Team Vestas hits reef

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Another good reason to carry paper charts until electronic charting companies get there act together.

"Limitations of the charts let him down"

I don't remember ever seeing a guarantee or warranty of accuracy or correctness on any chart.

It seems we need to clarify what an aid to navigation is or is not.

Groundhog day.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Another good reason to carry paper charts until electronic charting companies get there act together.

You will be waiting a long time. It's not practical or commercially feasible to produce perfect charts.

Charts are composed of a wide range of source data. Many charts still use Captain Cook's original data. No chart will ever be 100% accurate. They are only ever an aid to navigation.

To those who rely solely on electronic aids to navigation I pose the question "what do you do when they don't work?" SOLAS and COLREGS expect us to know the answer.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Delancey

Picture worth a thousand words. Sure looks to me like they were trying to "cut it close" to the island, didn't notice the reef.

That is a great picture. and yes, that is an Island not a reef. Everybody can make mistakes, even huge ones and certainly that one is a huge one.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

To those who rely solely on electronic aids to navigation I pose the question "what do you do when they don't work?" SOLAS and COLREGS expect us to know the answer.

That question can be answered by the question "To those who rely on non-electronic navigation, what do you do when your charts and sextant are lost overboard". Or some other equally hypothetical situation.

It is a HUGE leap to start a hypothetical argument with the assumption that all electronic navigation aids have ceased working. We have freaking cameras on board that can be used for navigation. We have taken a direct lightning strike that has shorted batteries and charred navigation instruments and still had plenty of electronic navigation aids to make due with. By my last count, we had 11 GPS's, 7 independent devices that can display and navigate with electronic charts, 4 devices that can navigate to waypoints, and three devices that provide position fixes. Many of these can use the Russian system if the US one goes down (a hypothetical that is always good for a facetious argument here).

Most of these devices were acquired over the years without even attempting to bring a navigation device on board. It is almost impossible not to get a GPS inside most things you buy today. There are Casio watches that can navigate! And most of us can figure out which direction the sun rises and sets.

You are correct that this is groundhogs day!

Mark

[Suijin]

Dang.

As far as charts go, you have to wonder how accurate their data was. I have certainly found many features, in heavily charted and travelled parts of the world, that were off by half a mile or more. While that reef might be accurately located on some data sets, that does not mean it is on all, given its remoteness. And I'm not suggesting it was not human error, just that not all charts are what they are cracked up to be.

[Polux]

Electronic good actualized charts have all the information the paper charts have. It is ridiculous and incredibly expensive to have all the paper charts for all the places one sails, unless one sails always on the same place.

The only difference is that a paper chart is bigger than the plotter, even if on those VOR they use a big computer screen. It is better (easier) to do an overall planing but that's all. This incident had not to do with the electronic charts but with the bad use of them. Somebody had said it establishes a rhumb line track to the next plotted waypoit at a bigger scale and then goes over all the established line at a smaller scale. That is current practice, at least to the ones that know how to work with them.

They say that the reef (island) did not appeared on a smaller scale: it had to be a very small scale not to appear and show gross negligence from a navigator that had a huge experience.

It has nothing to do with e charts but with the bad use of them.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Suijin

.
As far as charts go, you have to wonder how accurate their data was. I have certainly found many features, in heavily charted and travelled parts of the world, that were off by half a mile or more. While that reef might be accurately located on some data sets, that does not mean it is on all, given its remoteness. And I'm not suggesting it was not human error, just that not all charts are what they are cracked up to be.

The same error you find on the paper charter will be reproduced on the E chart. They can induce a false sense of assurance to the ones that don't know how to work with them and their limitations (that are the same as on paper charts) but that's all.

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by Polux

The same error you find on the paper charter will be reproduced on the E chart. They can induce a false sense of assurance to the ones that don't know how to work with them and their limitations (that are the same as on paper charts) but that's all.

But, there are often errors on electronic charts that are not on paper charts, and there are differences in data quality/inaccuracies between vendors of electronic charts. That's my point.

In a premier race, going a half mile out of your way "just to be safe" is not generally a winning strategy. And for all we know they had a position report from a boat in front of them that led them to believe that they were OK. Hopefully we'll learn more about how exactly they ended up on the reef.

[poiu]

This reminds me of the loss of the Cork Clipper in the Clipper challenge in 2010. There a yacht hit a reef because the reef was in a position 1000m from where it was shown to be on the charts. The paper charts did warn of inaccuracies, but not the plotter and the skipper didn't make any allowance. Similar, but different situation. Identical in so far as (more than likely) human cock up is to blame.

