Missing Boat found in Cuba: Lessons Learned

[sabray]

Pondering. I am going to attach floats to a line. Rig the line to my steering and when I think I might fall over board I throw this contraption over the side. I don't always use this because usually I think I can stay aboard. It's only those times that I think I can't stay aboard that I deploy this.
Am I getting this right. I have never seem anyone do this so I really need video footage or a diagram.
Is there something about your boat that makes it difficult to stay aboard. Have you tried a harness? Sorry if your upset and getting blue faced I really don't understand what you are about to do.

[Coops]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

I think I could get up the ladder. On my blog, I have a story about a man I know who managed to drag himself up an adequately long ladder with a shattered thigh bone that had severed his femoral artery. Fortunately for him, his back pack with his cell phone was in the cockpit. He called 911 and they got to him in time. ..

Wow, how close by were they? A completely severed femoral artery gives you about 30secs before you lose consciousness and about 5mins before death.

Coops.

[capngeo]

After some in-depth analysis of the photo of the boat on the rocks in Cuba, the previous owners of the boat believe Jay was changing from a storm jib to a Genoa, and went over the bow between the main hull and the port ama. The tramp there was gone and his long lifeline let him go all the way in under the wing. There are handholds under that wing, but perhaps he could not orient himself to grab one, or he struck his head rendering him unconscious. I know he typically carried a knife, so the latter makes sense as to why he didn't cut the lifeline (he had a life preserver on).

Perhaps the EPIRB was on his person and the fall dislodged it?

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by capngeo

Jay was changing from a storm jib to a Genoa, and went over the bow between the main hull and the port ama.
Perhaps the EPIRB was on his person and the fall dislodged it?

Thats a more likely thing.

The senario I think could fit most facts and is something I can easily imagine happening: If he kept the EPIRB in the cockpit and needs to do work forward he takes the EPIRB with him for safety. So he takes it forward with him to change sails.
In this case he went overboard, couldnt get back aboard; set the EPIRB off; and then either lost the EPIRB accidently or had the difficulty of holding it whilst trying to get back aboard.

[Boatguy30]

Aren't we still missing how the boat could have sailed clear thru the keys, and then across the gulf stream, unpiloted, unnoticed AND dragging a body.

Surely a million in one shot?

[mikepmtl]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

YIKES ... but what were they doing out there? How long ago was that?

That was back in 1999/2000. I was in Bimini the day before with a few other boats. They were discussing if they were going to stay another day (we had planned to stay another 2 days originally) or not.

After hearing the weather forecast I let them discuss it and lifted anchor to cross an almost swimming pool like Gulf Stream back towards Miami.

It was not hurricane season at all. It was January/February.
It was simply a good old Nor'Easter coming down. Winds were sustained in the 60mph and gusting in the 80's.

But when the winds are coming from the north hit the Gulf Stream coming from the south it can create some extremely difficult situations. Very big sharp waves and so on.

Why were people out there? No idea. I suppose they did not listen to the weather forecast or thought they could handle it, or did not make it to shelter in time.

The morning actually started out very nice, by afternoon winds and waves started picking up significantly. Throughout the night it was not pretty at all.

The hurricane hole (No Name if you know it) was very crowded. There was also this very beautiful Catamaran that they owners left unattended that broke free and was pounding on the wall. We called the coast guard and they came and secured it, but it was still a of of fiberglass damage.

The next afternoon in the bay it was perfect 20 knot winds to finish off my vacation with some fast sailing and dolphins riding our bow waves.

[fryewe]

Remember the three minute rule? An object moving at one knot will go one nautical mile in one hour. One hour is 20 3 minute intervals. One nm is 2000 yards. So the math says the object will go 100 yards every three minutes which 300 feet in 180 seconds. That is 1 2/3 feet every second or 5 feet every 3 seconds for every knot of speed.

Which is 15 feet every 3 seconds for three knots and 25 feet every 3 seconds for 5 knots.

If you tow a 100 foot line at 5 knots you have 12 seconds to get to that line before it is gone.

Makes more sense to clip onto a jackline than to tow a warp.

Be safe out there.

[Kettlewell]

Re: Missing Boat found in Cuba: Lessons Learned
Aren't we still missing how the boat could have sailed clear thru the keys, and then across the gulf stream, unpiloted, unnoticed AND dragging a body.

Surely a million in one shot?

^^This^^ And, with the Coast Guard and everyone within VHF marine radio range alerted to look out for the boat.

