Rescue of s/v Gringo

[camaraderie]

On June 24th the Vagabond 42 Gringo enroute from FL to the Azores declared an emergency off Bermuda and the captain was picked up by a Norweigian Cruise lines ship in heavy seas.
The full log report of the captain as well as some commentary from those who knew him and his preparations is available to read on SN here. See posts #9 and 10 particularly.

I think it is an excellent report and many lessons may be learned about both preparation and decision making. I think the members here would greatly benefit from this thread. Mods, of course you may delete this if you disagree with the link ...but I would ask you to read the thread before you make a decision. Thanks.

[Hud3]

Thanks, Cam. Very moving to read the boat owner's log, and Mel's analysis was very illuminating. Always a shame when a boat is lost, but good to know the skipper survived.

[svHyLyte]

This matter is discussed at length at Lost at Sea - SailNet Community . The original poster that reported the incident on the Sailnet website also included the following:

George had no insurance on the boat. It would have never passed survey. As more and more details are coming in on this George made every know error in seamanship. First he never did a shake down cruise. He never sailed this boat since he owned it. It was towed to the Marnia when he bought it. For 5 years it only left the dock less than a handful of times and all except one on the motor. Second, he lost his electronics 6 hours into the sail. We told him to turn back to fix them before continuing on. He refused. His damm South American macho BS got in the way. Here are the rest of the errors.
Knew all the tanks were bad both fuel and water. One water tank was inoperable. Never polished the fuel before leaving.
Unproven sailplan. All the rigging and running rigging was re-invented on this boat.
Electrical wiring.. Each bulb, equipment or anything electrical had its own wire run. While it sounds grand, it wasn't done properly and we told him so.
Engine - sat for over 8 years. He ran it a few times but never for any length of time. Had a few problems with it and fixed what was needed but from the blog it let him down...etc., etc. etc.

While it's sad that the fellow lost his boat, given the forgoing it was not misfortunate but a near certainty. Does that deserve much sympathy?

[Christian Van H]

svHyLyte's question is more than valid. I dont believe he does. I might feel bad for the Bermudan traffic radiomen he bothered for the week! By the way, this guy really did "lose his boat". I mean, it's out there somewhere as far as I know, and it's probably better without him!

[Vasco]

Sad tale but not too uncommon. God looks after fools, drunks and children. At least he is safe.

[GordMay]

Fault and Blame vs. Sympathy and Education

I find it a little disturbing that the first thing some people want to do is assign fault and lay blame; instead of saying to the person who suffered this unplanned outcome “I’m so sorry this happened to you - what can we learn from your experiences?”.

I believe it was Nellie Bly who observed that:
“It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.”

[BeenThereAteIt]

Hi Cam:
Sounds like the core issue is money. It just takes a whole lot of
boat bucks to keep any boat in good shape. When any person
chooses to sail a boat which is in questionable shape they take
their chances. My prayers are for all the rescue workers.

Respectfully,
Paul

[Intentional Drifter]

Yes, thanks for the link, Cam. A sad and scary tale. I also have to agree with HyLyte. How many of us have actually left port with everything fixed on our boat? Ha! We'd never leave. But, this was a series of unresolved problems just waiting for the right time to turn into the proverbial cascading failure. Chaos ensues. I do feel sorry for George's loss, but 95% of this was brought on by himself. I'm glad he got out alive.

ID

[driven]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Fault and Blame vs. Sympathy and Education

I find it a little disturbing that the first thing some people want to do is assign fault and lay blame; instead of saying to the person who suffered this unplanned outcome “I’m so sorry this happened to you - what can we learn from your experiences?”.

I believe it was Nellie Bly who observed that:
“It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.”

GordMay,

First off, this is not to pick a fight with you, I've read many of your posts and think you always have alot of good things to say, and will continue to enjoy your postings. I'd just like to offer a counter viewpoint here about assigning blame & fault.

While it's true many people immediately look to assign fault & blame, I think it's a very valid thing to look at as part of learning from those experiences. I think a little disturbing, when we start to be "so sorry" for people who greatly contributed to their own misfortune.

It is hard to learn how to prevent a similar future disaster, without identifying the true causes of such. Ultimately, boats and everything on them are just "things". They are installed, maintained, operated, and interacted with in all manner by humans. Ultimately it is a persons responsibility to ensure the equipment is properly installed, operated, maintained, etc... If oyu want to use the words fault & blame, and then indrectly label those things as being negative, I think that's bringing subjective emotions into what should be an objective look at what seriously went wrong here for education purposes. Education should be objective.

In this case it happens to be a string of errors and poor judgment by a person. Many people believe we shouldn't feel too much sympathy for people who suffer as a result of their own actions (or lack thereof). I happen to be one of them. I believe it is extemely important in the learning process to take responsibility for one's actions, instead of blaming "things", and being sympathetic to one who caused their own suffering only further impedes this learning process by making it appear as they are a victim, instead of the truth.

