Sad Story has Happy Ending

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

I think one of the points that should be made is that he did not ask for help. He didn't set off an EPIRB. He didn't send out an SOS. Yes, it costs a lot to do these missions and maybe there will be answers later but to fault him or the Coast Guard is not the real answer.
I was once rescued without needing it because a friend convinced the Coast Guard I needed to be towed in. It really made me angry but there isn't much you can do about uninformed people who over react.
kind regards,

I don't know if wew can fault the coast guard or the ex-wife. This was supposed to be a leg from kauai to oahu and take 1 day.

I can accept that his "float plan" was "lodged" with the ex-wife. If he doesnt show up after a 24 hour sail, why wait. The search area just gets exponentially bigger.

We already know he is a dodgy navigator. Now we know that he doesn't update or check in his float plan.

Hate to judge without the facts but...

[hellosailor]

Somewhere in the USCG, someone will be processing the after action report and this "waste" will probably not be a waste at all. When you spend a week on a SAR action and miss the target, someone (we hope) in charge examines the failure and then changes the process so that next time around it will correct for the error. Which in this case appears to be "We forgot to factor in wind drift".

One hopes it is more complicated/subtle than that kind of gross error, but national response programs, just like the ISO 9000 programs, call for examining the failures and then revising the process to prevent them happening again.

If you don't get drills and you don't get failures--either you are perfect or you'll never get the change to be. Exercises on paper just don't make it. Someone here missed something, and fortunately that only cost money this time around.

Although by now...I'd have thought the USCG had enough practice. Maybe they pulled a NASA, and forgot to convert knots into kilometers per deciday. (Odd that there's no popular metric version of hours and minutes, isn't it?)

[SkiprJohn]

Ex-Calif,
You make a good point. In a float plan, if there was one, it should have stipulated what to do if a person hasn't arrived or checked in within a certain amount of time. I think this guy just wanted to get lost for awhile but I don't know that we'll ever really know the answers.

[psneeld]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Somewhere in the USCG, someone will be processing the after action report and this "waste" will probably not be a waste at all. When you spend a week on a SAR action and miss the target, someone (we hope) in charge examines the failure and then changes the process so that next time around it will correct for the error. Which in this case appears to be "We forgot to factor in wind drift".

One hopes it is more complicated/subtle than that kind of gross error, but national response programs, just like the ISO 9000 programs, call for examining the failures and then revising the process to prevent them happening again.

If you don't get drills and you don't get failures--either you are perfect or you'll never get the change to be. Exercises on paper just don't make it. Someone here missed something, and fortunately that only cost money this time around.

Although by now...I'd have thought the USCG had enough practice. Maybe they pulled a NASA, and forgot to convert knots into kilometers per deciday. (Odd that there's no popular metric version of hours and minutes, isn't it?)

Can't say that I would use the word "failure" ecept in "failure to find". Not locating someone that may already be out of the search box is not a failure for a lot of reasons. Heck... even under the BEST of circumstances the highest probability of detection falls to 10 percent at night and never even reaches 100 percent for all searches (unless they changed the SAR manual on me) even WITH the subject IN the search areas.

Errors often occur so it would be interesting to read any after action reports.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

I was once rescued without needing it because a friend convinced the Coast Guard I needed to be towed in. It really made me angry but there isn't much you can do about uninformed people who over react.

Almost a good argument here not to file a float plan. Inform friends and family that you don't know where you're going or when you'll get there, so please don't call the CG if I don't check in according to your schedules.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Bash

Almost a good argument here not to file a float plan. Inform friends and family that you don't know where you're going or when you'll get there, so please don't call the CG if I don't check in according to your schedules.

Been a while , but I never do.

[atoll]

sad thing was when there were a bunch of people who really needed help,whose atoll was daily overflown by uscg from hawaii to american samoa,inter government wrangaling left them starving for a further 3 weeks!

Oh! and john a thought you might like this one,though have others lol

UK sailor Alex Bond saves 24 starving Kanton islanders during voyage to Australia | Mail Online

[psneeld]

Originally Posted by atoll

sad thing was when there were a bunch of people who really needed help,whose atoll was daily overflown by uscg from hawaii to american samoa,inter government wrangaling left them starving for a further 3 weeks!