[fryewe]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

^^This^^ And, with the Coast Guard and everyone within VHF marine radio range alerted to look out for the boat.

Didn't necessarily go "through" the Keys. From seaward of Ft. Myers with a NEly breeze the balanced (or autopiloted...headed toward a waypoint north of Key West) boat likely would track west of Key West which is almost all open water. If the boat moved on SWly into the Strait of Florida it would then be set to the east by the current in the strait as it continued on its generally southerly course.

Those waters aren't exactly full of boats and I'm sure most weren't "alerted". Many boats don't either don't have the VHF on or don't listen to it or don't correlate a BOTL-for to their vicinity. The boat probably gave the appearance of being under command and based on the latest descriptions of what happened the Captain may have been between the hulls out of sight.

I think "one in a million" underestimates the odds on what happened. Even if it was one in a million it happened. Folks win PowerBall jackpots on one in a hundred and seventy plus million chances.

Some on here seem to be trying to indict the CG for a lackadaisical search or to indict the system for not being more robustly designed to quickly find someone who has a problem or to indict program and policy for putting too much money against one objective rather than another. Some would mandate safety equipment not currently required. Are you the same folks who complain on other threads that the CG or local marine police conduct too many compliance inspections?

The mindset that every bad event needs new rules to prevent that event is what has given us the massive rules/regulation and fiscal morass we currently have. Because the rules and regs almost never go away and the money to implement them seems to always be new money rather than the re-programming of old.

This was a sad circumstance. My condelences to family and friends.

Life is risky. A robust life is more risky than a sedentary one.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

If you were a real 'cat guy' I wonder why you would need any?

Don't "you lot" have eight spare lives?

I think I have used a few already.

Except on rare occasions (flat calm & no current) I will no longer piss over the side.

Short tethers, center jack lines, etc.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

I won't be making a video. I'll be busy in the water, and whoever is on the boat will be focused on keeping me safe. I'm not doing the test for the forum. I want to know if it will work as well as it did on my other, smaller, tiller boat.

You'll have to either accept my report or not, as you wish, but others have reported it working as well, so ... sometimes people just believe what they want to believe, and I actually think that's good. There are pros and cons to everything, and while I use a floating line and don't worry about it getting wrapped around my propeller, I do worry about another boat driving over it.

G'nite.

Take one more person with you..................

cause.....................

This, we gotta see......................

as in................

"You gotta see it to believe it".

[Blue Crab]

It'll be therapy for the rest of us, methinks.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by capngeo

After some in-depth analysis of the photo of the boat on the rocks in Cuba, the previous owners of the boat believe Jay was changing from a storm jib to a Genoa, and went over the bow between the main hull and the port ama. The tramp there was gone and his long lifeline let him go all the way in under the wing. There are handholds under that wing, but perhaps he could not orient himself to grab one, or he struck his head rendering him unconscious. I know he typically carried a knife, so the latter makes sense as to why he didn't cut the lifeline (he had a life preserver on).

Perhaps the EPIRB was on his person and the fall dislodged it?

Thanks for finding logical facts and sharing them.

You continue to do him proud.





I am NOT bashing the USCG when I say,

Hopefully the person who coordinated the search will do a hot wash. Somehow the dots just don't seem to connect. While there have been some nice theories, NO ONE on this forum has all the facts related to the SAR attempt. A fact-based analysis would help the USCG and boaters. If nothing else to validate that this is one of those times when "S*^T Happens." Or if AIS, or other technology would have helped identify the 40' boat that was being searched for, that also should be in the analysis. But that may be expecting too much.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by sabray

Pondering. I am going to attach floats to a line. Rig the line to my steering and when I think I might fall over board I throw this contraption over the side. I don't always use this because usually I think I can stay aboard. It's only those times that I think I can't stay aboard that I deploy this.
Am I getting this right. I have never seem anyone do this so I really need video footage or a diagram.
Is there something about your boat that makes it difficult to stay aboard. Have you tried a harness? Sorry if your upset and getting blue faced I really don't understand what you are about to do.

Well, you're not using it in an intelligent way, so you're not going to get good results.

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by sabray

It's only those times that I think I can't stay aboard that I deploy this.

Um... Yeah. This is a bit like, "I'll fasten my seatbelt only when I expect to have an accident."

"I'll put on my helmet when I think I might crash."

"I'll keep my PFD handy and put it on when I think I'm about to fall overboard."