Team Vestas hits reef

[transmitterdan]

Mark,

Thanks for setting me straight. I learn a lot here.

According to the VOR web site they stripped the boat of the "bad things" first and then "things that were expensive". They had a satellite radome for sure to send and receive daily updates. Seems like a radar would be just as important as internet access...then again maybe not.

[rognvald]

Originally Posted by colemj

Traditional navigation? You study navigation song-stories and use a polynesian wind/wave reed instrument? Or do you mean traditional navigation using a Kamal? Maybe you mean you use an Astrolabe? Or perhaps you are using a cross-staff or maybe even a quadrant?

Or do you mean "traditional navigation" as the particular way you got stuck in at a particular time in your life? As you can see, I am having a hard time understanding what "traditional navigation" means.

Particularly since I believe I am doing just that! GPS is pretty old, after all. It has been a navy tradition for many years.

I wonder what form these types of arguments will take in another 30 years ("you can't go cruising with only an eye-chart implant and a sexbot - you must have the traditional 5 GPS receivers and a sweaty, salty mate"…).

What is the big deal about paper charts? If one is crossing large bodies of water, charts are pretty useless. If one is near land, guide books provide sketch charts (or better) and general waypoints. On passage, we have routes and waypoints written down and don't really use even the electronic charts much until we are near land or shoaling areas.

And yes, the only official paper chart onboard our boat is a chart of the entire Caribbean Sea. I don't know where it is, but I saved it because it was pretty.

Kind of like those molas Michele bought...

Mark

Mark, quite a mouthful but I'll give it a try . . .

Paragraph 1: Yes. I use all of the above although I'm having a problem with my astrolabe since I've wired it to my GPS. Any thoughts?

Paragraph 2: I have already explained what "traditional navigation" is in this discussion. In regards to being stuck in a "particular time in my life," I would rather say that I prefer to use my brain rather than to have the work done by a magic machine. Just a personal preference.

Paragraph 3: So has traditional navigation since it is still required and practiced on military and commercial ships today.

Paragraph 4: Consult a gypsy woman. She will read your palm and take your money.

Paragraph 5: See paragraph 2

Paragraph 6: Please allow me to offer some advice. If you really like that "pretty chart" . . guard it judiciously since it will have a high likelihood of being lost overboard. Remember . . . you already lost one to Neptune. How's that for chance?

Paragraph 7: If your 11 navigational devices malfunctioned and your pretty chart of the Caribbean went overboard, can Michele's Molas be used for emergency navigation?

Good luck, good sailing . . . R

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

As with most accidents of this type, the problem wasn't with the sources of position information, GPS or sextant, but rather a loss of situation awareness likely caused by fatigue or ultracompetitive misplaced priorities. Both GPS and sextant with paper charts are tools to keep your situation awareness with regard to position at a high level. These racers simply failed to use the tools available to them that it takes to have adequate situation awareness. Nothing to do with GPS vs sextant and paper charts.

I've always been amused by the argument that a sextant is more reliable than a GPS, especially when you have multiple, independently powered GPS's aboard to choose from. colemj has pointed out the extreeeeeeeme unlikelihood of all 11 of his GPS failing and all his batteries dying at the same time. All it takes for a sextant to become nothing more than dead weight is a cloud in the wrong place, and God forbid it's an overcast day or week....

Of course the problem was situational awareness and likely the overconfidence of great experience, but if you are referring to my posts kindly don't characterise them as a suggestion that sextant/paper is "more reliable" than a GPS! What I did say is simply that paper charts are a very useful and important adjunct to those electronic tools which I constantly use for international sailing. What is so hard to understand about that? Only a fool would suggest GPS is not the more powerful tech for general use. However, there have been MANY GPS and plotter assisted disasters, and paper often serves to give a good awareness of hazards along a more general passage, which is ABSOLUTELY a matter of situational awareness. Further, the likes of Admiralty charts and sailing directions in paper form are indeed significantly more reliable than the likes of navionics charts, whose data is entered by some third world, third party individuals who make frequent and colossal errors. The level of such errors is far higher than those in the government produced material and this is really not a matter of argument. Why do you think that commercial ships use ECDIS? The fact that paper charts may indeed be the last resort and necessity in really remote sailing zones is also not a matter for debate. It is simply a fact. The unforeseen occurs at sea. This is the primary rule. And redundancy is the absolute watchword of seamanship. If yourself or whoever prefers to disregard that and put all your faith in electronic aids, apart from anything else allowing your own skills and readiness for more basic navigation to wither, so be it. But what you are denying is the simple assertion that paper is still an important and useful adjunct and backup to plotters. Is that really what you want to say?

[JPA Cate]

Judging from the picture, there was no radome on the mast. Possibly had one on a pole, which came down when they grounded, but unlikely (windage).

Off hand, I'd say Team Vestas was not using radar. Use of it could have kept them off the reef, but so could more careful attention to navigation.

[Garrettw]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Judging from the picture, there was no radome on the mast. Possibly had one on a pole, which came down when they grounded, but unlikely (windage).

Off hand, I'd say Team Vestas was not using radar. Use of it could have kept them off the reef, but so could more careful attention to navigation.

All the VOR65s have radar actually. It is mast mounted a bit more than half way up to the first spreader. My guess is that it wasn't on, but that is conjecture on my part.


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Judging from the picture, there was no radome on the mast. Possibly had one on a pole, which came down when they grounded, but unlikely (windage).

Off hand, I'd say Team Vestas was not using radar. Use of it could have kept them off the reef, but so could more careful attention to navigation.