Also it's basic seamanship to keep well clear of reefs at night anyway isn't it?

http://www.yachting.org.au/wp-conten...-of-vessel.pdf

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Suijin

But, there are often errors on electronic charts that are not on paper charts, and there are differences in data quality/inaccuracies between vendors of electronic charts. That's my point.
...

There are some cheap e charts and some good e charts. Regarding good e charts I don't know of what you are talking about regarding "often errors on electronic charts that are not on paper charts, and there are differences in data quality/inaccuracies ". The differences regards the presentation and some port and anchorage spot details. We are talking about very big scale data, not any difference in what regards data used for any navigation, except presentation, that can be customized anyway.

[Garrettw]

The latest from the Volvo Ocean Blogs on their site:

Chris Nicholson’s stranded Team Vestas Wind crew are finally on their way back to civilisation.

They're transiting now to the Mauritius Island, after two days sitting on a remote “sand pit” in the Indian Ocean where there was a risk of shark encounters.

The team dramatically grounded their boat after ploughing into a reef on St Brandon archipelago on Saturday at 19 knots and were forced to abandon it in the early hours of the following day, before wading through knee-deep water to a dry position.

They were then picked up by a coastguard boat from the nearly Íle du Sud, a near deserted islet with no communications with the outside world.
The islet is serviced weekly by a 20-metre fishing vessel, called Eliza, from Mauritius, which is some 430 kilometres away to the south-west.

A trip to the holiday island takes more than a day to complete.
Australian skipper Nicholson’s nine-strong team finally are on their way after taking the ‘Eliza’ on Tuesday. From there, they plan to fly to Abu Dhabi at the end of the week.

“We’ve had nine guys sitting on a sand pit in the middle of the Indian Ocean,” said Neil Cox, the team’s shore crew chief.
“You’d think it’s a bad movie.
“You sit there and talk to the coast guard and they’re telling us about everything we’re dealing with on the technical side.
“Then they’re asking me to warn the guys that the reef is riddled full of sharks and barracuda and God knows what else.
“They’re telling me about a fisherman they found out there who’d been basically mauled by a barracuda and there was barely much of him to deal with.”
“You’re sitting there, going, yeah, well, next time I talk to Nico I might remind him that if they are wading out there in the reef, keep their eyes open.”

The team will arrive in Mauritius mid-morning on Wednesday with literally the clothes they have on their backs, Cox said.

“We want to make sure that even the simple things are covered; a clean T-shirt, undies, a toothbrush, a bit of food,” he said.
“The coast guard here did a flyover yesterday and they parachuted in cans of Coke and chocolate and cookies.”
“I don’t think people can totally appreciate how remote this place is. We saw there’s a coast guard out there; it’s literally a tool shed in someone’s backyard.”

The boat is being stripped of key kit and Cox is still working out how it can be retrieved.

He paid tribute to the crew for keeping their cool and professionalism after such a stunning collision on Leg 2.

“Their procedure, everything was as professional and as good as it could be - you couldn’t ask for more.”

Nicholson is a twice-Olympian who is one of the most experienced offshore sailors in the world.

He said that a ‘mistake’ had been responsible for the collision with the reef but did not elaborate.

The team plans to make a full statement on the facts later this week.

[Delancey]

Here's a shot of the Earth Wind Map at the time the incident was reported to race officials. Looks like the wind was around 15-20 knots from the west so maybe they were reaching with a kite up? So how fast were they going? (edit- I can see from Garrettw post above they were doing 19 knots at the time)

I can only imagine what it must have been like driving the boat onto the reef. Horrible! Breaking waves always look smaller from the sea side. Not a lot of time to react when you are hauling ass.

I've sailed in areas with a steep seabed. Always a little scary at night or in poor visibility. You can bet I'm on my toes, and I'm only going six knots.

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by Polux

There are some cheap e charts and some good e charts. Regarding good e charts I don't know of what you are talking about regarding "often errors on electronic charts that are not on paper charts, and there are differences in data quality/inaccuracies ". The differences regards the presentation and some port and anchorage spot details. We are talking about very big scale data, not any difference in what regards data used for any navigation, except presentation, that can be customized anyway.

This is not correct. There are errors in the electronic charts of reputable vendors that are not present on the source paper charts. It's the result of conversion errors during digitization. It's not just a presentation issue, it's a data accuracy issue. And it's not just meta data, it's the accuracy of actual geological features like coastlines and depths.

How do I know? I've seen it, with side by side comparison of different products, in well surveyed waters.

[Delancey]

I'll be the first to admit it. I've made errs plotting courses on paper charts.

Fortunately the only time I ever grounded was because electronics failed, so not my fault.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by poiu

Also it's basic seamanship to keep well clear of reefs at night anyway isn't it?

You nailed it!

But as I have said many many times......
"Racing is poor seamanship"