Sailboat in Dire Situation Off Hawaii

[robert sailor]

It always amazes me when armchair sailors second guess others. The boat was coming from the mainland, obviously the hurricane developed when they were enroute. The forecasters got it all wrong and the hurricane simply didn't go where they thought it would. So they could be checking weather 2 times a day (and I'll bet they were) and it would not have helped them much. A sailboat is simply not fast enough to get away from a storm this size. These folks were lucky as hell as few ever go through a hurricane and live to tell the tale. What a good outcome in a really bad situation.

[nimblemotors]

Yep. Hard to believe they could make it through and survive in those conditions, both the boat and the sailors. What a nightmare.

Originally Posted by robert sailor

It always amazes me when armchair sailors second guess others. The boat was coming from the mainland, obviously the hurricane developed when they were enroute. The forecasters got it all wrong and the hurricane simply didn't go where they thought it would. So they could be checking weather 2 times a day (and I'll bet they were) and it would not have helped them much. A sailboat is simply not fast enough to get away from a storm this size. These folks were lucky as hell as few ever go through a hurricane and live to tell the tale. What a good outcome in a really bad situation.

[BZT54]

Aside from the hatch blowing off she looks like she is still in good shape. The double ender is probably built like a brick **** house and this will be another case of a boat being able to take more than the crew.

What Robert Sailor said is probably the case. No way to outrun the storm, Murphy showed up and **** happened. Just the other day off Melbourne in the Indian River Lagoon an 18' powerboat with six on board flipped during one of those frequent nasty squalls that pop up down here. While four of the six got to safety a mother and her 4 year old in life jackets drowned. And they were in protected waters.

I wonder how that little Potter would have done if caught out in that squall in the Stream?

BZT
PS I know... shut the f*ck up already......

[marlinmike]

Actually in the video looks like the mast is still intact, yea boom is over and sails shredded.

Open question, would ocean passages have reinforced hatches?

[cwyckham]

I find it interesting that there are lines in the water off the stern which I assume to be some sort of drogue, but she is still lying a-hull beam on to the waves. Perhaps they are just warps and so aren't doing much good at her slow boat speed?

Is she really listing to port or just being blown to port by the wind on her beam?

Sails are absolutely trashed, but the rig looks ok.

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

It always amazes me when armchair sailors second guess others. The boat was coming from the mainland, obviously the hurricane developed when they were enroute. The forecasters got it all wrong and the hurricane simply didn't go where they thought it would. So they could be checking weather 2 times a day (and I'll bet they were) and it would not have helped them much. A sailboat is simply not fast enough to get away from a storm this size. These folks were lucky as hell as few ever go through a hurricane and live to tell the tale. What a good outcome in a really bad situation.

And it always amazes me when posters are amazed by the "armchair sailors" giving their opinions and then afterwards go on to give their own opinion of what happened, sometimes even stating it as "fact".

Attention everyone on this thread - if you didn't know it, you are an armchair sailor. Please stop pretending to know anything about this situation.

[SV THIRD DAY]

What the old saying?

"Those who can...do.
Those who can't, post about it online forums."

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

The forecasters got it all wrong and the hurricane simply didn't go where they thought it would.

Forecasters didn't get it wrong! Hurricanes wont is to go where they bloody well like and if you are at sea at the time the hurricane will stop reading the NOAA script and head straight towards you!

And in Hurricane/Cyclone season the best place to be is in an armchair!



Mark

[Glenn.Brooks]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Forecasters didn't get it wrong! Hurricanes wont is to go where they bloody well like and if you are at sea at the time the hurricane will stop reading the NOAA script and head straight towards you!

And in Hurricane/Cyclone season the best place to be is in an armchair!



Mark

Yep, how true. Actually Julio, Iselle, and Genievere(?) two weeks earlier were very closely tracked and modeled. no mystery at all where the danger zone was or where they where going for over a week. The various JRCC and news reports indicate the boat did not have a functioning HF radio- the only contact USCG reported was from VHF once their fixed wing arrived on scene, and a Delorme tracking device. So perhaps the crew did not have access to high seas weather updates.

The things that are informative to me from the video are the big genoa laying on the deck, another bagged and tied to the pulpit, the shredded staysail (storm jyb perhaps) and semi furled main, and the skyscraper structure on the stern. Seems like a lot of windage to leave on deck during a hurricane, and some possibly usable sail remaining to get back underway afterwards. No doubt an extremely tough go for the crew.

[robert sailor]

Well I can't disagree with MarkJ...when hurricanes are around its a good time to be in an armchair but I'm still somewhat amazed that they survived as 100 knot winds and large seas are usually times when you put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

