Merged- Windigo Abandoned. Please Help

[DumnMad]

Pelagic.

BTW, pity the hull couldn't be taken away for a kids hut or sent to the bottom for a fish cave. Chopping or burning seems silly.

[Blue Crab]

Pelagic: ...they also hoped that they could reclaim their yacht after they had time to recover from the bashing.

[Mr B]

Too give an indication of how hard it would be to get from a Boat to a ship in bad weather,

Go sailing with another boat,, next time the waves are 10 feet high, just swap from one boat to the other,

Very simple to sit here and say what you will do, Do the above exercise first, Then come back and say how easy it was,

In 2 or 3 feet of waves, it gets very difficult just to get on and off my boat from the dinghy, let alone trying to climb a rope ladder thats maybe 50 foot high, and pitching up and down at the same time,

Plus your slamming into what ever your parked against, Ship, Etc,

I do believe they are older people, So not fit and healthy to do Iron Man Stuff, In their rescue, I do believe they were injured also, Making it even harder to get off their boat,

They thought Their necks were on the line,
Who would think to sink the boat or any thing else in those situations,
Just get us up on the ship to safety,

Video's do not show the wave heights,
I have video's of bad weather and biggus waves, But when played back on the computer, It looks dead flat, Very calm seas, Big disappointment,

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I have rescued and been rescued, worked offshore in commercial salvage operations and searched for bodies near a prematurely abandoned freighter that survived the storm where 9 of the 12 crew were found drowned.

Training pulled me thru the worst parts of those events, but later evaluation haunted me that some of my decisions could have been better.

The couple made the decision to abandon, which signifies they had given up. So from their perspective it was a good decision.
Most of us, who have experienced those conditions, feel it was premature, but we were not there.

My belief is they also hoped that they could reclaim their yacht after they had time to recover from the bashing.
That turned out to be a very poor decision and underlines the level of commitment a skipper must make when a decision to abandon is made.

Rather than big brother mandatory insurance, I feel sailors should have the choice of purchasing rescue/med-evac insurance and this could even be tied into the licensing of the alarm/ positioning equipment and even more.

By more, an insurance plan could also provide a temporary salvage crew to take over the yacht if still seaworthy and deliver it to a safe port. (I am sure the satellite agencies had the yacht on their monitors for a while, but because there was no commercial reward… they turned the cameras away)

I personally would be happy signing an international release form that I will not cry for help unless I am prepared to shoulder the costs, so as to keep government agencies and insurance agents out of my life.
But that is just me!

Those are very good ideas. I don't think insurance companies have the vision to implement them, nor do most cruisers have the foresight or I daresay the humility to buy such policies.

But that does not lessen the fineness of the thinking.

[Boracay]

This thread has deviated so far from the original post that it is being closed.