Rebel Heart's Contribution to the Cruising Community

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by atoll

+1 to the above,plus i think now we are in no danger of the media running away with this and performing a crucifiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

..
P.S. Sorry if it sounds negative but the glad handing sh!ts me. Time to get serious about helping others from the same or similar situations

Nice to see some serious questions finally being raised. The glad handing was getting to me as well.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Ok, let me say a bit of conjecture...

He had a small Raymarine autopilot too, quite new.
He bought the wind vane steering too, but didnt upgrade the Auto Pilot to a 6000 series.

I think he was deluded but the forum crap (imho crap) that wind vanes are better than AP (sextants et al).

A small AP will not hold a heavy boat like that in bad weather and seas unless the boat is finely balanced.... And that needs a 2 man crew, or more.

I certainly dont think a wind pilot is worth diddly-squat in those conditions.

So he only had hand steering... And a one man band cant hand steer 24/7


It brings it down to what were his fundamental flaws? Listening to old technology, and in the 9 years he owned the boat he did not do enough long distance sailing to work those flaws out.


Mark
P.S. Sorry if it sounds negative but the glad handing sh!ts me. Time to get serious about helping others from the same or similar situations

I seem to recollect reading on his blog, just after his installation of the wind vane, that it wouldn't function on some points of sail due to interference with his stern railing. He mentioned planning to get the stern railing rebuilt to allow it to function properly, but I don't know whether he ever did. I don't recall seeing mention of that problem in his blog again...

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by atoll

faced with the prospect of 2000 miles of handsteering,only 100 liters of fuel left to charge the bateries to run the electric auto pilot.......game over

I might be persuaded to agree with that IF we knew that his steering vane was unusable. But even without any electrical or wind driven autopilot, I'd still be very tempted to sail it to Hawaii or whatever non-upwind island was closest and plan to heave to whenever I needed a rest break and at night time. I'm not suggesting that is what Eric should have done since that doesn't take into account his wife's (or his) mental state or how he felt about the health of their baby or any number of other factors that we don't yet know about, but if the self steering was the only issue to consider, I'd really hate to leave the boat behind, especially if it was the only home I owned and it was uninsured.

No, I've never steered a boat singlehanded for days or even weeks on end and I'm not suggesting it wouldn't mind numbingly suck, just saying I'm not sure the prospect of doing it would make me give up my boat.

But based on what we do know, I think that the lack of self steering wasn't the biggest consideration in his decision making process anyway.

[Delancey]

Well, here's a before and after picture. Railing looks like it was modified.

[model 10]

Originally Posted by 3000

By "we," I'm assuming you're excluding the Air National Guardsman who was on RH & who spoke about it for a few minutes starting at the 12:30 mark?

DVIDS - Video - Guardian Angels from the Rebel Heart Search


But yeah, by all means, let's wait for some more creative writing at the blog....

Women make you weak. Sounds like the boat was fine.

[Reefmagnet]

Excellent point about self steering systems MarkJ! Hopefully the name calling has abated on this thread enough to allow some technical debate to be sensibly conducted. I recently did a lot of research into the merits of mechanical self steering systems versus autopilots. My boat is not a great deal smaller than the HC36 (and is more fin keel than full keel) and in particular I was tossing up between the Hydrovane (same as fitted to RH) and a good under deck A/P as I'm too poor to afford both.

At the end of the day, I opted, rightly or wrongly, to go with an underdeck AP, with the plan to retain the ancient Autohelm 3000 wheel pilot as a backup. I do like wind vane steering, and had a servo pendulum unit on my last boat which I liked a lot, but I am well aware of the cons associated with it. The hydrovane isn't a servo-pendulum design and requires the boat to be balanced using the sails and main rudder to enable it to steer correctly. Without actual experience, I found the whole concept of the independent rudder style wind vane units having the advantage of an independent rudder to be somewhat of a fallacy, as in my mind, loss of, or damage to, the main rudder would or could cause failure of the self steering system to steer the boat correctly. Also, the space free'd up by not fitting a windvane steering system also means I can retain the dingy davits and the array of solar panels mounted on top. I know I will now depend on electrics to self steer, but it's always going to be a choice of the devil or deep blue sea anyway.

My next quest is to figure out a sheet to tiller steering method for a wheel steered boat for use in the rare event that both A/P's or the electrical system fail.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by foolishsailor

All,

It is not a sin to criticise RH and the events, nor is it a sin to deconstruct the events, if done in a manner that is for the pursuit of knowledge versus pure belligerance.

We all understand there is little information to work with and much of it is contradictory, but that does not mean there is a conspiracy. It is best to avoid ad hominum style reductions as it only breeds conflict and does not add anything to the discussion.

Most importantly the be nice rule applies both to supporters and detractors - and applies to old members as much as new members!!!! Just because someone is criticising events does not mean they aren't protected by the same rules as supporters of events.

This event has many of us feeling uber-protective, but let's not let "vigilantism" prevent the truth from being wiggled out of this story and helping others avoid this same fate.

I say this as a father of small children who has also done long passages and understand the immense difficulties this entails and there is little "real" information about what is involved. I say this even after multiple passages made before having children, the difficulties of sailing wi little ones can be intense.

I found my first passage with wife and 20month old vastly more difficult than single handing.

Let's try and let the truth come out and let legitimate criticism and deconstruction happen so we can learn from this important and unique event.

