Lagoon 440 helped by locals

[StuM]

Originally Posted by sv Grateful

Slug,
I'd toss my Bowditch, Cornell, and Doyle in the trash and line my bookshelves with Slug if only you would commit your wisdom to the definitive treatise on yachting cataraman mishaps.

There, fixed it for yah!

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

Good to see locals helping sailors in trouble.

Just yesterday the crew of this boat was rescued at At Bees island, Qld, by the local marine rescue service.

What happened here?

[Factor]

Originally Posted by sv Grateful

Why, oh why haven't you shared the depth and breadth of your great knowledge with the greater world.

Because that would require disclosure of actual documented experience and not desktop sailing. Its unlikely that a book called "things I think I know about boats" would sell well

[JPA Cate]

Okay, given the wind strength, estimated at 45-50 (which surprises me that he would still be trying to be motoring into it), how do you guys think he should have handled the situation? Given the boat is a Lagoon 440, it's after dark, and you're new to cruising.

A.

[Dulcesuenos]

Stern too the waves beating on a sandbar not any fun,,, I would have tried to take our kedge anchor fx23) on 150' of 5/8 Rhode, and tried to winch us around and off to face Into the waves, maybe off the bar. then used an underwater light and snorkel etc to clear the prop.
Much easier in the daylight. I can't imagine it would be any fun at night.

[robert sailor]

I just make it a point to never enter a strange unlit anchorage at night, won't do it period. If I'm getting closer and I know I'm going to arrive at night I would slow down and try to time my arrival close to sunrise..that works for me 90% of the time however if it didn't I'd hove to offshore and wait for daylight. If your boat won't hove to then shorten sail and forereach slowly, if the winds are 40 knots you'll just need a hankerchief up and you will hardly move so not a lot different than hoving to as long as you don't have to much sail. Personally I've had this sort of thing happen quite a few times over the years.
We were anchored in the Marquesas Islands and we started to receive calls on the vhf, woke us up actually and turns out a young Australian family were just outside of the anchorage on there next to last leg of a circumnavigation and asked for help in coming in. It was blowing around 25 to 30 knots and none of us wanted to launch our dinks and head out to areas of open seas in the middle of the night. Everyone who had their radios on asked the skipper to head back out to sea and plan his arrival for the morning. Initially he said after some thought that he would do that and then less than an hour later the winds had dropped a bit and he called and said he had radar and a chart plotter (this was around 16 years ago) and said he felt comfortable coming in there was a real dog leg on the entry and the entry was not super roomy . Wasn't long and he put out a mayday and said they had hit rocks and we're sinking. Of course then several of us launched our dinks and with our big lights headed out. It was rough as hell for a dink but we did find them, they missed the entrance by about 50 yards. The family was rescued and everyone was safe but they lost everything. The next morning there was just bits and pieces floating around and the hull was on the rocks.
It is just never worth it in my mind to enter an anchorage like this at night...I know people can get a bad case of homeitis but it's never worth it
...I do enter and leave well lit anchorages and ports at night but I would never enter an unlit anchorage no matter what the wind is doing, it's always way safer in the open water.

[JPA Cate]

I was thinking he could have perhaps lain to a sea anchor. Sure, he'd give up ground, but better than going in somewhere unknown at night.

I know what monohull options would be, but not really for a Lagoon, with all that windage. Could he safely turn it around, and unfurl a tiny bit of headsail and reach out to sea, to keep his latitude? Sea anchor a better option for the boat? What about going back where he came from, which he had come out of, hence had some familiarity with? Safe to turn the boat around?

Thanks, guys,

A.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by sv Grateful

Slug,

Thank you for posting this. Had I known that grounding on a sand bar with 45-50 kt wind and 8 ft swells would damage a catamaran, I would never have been so reckless as to have lived and cruised on one for the past two years. I don't know how we'll carry on in this deathtrap, but we'll try.

Your keen insights on yacht design and seamanship should not be limited to this forum. Why, oh why haven't you shared the depth and breadth of your great knowledge with the greater world. I'd toss my Bowditch, Cornell, and Doyle in the trash and line my bookshelves with Slug if only you would commit your wisdom to the definitive treatise on yachting.

The story sounds a bit fishy to me. I've done the Baja Bash several times, and in my experience big wind and waves on the nose are normal for leaving the lee of Cedros, but if you persevere the conditions improve a lot over the next 120 miles. By the time I got to San Quintin, I would expect more like 10-15 knots of wind than 45; conditions more like you see in the picture of the wreck.

The entrance to San Quintin bay is fairly narrow with sandbanks, but there is a roadstead protected from the prevailing northwesterly swell by Cabo San Quintin. If I was coming in at night, especially if it was windy, I would drop the hook in 20 ft of water where I put the anchorage symbol, and enter the bay the next day (btw, the water isn't clear, so daylight isn't going to help you see the underwater banks).

[JPA Cate]

Don that definitely looks like a safe, open roadstead spot to wait. And, I also questioned the reported wind strength. Hard to know. Yet another computer assisted grounding.

Ann

[Simi 60]

Without reading the story it seems there are a lot of people with very little experience buying big boats and coming to grief of late.

[zeehag]

the mexicoast lee shore has claimed many a sailing vessel due to its coastal geology, shoaling, and pacific ocean.
i avoided san quintin because the friends of mine who did survive the shallow rocky entrance had hairy tales of it.
at night, no freeking way, mon.
drifting off coast of mexico is not a bad thing, running into and onto shoals and reefs is a big thing. they name points of land ABREOJOS for a reason.
please be safe and stay buoyant. away from mexirocks. never aim at lighthouses nor set waypoints to islands. one friend set gps then fell asleep , found self waking to hard grounding in san ignacio. oops

[Tornadosailing]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Without reading the story it seems there are a lot of people with very little experience buying big boats and coming to grief of late.

Of late?? Nah. Been going on for many years.

[mjuneau]

Originally Posted by Tornadosailing

Of late?? Nah. Been going on for many years.

We can't be all old salts, some of us have a dream to sail and sometimes things go wrong

[Tornadosailing]

Originally Posted by mjuneau

We can't be all old salts, some of us have a dream to sail and sometimes things go wrong

Absolutely, and I'm not knocking them. Hell, I'm the kind of guy who would bareboat a 44 foot cat and take it across the gulf stream in the winter, with a north wind, on my very first charter.

I'm just saying that inexperienced people have been getting out there, and learning from their mistakes, sometimes disastrously, since forever. Nothing new here.

What shocked me during my catamaran buying experience was the number of people buying brand new 50 foot sailing cats as their first boat. According to my broker, it's the vast majority. I say good for them, and go for it if you can afford it. The real miracle is that no more of them wreck than we already see. It's probably a testament to how well the brokers help them understand how much they really don't know.

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by daletournier

What happened here?

Wind change, dragged anchor, ended up on the rocks.