[zeehag]

ok it is stfu time. it takes 4-5 weeks to sail to hawaii fom kali, i dont care where in kali ye leave from. they were on the northermost pathway therefore spozedly safe path.
this is el nino year. not the year to ail to hawaii. however, most folks dont know this part. they forget the cycles our weather patterns have. every 4ish years we endure el ninos naughty ways.
so there hasnt been a furycame hit hawaii in 22 yrs-- guess what-- this is the year, and iselle and julio were a 1-2 punch for our island state.
these folks sailing from stockton to oahu prolly had no clue this was coming.
usually furycames and ts skim mexicaost and we get rain,. not this year. all storms have beeen forming farther out to sea than usual, and hawaii is target 1-a.
how were they to know--they had to leave kali at least 3 weeks or 4 ago to get where they were rescued, 440 miles off oahu. they did good.
yeah sure, east coast gets furycames and yeah sure no one sails east coastal waters in summer ..lol
same goes for pacific, only we get many more storms with names than does atantic side. mebbe ye see 1 -2 named storms per year hit your area. here is a lot different.
no one believes furycames are a pacific ocean occurrance. they forget we usually have 19 of em annually, in summer. people also take for granted the fact that hawaii usually is safe-ish from our e pac furycames.
i dont spoze these folks even figgered there would be one that far out this year, as our past 22 years have been really benign for hawaii.
before ye bash the crap out of these folks, remember--4-5 weeks to transit to hawaii from anywhere in kali.
storm was only about 2 weeks old, they left mebbe 3-4 weeks ago. how should they know , unless they have ssb and check weather every day, that this was coming.

i think our lesson from this adventure of theirs is that mebbe a weather checking device for use during transiting wide bodies of water is a good idea. if someone had been feeding them weather, perhaps they would still have their boat and still be out there not unhappily sailing to hawaii a lil more north than they were.

BY THE WAY!!!! NO error made by forecasters. storm went EXACTLY where it was supposed to go, all have been on target this year, as far as forecasting this is concerned--it went exactly as the folks who are paid to study and report these things, scientist-wise, not blabbermouths without knowledge, said it would.
go back and read all posted in storm 2k and in noaa's archives. this was not a lil local weather gone wrong, this was a tracked and commented on and explored by aircraft fly overs named bitch of a storm. it was only tracked 2 weeks. to get to be 440 miles off oahu in a sailboat, one must have beeen out to sea more than 3 weeks. therefore-- they knew nada.

i would love to know what they thought the weather ahead of em was.. must a been a scary bunch of clouds and such as they approached

[Arthur Garfield]

I use this: earth :: an animated map of global wind, weather, and ocean conditions
For True up-to-moment windspeeds anywhere on planet.click hold drag for position,zoom in/out scroll, Left click for Lat/long and wind.

That said,I've been caught out in my youth-taught me.In this time,ocean crossings irresponsible without SSB/HF.run like hell !

[zeehag]

<img src="http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/comp/nhem/rb.jpg" alt="Continental US (NHEM) Sector Infrared"/>


goes does a good sat pic every 4 hours. however you need to know for what you are looking, and at what you are looking.
BUT!!!!!
how the hell ye gonna get this pic sent to ye in middle of bfe, aka pacific ocean. remember, there are no wendys nor macdonalds; nor any other convenience out there--aint no gas station on the way to aunt mamies....takes 4-5 weeks to transit this body of water to get to hawaii from kalifornicatia.

arthur godfield, that is a loverly app, but impractical as it doesnot have models of weather to check out for advancing named storms or what will happen tomorrow or in 5 weeks. however, it is a loverly toy and smart passagemaking MODEL. the same patterns are not same every day.
goes also does not predict nor show modelling for the prediction of storm formations. .. one must find the pages for models by self.
i use storm 2k to predict intensity and pathway and growth of a storm to have a name. they are ACCURATE, and are interested in the meteorology of the event, and the shape and formation of the storm.

[cal40john]

The year I sailed to Hawaii all I had was SSB for listening to weather reports, no fax capability. That year a hurricane was tracking to hit Hawaii. I think the hurricane was about 500 or 600 miles south of us when we decided to heave to for a day to let it get there ahead of us and to stop sailing closer to it as we had been. The hurricane finally went just south of Hawaii, but caused damage on the island near shore due to large surf.

[Jud]

Originally Posted by Glenn.Brooks

Yep, how true. Actually Julio, Iselle, and Genievere(?) two weeks earlier were very closely tracked and modeled. no mystery at all where the danger zone was or where they where going for over a week. The various JRCC and news reports indicate the boat did not have a functioning HF radio- the only contact USCG reported was from VHF once their fixed wing arrived on scene, and a Delorme tracking device. So perhaps the crew did not have access to high seas weather updates.

One of the most informative things that has been posted in this thread --"The various JRCC and news reports indicate the boat did not have a functioning HF radio- the only contact USCG reported was from VHF once their fixed wing arrived on scene".

In an interview the captain gave yesterday (link here), he indicates that a friend had sent him a track of where the hurricane was going to be and that they hove to for about a day before they were hit by the storm, thinking that they'd let it pass in front of them, but every time they got a new track update it was heading further and further east, he said, and they finally just ended up in front of it. I'm curious, though, why he said it was heading further and further east. Maybe he misspoke, easy to do (meant to say west?)

My takeaway from all this: (1) have weather info; and (2) almost seems that instead of heaving to, they should have headed N or NE, decisively in the other direction (anticipating that the hurricane would move generally to the west)? This is not armchair sailing --I'm just trying to understand the situation, with very limited information, hoping to avoid ever being in such a situation! That's the only conclusion I can come to: they should have headed N or NE, in a radically different direction from the track?

Here's a grib for the time/area that someone on Sailing Anarchy posted (but it doesn't show the storm's track).