Thanks.

I agree with what you said with one minor exception: I would hope that there are no detractors of the Kaufmans. For so many different reasons, they deserve the support of everyone in the community. I am also very keen to learn more about the events and the decisions that were made, but only for the sake of knowledge, and not to pass judgement.

The decisions they made were very personal and difficult ones, and everyone has to decide for themselves exactly what they would do. The problem is, unless you were there, experiencing it all exactly the way they did, there is no way to duplicate the experience for anyone else. For that reason, and for human decency, I'd hope that people would remember that it doesn't cost anything to remain kind in one's posts, dissecting the events that took place doesn't require dissecting the people too.

After all, they were and still are friends and members of this community. If you choose to tear into people with a scalpel, these things have a tendency to come back threefold in return when the Fickle Finger of Fate says it's your turn in the barrel.

[bazzer]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

Commence the eye rolling!



You all are regurgitating the same old misinformation. Misinformation that is corrected on this very same forum and some on this very same thread(with links to creditable sources).



Since assumptions abound here, I can only assume that 1) you are personally very well versed in stupidly 2) your motives are to simply spread gossip and misinformation. 3) Since #1 and#2 have troll like characteristics, I can only assume there are more than a few trolls slithering around here.



I don't have the energy to pick apart the plethora of imaginative (read stupid) posts, I'll just remind everyone that at the end of the day there is a little baby who is not dead, thanks to the parents diligence and sacrifice, thanks to a few hundred heroes with the 129th, Coast Guard, and Navy. And no thanks to you, the "I told ya so" armchair sailors.

Sheesh.

It's not miss information since, if you read my post again, I was there with RH for several weeks prior to their leaving, where were you? Spewing posts about the tip issue if I remember correctly. Suggesting that the monies collected are donated elsewhere when they are already in a RH fund and them actually going there is another thing
End of story for me...

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

I agree with what you said with one minor exception: I would hope that there are no detractors of the Kaufmans. For so many different reasons, they deserve the support of everyone in the community. I am also very keen to learn more about the events and the decisions that were made, but only for the sake of knowledge, and not to pass judgement.

The decisions they made were very personal and difficult ones, and everyone has to decide for themselves exactly what they would do. The problem is, unless you were there, experiencing it all exactly the way they did, there is no way to duplicate the experience for anyone else. For that reason, and for human decency, I'd hope that people would remember that it doesn't cost anything to remain kind in one's posts, dissecting the events that took place doesn't require dissecting the people too.

After all, they were and still are friends and members of this community. If you choose to tear into people with a scalpel, these things have a tendency to come back threefold in return when the Fickle Finger of Fate says it's your turn in the barrel.

Amen, couldn't agree more.

[Greenhand]

If I have to call out a rescue unit to evacuate a crew member, I am probably going to be thinking "Would I set out in this vessel in this condition?" rather than "Is this vessel in bad enough shape that I would have hit the panic button anyway?"

The PJs said that the electric bilge pump was working, but they still had to manually pump. Not much, but consistently. They also said that they were under the impression that there was a crack in the rigging. Eric had blogged prior to the rescue that one sail was gone and another seemed to be on the verge of blowing out.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Delfin

Fair enough. I guess I was thinking of something more than that which can be fixed with a roll of amalgamating tape or duct tape.

Can't fix in those condx. Requires compete removal of hatch. Duct tape will not stick then the waves are breaking onto the cabin top. Water was comin in between the frame and the deckhouse top.

Ann

[SV Windrush II]

Originally Posted by VirtualVagabond

This tired old retarded statement always comes up and it's just plain dumb. These folk are already being paid whether they are sitting around drinking coffee, saving lives, or training to save lives. All the planes, ships etc are frequently being used in 'pretend' training exercises. Here they actually get to do what they joined up to do and get the satisfaction of a job well done. The point is, the taxpayers $ is being spent anyway, there is no extra cost.

Vic

My sentiments exactly! these people must think that we only pay the military when they go on a rescue mission! eeeesh we pay the military a fixed budget period, nothing more nothing less. I know because I was active duty and got a pay check every month no matter what I was doing!

[letsgetsailing3]

Originally Posted by VirtualVagabond

This tired old retarded statement always comes up and it's just plain dumb. These folk are already being paid whether they are sitting around drinking coffee, saving lives, or training to save lives. All the planes, ships etc are frequently being used in 'pretend' training exercises. Here they actually get to do what they joined up to do and get the satisfaction of a job well done. The point is, the taxpayers $ is being spent anyway, there is no extra cost.

Vic

Sorry, but using the fact that the government spends money to make the claim that any money spent isn't being taken from some worthwhile project isn't correct.

If you spend money on one thing, it's not being spent somewhere else. There is something, somewhere else, that isn't getting done. The military does a lot of stuff that isn't 'pretend'. Maybe there was another rescue that the unit couldn't help with. Maybe those people involved would have had a weekend off. Maybe they could have used the helicopter fuel to take the First Lady to visit Hollywood.

The Rebel Heart rescue wasn't free. Deal with it.

I think it was a worthwhile effort, but you shouldn't have to pretend to yourself that it was free in order to accept it.

[Reiziger]

RB was a very active member of CF, I think he read all post here. The attitude of not resonding makes thinks worse. Pls RB tell your story.