Ultimately, people are responsible for their own successes or failures. Far too often people just want to take the responsibility for their own successes, and shift the responsibility of the failure to others or to "things". If everyone who failed took responsibility and said I could have done X, Y, Z to prevent this, they would truly learn from their experiences. Thus appropriately assigning fault & blame is essential to learning from failure.

As to your quote there, I think it is important to be compassionate and to help those in need, which was done here, and he is now safe. Now that the crisis is over and everyone is safe, it's time to place responsibility where it belongs, which doesn't call for more sympathy.

Shall we hand this chap a participation ribbon, and make sure any reports are not done in red ink so as not to affect his ego while we are at it too, so we can make sure he still feels good about himself and tell him it's not his fault? Taking a soft approach when it comes to responsibility is not the answer, just look at recent history in America, but that's another topic entirely.

-Driven

Edit: An interesting parallel, I think, is in the corporate world we always say "blame processes, not people". I don't necessarily agree with that as it shifts responsibility to a "thing", but I do agree with having processes, following them, and improving them over time. Unfortunately, while may sailors have checklists, inspections, trials, etc... as sample processes they could follow, some are ignorant that they exist, or choose not to for whatever reason - and this is the same in all areas of life.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Fault and Blame vs. Sympathy and Education

I find it a little disturbing that the first thing some people want to do is assign fault and lay blame; instead of saying to the person who suffered this unplanned outcome “I’m so sorry this happened to you - what can we learn from your experiences?”.

I believe it was Nellie Bly who observed that:
“It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.”

Good point Gord and I have wondered when I found myself being too judgmental, why we sailors sometimes tend to be an unforgiving lot?

• Do we judge fellow sailors by a higher standard?
• Do we react unkindly when a cavalier attitude makes us worry for that person’s safety?
• Do we resent that our non sailing friends and families will react with worry and concern for us when they read about another sailing death or abandonment?
• Is our insensitivity to the failure of others…. caused by fear and the critical exercise to somehow prove…. “that it can’t happen to me!”?

I don’t have an answer but I apologize for our weakness.

[Bash]

it appears that s/v gringo wasn't this fellow's first cruising tragedy. in his logs, he relates the following: "Incidentally, when I bought ALLEY CAT, my previous boat, a Catalina 38 (a Sparkman and Stephens design) it had a tinny [sic] Danforth anchor and the insurance company gave me 30 days to replace it. Before the 30 days were over, ALLEY CAT was anchored on a cove at Anacapa Island and when the wind veered she dragged anchor and ended up on the rocks."

Hey, when your insurance company tells you that your ground tackle is inadequate, and then you anchor out anyway because you're within the grace period the insurer granted, there's a serious gap in what I'm going to call "cruising prudence."

This fellow buys a boat without a survey (already displaying questionable cruising prudence) and doesn't discover that his bulkheads aren't attached until he's five days offshore. He has enough money to supply himself with 16 jerry jugs, most of which are loaded with diesel, but not enough money to replace the battery in his EPIRB. Cruising prudence?

I'm sorry, Gord, but I just can't summon sympathy for this sort of cruiser. And in terms of education, maybe here on CF we need to learn not to encourage this sort of cruiser. People are constantly jumping onto this forum asking advice on how to begin a circumnavigation with zero navigational experience and completely inadequate resources, and CF regulars encourage them to go for it. Is that responsible?

Some folks just shouldn't be cruising. You don't have to be wealthy, and you don't have to have a quarter-million-dollar boat, but you've got to at least have the smarts to figure out whether your bulkheads are attached, and whether your ground tackle is up to the task.

[Stevens 47]

Its been hot...for us here in SD in the low 80s and humid. I am rebuilding the interior (hot inside the boat) at present after completing the exterior, except for LP on the topsides. Man do I want to finish and get sailing...all I do is work on her. So keeping the urge to cut corners is a ongoing mental adjustment. After reading about the mistakes made, it makes me redouble my intention to do it right. It will get done its own time and done right.

[Ocean Girl]

MOST SINKING'S/ABANDONING SHIP INVOLVES A SERIES OF MISTAKES.

WE ALL HAVE DREAMS , NOT MANY OF US ACTUALLY CUT THE LINES AND GO. HE DID, HE TOOK THE RISK AND LOST. WE ALL DO STUPID THINGS, NO ONE IS IMMUNE, SOME GET AWAY WITH IT - SOME DON'T.
NO ONE IS IMMUNE TO SCRUTINY WHEN THE CRAP HITS THE FAN EITHER, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT BRINGS RESCUE PEOPLE INTO HARMS WAY.

SYMPATHY AND EDUCATION - BECAUSE HE LOST HIS BOAT AND BECAUSE THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO ME AND MY BOAT.
ERIKA

[John A]

GordMay:
Your last post is very true. Thank you for sharing
Some people have a dream, and are able to live it.
Some peoples dreams turn into a nightmare.

Some people never dream.
John

[Badsanta]

Pilots say any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Well this guy walked away and even got a seat up grade on his flight home. Maybe the next time out will be the one. three times the charm.