at that range. And 4 months like that. Hopefully the end was fast for them....

Well, as I said it is EXTREMELY unlikely, but not actually impossible IMHO. You are aware of the survival of 4 men for 119 days in not wholly dissimilar conditions in a capsized trimaran? Rose Noelle?

I think they are all dead. But given the completely intact lower hulls it is not impossible that one or more are alive. As to the "ship engines at that range" idea… what on earth makes you say that?

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Muckle Flugga

Well, as I said it is EXTREMELY unlikely, but not actually impossible IMHO. You are aware of the survival of 4 men for 119 days in not wholly dissimilar conditions in a capsized trimaran? Rose Noelle?

I think they are all dead. But given the completely intact lower hulls it is not impossible that one or more are alive. As to the "ship engines at that range" idea… what on earth makes you say that?

As a matter of fact in the Rose Noelle the FOUR men survived around the same period in hard conditions in a FAR smaller area overall. Those hulls are pretty large spaces. Still I do not think they survived. But saying it is impossible is just not true.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by monte

Well, I wouldn't give relatives any chance to hope there are survivors. 900 miles is a long way to float and anyone on board alive would have heard the ship engines at that range. And 4 months like that. Hopefully the end was fast for them....

Also the "900 miles is a long way to float". What does that mean?

[monte]

The photo was taken from a container ship. Looking at the angle it must have been virtually on top of them. Wouldn't you hear the engine with your head at water level if you were alive in the upturned hull?

[monte]

Sorry for being vague I meant that SAR is unlikely to send rescue ops to investigate the upturned hull, and it's location is 900 miles from Mauritius who said they wouldn't go further than 3 miles to investigate. Do you think anyone is likely to investigate the hull mid ocean and send a diver inside or salvage the hull?

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by monte

The photo was taken from a container ship. Looking at the angle it must have been virtually on top of them. Wouldn't you hear the engine with your head at water level if you were alive in the upturned hull?

Well a number of things about this. One, modern ships are surprisingly quiet. I have RARELY heard any engine sound from ships at sea, despite having been bypassed (in some cases very closely) by many thousands of them. When you are in a perfectly calm but densely busy area such as the Singapore Straits, you might think engine noise is heard? Only really noticeably from the fast ferries zipping back and forth. Certainly it is not a major or even really much noticeable feature. And if you notice the hull is awash with white water. THAT would be the primary noise in the hull. It is possible that someone aboard may have heard engine noise, and just as likely that no such noise was heard. The only time I have remarked on big ship engine noise is when my actual eardrums are submerged in the water while diving. Smaller diesels like tugs and ferries sometimes give a thrumming noise easily audible through the air at distance. Most ships are so efficient it would be easily possible and indeed likely to miss the sound over the rushing of the waves over and between the hulls, even at close quarters like this.

Apart from this, in the extraordinarily unlikely but possible event of survivors, they may be in such condition that they could not exit the hull, and particularly not in those seas… even sticking something out of a hole in the hull may easily either be missed or else not possible for one reason or another.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by monte

Sorry for being vague I meant that SAR is unlikely to send rescue ops to investigate the upturned hull, and it's location is 900 miles from Mauritius who said they wouldn't go further than 3 miles to investigate. Do you think anyone is likely to investigate the hull mid ocean and send a diver inside or salvage the hull?

No probs. Normally I would say not very, but it seems SA authorities have given some indication that they may send a salvage tug. We shall see. I truly hope they do! Apart from anything else it will tell us a lot about the fate of that superstructure. I may well be wrong, but I suspect significant damage will be noted, likely in the forward sections.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by monte

Well, I wouldn't give relatives any chance to hope there are survivors. 900 miles is a long way to float and anyone on board alive would have heard the ship engines at that range. And 4 months like that. Hopefully the end was fast for them....

Actually the last known position of the upturned hull was:

27 26.4S 064 30E

The Rose Noelle washed up on the shores of Great Barrier Island some 13 degrees further South than that. 119 days at sea, 4 men alive in a far smaller upturned hull.

So… yes. They could be alive.