Oh! and john a thought you might like this one,though have others lol

UK sailor Alex Bond saves 24 starving Kanton islanders during voyage to Australia | Mail Online

Sounds like those islanders should find a new government to show allegiance to other than the Republic of Kiribati.

Every Coastie I know would have landed and given them food/water if they could have...sometimes countries don't like the big American presence on their soil even if it means a few residents starving.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

I think one of the points that should be made is that he did not ask for help. He didn't set off an EPIRB. He didn't send out an SOS. Yes, it costs a lot to do these missions and maybe there will be answers later but to fault him or the Coast Guard is not the real answer.
I was once rescued without needing it because a friend convinced the Coast Guard I needed to be towed in. It really made me angry but there isn't much you can do about uninformed people who over react.
kind regards,

Isn't the "case of record" for this the good old S/V Satori, fictionalized in The Perfect Storm? The boat survived and sails today, but the skipper was forced to abandon thanks to panicky crew.

[donradcliffe]

On the original topic, single-handers are a bit strange, but its really hard to skip Oahu on the way to Hawaii unless you want to. I'll bet he never turned on his VHF and so therefore missed the 100 Pan Pan calls the CG put out during the search--or maybe he ignored them.

[ChannelIslander]

Originally Posted by atoll

sad thing was when there were a bunch of people who really needed help,whose atoll was daily overflown by uscg from hawaii to american samoa,inter government wrangaling left them starving for a further 3 weeks!

Oh! and john a thought you might like this one,though have others lol

UK sailor Alex Bond saves 24 starving Kanton islanders during voyage to Australia | Mail Online

Bit of a self-promoter, are we?

[atoll]

Originally Posted by ChannelIslander

Bit of a self-promoter, are we?

no it was in response to a jingoistic,not very nice pm from one of our senior members........

accusing me of being cynical and english.lol!!

oh! and being clueless,that i admit to!!!

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Bash

Almost a good argument here not to file a float plan. Inform friends and family that you don't know where you're going or when you'll get there, so please don't call the CG if I don't check in according to your schedules.

We had a similar thing happen to us last season during our 35+ day Lake Superior journey. Unbeknownst to us, our neighbours got worried about our absence after three weeks and called the Coast Guard. Luckily they had so little information about our journey, and our boat, that the CG was only able to flag our absence, and did not launch a full-scale search. But I had to sort things out with them when we got back.

Our neighbours did this completely on their own accord. We had casually mentioned to them about our sailing plans, but certainly did not ask, or expect them, to be on-watch for our return. We did inform our close friends and family about our plans, but only in general terms. The vagaries of sailing, Lake Superior weather, and us, mean that our "sail plans" are always very general in nature.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

I think one of the points that should be made is that he did not ask for help. He didn't set off an EPIRB. He didn't send out an SOS. Yes, it costs a lot to do these missions and maybe there will be answers later but to fault him or the Coast Guard is not the real answer.
I was once rescued without needing it because a friend convinced the Coast Guard I needed to be towed in. It really made me angry but there isn't much you can do about uninformed people who over react.
kind regards,

Finding someone responsible that isn't going to overreact if your 1 hour overdue, (that isn't also on the boat with you), is a problem I haven't solved yet.

[psneeld]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

We had a similar thing happen to us last season during our 35+ day Lake Superior journey. Unbeknownst to us, our neighbours got worried about our absence after three weeks and called the Coast Guard. Luckily they had so little information about our journey, and our boat, that the CG was only able to flag our absence, and did not launch a full-scale search. But I had to sort things out with them when we got back.

Our neighbours did this completely on their own accord. We had casually mentioned to them about our sailing plans, but certainly did not ask, or expect them, to be on-watch for our return. We did inform our close friends and family about our plans, but only in general terms. The vagaries of sailing, Lake Superior weather, and us, mean that our "sail plans" are always very general in nature.

You would be suprised at how often "do gooders" alert the USCG...as a watchstander through the years I learned a little from Sherlock Holmes to keep from hitting the Rescue alarm at every little phone call. Obviously had to be REAL careful not to overlook genuine concern and enough detail to raise a serious eyebrow...

But I will say ...the only good float plan is very accurate in all details including what the responsible taker of it is to do and when. General plans are no good to anybody so if you are going to bother...make it detailed...just update it when the plans change.