Lost passengers in South Pacific

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by argonauta1

Stormalong. Met a skipper in the Canaries who told me a similar story about a young crew member hanging off the transom mid ocean while underway. I was never tempted. Becalmed north of Tonga I did dip my "big toe" in though. If you check Yves Gelinas' film (Manufacturer of the Cape Horn self steering rig), while tethered he went overboard mid passage to film his boat sailing along now sans crew. He was single handing. We were equipped with the gear.

The film With Jean-du-Sud Around the World – CapHorn – Régulateur d’allure intégré

Argonauta, That may have been me in the Canaries although I have not been in the Canaries since 2006. Went through Panama in 2007 and have not been back since. Anyway I have heard some amazing stories from other cruisers that I believe to be true.

That film is pretty amazing. Don't know if he was just in for a bath but that safety harness would not have helped much if he was dragged by it. Quite some time ago a sailor in the ARC died while being dragged along side of his boat because his crew (his brother IIRC) did not know how to stop the boat.

Being lucky is better than being smart. We will never know about most of the unlucky ones.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by stormalong

Argonauta, That may have been me in the Canaries although I have not been in the Canaries since 2006. Went through Panama in 2007 and have not been back since. Anyway I have heard some amazing stories from other cruisers that I believe to be true.

That film is pretty amazing. Don't know if he was just in for a bath but that safety harness would not have helped much if he was dragged by it. Quite some time ago a sailor in the ARC died while being dragged along side of his boat because his crew (his brother IIRC) did not know how to stop the boat.

Being lucky is better than being smart. We will never know about most of the unlucky ones.

Yes I was in that arc.

[goboatingnow]

Sadly a story of paranoia writ large egged on by the looney fringe of the internet

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Sadly a story of paranoia writ large egged on by the looney fringe of the internet

Which story are you referring to?

[jipcho]

Just WOW!

Definitely illegal for these captains to do what they did. The real villain though, is Mr Mellow, a psychotic paranoiac who somehow got away scot-free without any responsibility taken. And now he's living the life in the paradise of Huahine? Unbelievable. As for the two unfortunate followers of the wacko conspiracies and religious cults, it's very sad for their loved ones. However, I think they'd have done themselves in somehow, in some way, regardless. At least they got to experience the South Pacific sailing life for a short time. I wonder if they had previously ever experienced as much joy as they showed holding the fish they caught.

[lestersails]

Thanks for the interesting posts. Re the "how could this happen to a scientist?" query - schizophrenia can completely overwhelm the mind of even highly intelligent, very well educated people. It is a bad disease.
Rare people with certain kinds of mental illness can have the attributes of being highly magnetic personalities - primarily to attract people who have different mental illnesses that make them dependent supplicants - they need to be under the sway of such people. The whole Jonestown cult was a powerful and tragic example of that. The Nexium cult was a more recent one. Another example is L Ron Hubbard. You might actually enjoy that story not because he was another crazy, but because some of his craziness manifested when he was in the navy, chasing submarines that did not exist and waging war on Mexico. I kid you not.

[Cyrus Safdari]

Originally Posted by lo2jones

The “scientist turned religious zealot” is the one that intrigues me. Anyone with serious enough background to explain how that might happen?

I can't imagine being stuck inclose quarters that long with these people

Well apart from the mental illness issue actually science itself proves scientist themselves are not immune from fallacious thinking and reasoning; this is a human adaptation hardwired into our brains and it gets worse if you interact with like-minded folks sspecially someone seen as an authority figure who will only reinforce the irrationality. (This of course also doesn't mean all science is bunk and anyone's opinion is just as valid as a scientist's)
Plenty of "rational" scientists are racist, sexist, prone to think in stereotypes etc too. We are just not simply rational creatures; our monkey ancestors who tried to take time to figure things out, got eaten by lions.

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...ange-our-minds

[clownfishsydney]

Nutters it seems!

[Networker]

Originally Posted by clownfishsydney

Nutters it seems!

Completely. Tragic story but Darwinism at its purest.