I absolutely agree. A reef like that shows up on radar pretty well normally. Maybe a contributing factor? Perhaps simply not monitored or guard not up? Ultimately I think the primary reason they hit the reef was an overabundance of experience. It is natural to focus primarily upon the things which challenge one. The more experience one has, the more likely one is to ignore the basics.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Muckle Flugga

.....The more experience one has, the more likely one is to ignore the basics.

Gee...I had always thought that...Experience teaches you to stick to the basics tennants of good seamanship, rather than become complacent.

Which in this case would means

LOOKOUT by all means including radar

VERIFY position constantly and assume nothing

MAINTAIN conservative CPA from known dangers in your evolving passage plan.

I cannot believe someone on that boat was not aware of an approaching reef as they plotted other yachts skirting it.

But prudent seamanship seems to have taken a backseat to the heady siren of competitiveness.

That is not experience but Ego.:thumbdown:

[Neptune's Gear]

Definitely had Radar, a Navico broadband I beleive. It WOULD have seen that reef - I have a 3G and it works well in that situation. Theirs is likely to be a 4G, which is even better. It was mast mounted, on a gimbal;

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Gee...I had always thought that...Experience teaches you to stick to the basics tennants of good seamanship, rather than become complacent.

Which in this case would means

LOOKOUT by all means including radar

VERIFY position constantly and assume nothing

MAINTAIN conservative CPA from known dangers in your evolving passage plan.

I cannot believe someone on that boat was not aware of an approaching reef as they plotted other yachts skirting it.

But prudent seamanship seems to have taken a backseat to the heady siren of competitiveness.

That is not experience but Ego.:thumbdown:

Well yes, of course I agree. But it is also true as a basic fact of human psychology that as we become very accustomed to things we perceive them less and less. The very experienced may and indeed do often focus upon things which are challenging and interesting to them, the steeper end of the learning curve. This can mean that the basics get neglected or taken for granted. It is not a matter of ought, but can. But yes, practise of the basics basics basics and essentials is essential to good seamanship. It is just that sometimes the most experienced among us may need to remind themselves of that more earnestly than the newbies. I don't really see how you could see that I may have been disagreeing with that? However it is quite clear that failure of radar watch is as basic a violation of Rule 5 as failure of navigation diligence is of good seamanship. Both are not excusable. They may, however, be explicable.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

Definitely had Radar, a Navico broadband I beleive. It WOULD have seen that reef - I have a 3G and it works well in that situation. Theirs is likely to be a 4G, which is even better. It was mast mounted, on a gimbal;

I am afraid that this does make the situation even more dismal for the crew… Colregs Rule 5.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Suijin

But, there are often errors on electronic charts that are not on paper charts, ...

Depends on how they're made.

I remember hearing it again and again during my student days: We don't make maps. We make (geospatial) databases. Maps are on of the things we produce from the database.
So at least in most of Western Europe the base of most of the maps, paper and electronics, is a database operated by the respective hydrographic authorities. From this database paper maps are created, and digital maps are created as well. Navionics, C-Map etc... get a feed of this database.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Um, with respect a radar and depth finder are pretty important in this situation. In fact, with only those two you should be able to avoid the rocks and shoals. Even if I had previously put a known track into my chartplotter I would still have the radar running and the depth alarm set when running in close situations with fog. There are things in the fog that move and chartplotters don't know about them. Paper doesn't show them either.

Does anyone know if the VOR guys use radar? If they had an alarm zone set it should have been screaming it's head off before they hit the reef.

What does "Um" have to do with it? Of course a chartplotter isn't the only electronic device that is useful in the fog, but if you read this discussion, it's been about paper charts/sextant and chartplotters so I didn't think it was necessary to mention every other electronic gadget aboard that is helpful to maintain situation awareness in limited visibility. I was asked how many GPS's I felt was necessary and I was attempting to illustrate that I couldn't really come up with a hard number because it depended on where you are and what the prevailing weather conditions are. I think most people got that.

I'm not an around the world racer but it seems to me that on a racing boat that doesn't carry a lot of heavy fuel to power a genset or run their engine every day, it would be pretty tough to find the electrons available to power a radar 24/7 for the entire duration of the race. If the radar isn't transmitting all the time, it's not going to be on to warn you when you least expect it to.

[Delancey]

"They had smashed into the coral rock at 19 knots - the equivalent of 35 kilometres an hour - in the 65-foot Volvo Ocean 65 boat, span 180 degrees and crashed to a halt, grounded on the reef."

Volvo 'ship-wrecks' back safe after reef-grounding drama

Is it just me or does it look in the photos of the boat on the reef that the keel is still attached? I understand they lost both rudders, but the way it is leaning? I would think it would be more upright if it was missing.

[Capt Phil]

Having spent my formative years as a 'decky' aboard costal vessels in the PNW, we never had radar, loran and while we had a sextant aboard and could use it, the weather was such you rarely saw the sun or the moon. Everything was done by dead reckoning, past experience and a lot of luck.
My heart goes out to these folks who obviously ended up where the did not expect with no escape.
The charts in the part of the ocean I worked were riddled with errors so we made allowances for them. For example, we would not enter several of the ports of call on the West Coast of Vancouver Island unless we had eyes on the shore or rocks we recognized. We would stand off in crappy weather and sea conditions and wait until we were sure of our position before running in. Racing competitively is quite different, I would guess. If you can shave a few sea miles off by just skirting the shoals, you will probably try it. This time, they lost! Thank goodness there was no loss of life but tragic the vessel was lost. Phil

[Delancey]

https://www.facebook.com/volvooceanr...52921752782437