The Blue Pearl Sinking

[boatman61]

Good to have you all back safe.. sorry you lost the boat..
close call..

[snort]

Very sorry for the loss of your boat, but very glad that you all survived without injury.
I hope you are able to find a replacement boat soon enough.

[beneteau-500]

sorry for your loss and i know exactly how you feel

on reading your second posting you say there was a 3 rd owner that sailed from the med to the Caribbean and i am just wondering if yacht was originally sold by Vernicos as they are the main Beneteau for Greece Turkey and the med basically and was in a part charter / owner set up if it was sold and chartered by them they will have all the records see VERNICOS YACHTS - Yacht Sales in Greece, Recreation Travel, Charter Yacht, Mediterranean, Exclusive Dealer of Beneteau Yachts :. Greece Charter Bareboat Fully Crewed its worth a try

[Bluewaters2812]

Hi Spleen, Len attached a life ring to Dexter and threw him up to the crew on the rescue tanker. He timed it with a wave so that they were nearer the tanker. Perfect catch and throw. He did this after he had made sure I (Lisa) and our crew member were safely aboard the tanker. He was calm throughout the whole procedure which took two hours from the time the tanker spotted us. The conditions were horrendous and Len was key to saving our lives that night amongst others. I will be forever grateful to him.

[Spleen]

Wow, of course I am happy to hear you all made it out alive. I kept thinking of little dexter and what he thought of the whole thing. What did he think of the big boat?

[JPA Cate]

Bluewaters2182,

Welcome back to CF. I am so glad you all are safe. Thank you for coming and for sharing.

Frankly, I have to say it took a great deal of courage to document the damage to Blue Pearl, when she was sinking. Utterly disastrous footage.

Be well, all of you, we wish you a speedy recovery from a highly traumatic event that you handled excellently.

Peace,

[Ex-Calif]

I read the report on Sail and my initial response was, "Horrible to be "stuck by lightning twice."

Clearly your experience and preparation showed through. Congratulations to you for having a solid plan and executing it well. Going into the life raft must have been a surreal experience.

Glad you are all safe.

I hope that financial recovery is possible.

You may want to keep mum about specifics in case there is liability in this but I do have 2 questions.

1. According to the Sail article the rudder was repaired once before by you. I wonder if the issue that caused the first failure left undiscovered damage to the structure? Any ideas about that?

2. In order to understand the magnitude of the stresses, was this a downwind, following sea situation?

[Khagan1227]

Holy cow!

Glad you are all safe.

Thanks for sharing, hopefully you will be able to return to cruising again soon.

[robert sailor]

There was an article published several years ago of a smaller Benni sailing from Hawaii to Tahiti and he had the tabbing break loose on the rear quadrant. He was fortunate in that the winds/seas were normal trades and he noticed it in the very early stages (tiller steering) He was able to drill several holes and cross brace it with twisted ropes. He slowed way down and made it to port where he had the whole area beefed up. His comments at the time were that it was lightly built.

[Bluewaters2812]

To Ex - Calif, we have never repaired the rudder ourselves. The rudder was replaced completely when it sheared off at the hull in benign conditions in October 2013. The post was intact as were the connections to the steering quadrant.

There has been an incredible amount of speculation and supposition. I am so glad we did not read the posts just after our ordeal.

To put the record straight - the boat was surveyed in 2012 (previous owner purchase) and 2013 (our purchase). It was hauled out three times by us. In January 2014 we were at Riverside boatyard and had the keel strengthened amongst other safety precautions for the crossing.

Len is a very experienced sailor and worked with sea rescue in South Africa. He was responsible for saving many lives at sea. I am extremely lucky that he was with me that night as he was calm and organised and I know I would not have made it into the life raft or onto the tanker without him. He timed the waves and instructed me to jump for my life both into the liferaft and onto the side of the tanker. He promised to save our dog and he did. There was no question in his mind that myself, our crew and the dog came first.

Lisa Rorke

[mbianka]

Bluewaters

Thanks for that very sobering video of the kind of things that can happen out there. Sorry for the loss of the boat but, glad all were rescued.

From a lesson learned stand point for others I wonder if some kind of sling could be fabricated or carried on board to support a broken rudder until repairs could be made. This would give some support to a broken rudder assembly rather than having it work its self to further damage in the waves. At the very least keeping attached to the boat minimizing water intrusion.

[Coops]

Bloody good job done by Len I reckon. Stayed calm and thought of all others before himself, no argument from me at all that he was both selfless and heroic. Great effort and wish you all well.

Coops.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by mbianka

Bluewaters

Thanks for that very sobering video of the kind of things that can happen out there. Sorry for the loss of the boat but, glad all were rescued.

From a lesson learned stand point for others I wonder if some kind of sling could be fabricated or carried on board to support a broken rudder until repairs could be made. This would give some support to a broken rudder assembly rather than having it work its self to further damage in the waves. At the very least keeping attached to the boat minimizing water intrusion.

I think this is the wrong approach entirely. Rather than carrying a mickey mouse patch for this sort of situation, it would be FAR more useful to beef up the rudder structure so that a patch would never be required. After all, the vast majority of boats' rudders don't fail in this manner, even in severe sea conditions. The engineering isn't so demanding, nor is the shipwright skill needed to accomplish the augmentation. While one is about it, might as well make that aft bulkhead watertight and reduce the chance of sinking even more should rudder damage pop up.

Meanwhile, I too laud this skipper's responses to a deadly situation: well done, mate!

Jim

[atoll]

Originally Posted by Coops

Bloody good job done by Len I reckon. Stayed calm and thought of all others before himself, no argument from me at all that he was both selfless and heroic. Great effort and wish you all well.

Coops.

+2

having had a similar experince whilst crossing the atlantic,cracked skeg,with hull fractures either side and taking on water with every movement of the rudder,nothing more sobering than seeing blue water spurting through the hull!

we however have watertight bulkheads so there was no chance of the boat sinking even when the aft compartment filled to the waterline.

[Prairie Chicken]

Bluewaters, I was saddened to hear of the sinking of Blue Pearl, but very happy to hear all on board had been safely rescued. It sounds like you did a fine job of both preparation & action under an extremely stressful situation. Thank you for coming back here to CF to offer your descriptions of what occurred.

I truly believe you can prepare for any number of emergencies and do everything right, but there will always be something which can sneak up and kick you in the azz.

I am sorry to hear you took such a financial hit, but hope you can get back to a calmer sea sometime soon.