Leopard 46 lost in French Polynesia - stunning rescue pictures

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by SecondBase

Not quite the OP's scenario but let's say you have 4 onboard total and you are running multi-day continuous ops.

Would having two people on-watch within 20 miles of shore be a good balance do would you keep two on watch 24x7 even when you have plenty of perceived sea room?

Unless the weather is risky I wouldn't and haven't bothered to put 2 up offshore. As long as an autopilot is working, one person is sufficient for business as usual watch keeping and navigation. Having AIS and/or radar are key watch keeping aids, as well as a clear checklist of circumstances that indicate a call to get the skipper up.

Approaching land from offshore, or tricky coastal navigation, are among those circumstances. Otherwise, trust your watch keepers. But if a crew is novice, I buddy them up.

Of course, BAU watch keeping means different things for different folks, but certainly does not include eyes glued to a chart plotter nor the use of white lights at night.

Always maintain situational awareness, right?

[estarzinger]

I just got a e-mail from Navionics that they have pushed a fix for the phone/tablet chart to the app store. I have not looked at it closely, but at least the green drying reef is now there in the right location. (chart now has an aug 8th 'update' date on it)

[JPA Cate]

Good on ya, Evans, for bringing it to their attention!

I hope the rescue guys at Huahine tell you thanks, too.

And, Navionics, too, for that matter.

Ann

[estarzinger]

^^ yea, at least some good to come out of this.

I am honestly puzzled, if this has been a known historical problem to French SAR with multiple incidents, why it has not been fixed before. In my experience, Navionics are pretty responsive, at least when you approach them in a productive/professional fashion.

There does not seem to be any specific way to tell people going to the society's to download these new charts. I guess one should just make a practice of getting the latest charts every 3 months or so.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

^^ yea, at least some good to come out of this.

I am honestly puzzled, if this has been a known historical problem to French SAR with multiple incidents, why it has not been fixed before. In my experience, Navionics are pretty responsive, at least when you approach them in a productive/professional fashion.

There does not seem to be any specific way to tell people going to the society's to download these new charts. I guess one should just make a practice of getting the latest charts every 3 months or so.

Evans, is it a fix to a specific chart or to some system flaw?

Jim

[SV DestinyAscen]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

^^ yea, at least some good to come out of this.

I am honestly puzzled, if this has been a known historical problem to French SAR with multiple incidents, why it has not been fixed before. In my experience, Navionics are pretty responsive, at least when you approach them in a productive/professional fashion.

There does not seem to be any specific way to tell people going to the society's to download these new charts. I guess one should just make a practice of getting the latest charts every 3 months or so.

If they want to solve the problem, they probably need to have a quiz on basic navigation and understanding of charting that one must pass once someone attempts to plot from the Galapagos to French Polynesia.

There are uncharted reefs, rocks and mountains. There are inaccurate locations that don't correspond to actual locations.

Neither are the primary cause of groundings. Whether in BVI, Society Islands, New Caledonia - people look at an island topography, then somehow decide to cut a corner and not expect land to rise.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by SV DestinyAscen

If they want to solve the problem, they probably need to have a quiz on basic navigation and understanding of charting that one must pass once someone attempts to plot from the Galapagos to French Polynesia.

There are uncharted reefs, rocks and mountains. There are inaccurate locations that don't correspond to actual locations.

Neither are the primary cause of groundings. Whether in BVI, Society Islands, New Caledonia - people look at an island topography, then somehow decide to cut a corner and not expect land to rise.

Yep.

The U.S. Navy has some of the best charts and chartplotters in the world, and if they can run a submarine into an uncharted underwater object by being too trusting of their charts, you can, too.

In 2005, a U.S. Navy Sub Ran Into a Mountain

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Evans, is it a fix to a specific chart or to some system flaw?

What I know is that in addition to the big errors I pointed out to them, the new chart also fixes several quite small errors elsewhere which I did not mention to them (I only noticed them later when I was looking to see what trouble the cat could have gotten into if they had in fact properly rounded the south end and were going into Fare and anchoring in the dark).

So, I would guess they fixed a file format translator glitch.

As I mentioned above, their response is along the lines of 'Thank you for your input. We greatly appreciate it. You would find it worthwhile to download new charts now.' So, I don't really know. I could ask my contact, but I think they have a policy of not discussing specific errors and I dont see much reason to put him in a tough spot.

[double u]

just re-read:
"....Danny was at the helm keeping close watch as we neared our destination, and we were moving at a speed of about 8-9 knots with the jib out and both engines running. Danny was watching the navigation instruments ..."
the mind boggles...
and then selfpity by the barrelful!

[lateral]

Originally Posted by double u

just re-read:
"....Danny was at the helm keeping close watch as we neared our destination, and we were moving at a speed of about 8-9 knots with the jib out and both engines running. Danny was watching the navigation instruments ..."
the mind boggles...
and then selfpity by the barrelful!

What boggles my mind is your endless supply of bile.
To err is human to forgive divine....
They have.

[double u]

where is the bile? just quotes & it's not for me to "forgive" anything, & you can't deny the selfpity.
but apparently you find no fundamental faults with their "approach" (pun unintended), just "errors"

[Cherod]

Originally Posted by double u

just re-read:
"....Danny was at the helm keeping close watch as we neared our destination, and we were moving at a speed of about 8-9 knots with the jib out and both engines running. Danny was watching the navigation instruments ..."
the mind boggles...
and then selfpity by the barrelful!

to say that " danny was watching the nav instruments " does not preclude any other activity , least the ones which it is oft stated he / they should have been doing

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

..
In the past navionics have been pretty responsive making correction when very specific errors were detailed to them. But they have just "thanked me for my input", rather than actually acknowledged the error and correction, I suspect for legal reasons.

I contacted them a couple of years ago with a significant inaccuracy...they were clearly not interested. Haven't bothered since.

Given the criticality of accurate charts and that accurate data exists, or can be acquired (sattelite cartography for example), its really deplorable IMHO that they dont produce a better product.

[JPA Cate]

Sailors who started out with paper charts, and learning piloting skills learned to plot courses, and keep track of how they were doing relative to their courses, by reference to charted land objects (sector lights, radio towers [conspic], and so on.) Boats were built with navigation stations that contained space for said paper charts.

Elsewhere on this forum I just read that an American just follows his progress on the chart plotter, without reference to land objects. What would he need that for?????
And he's most likely not the only one.

At this point, we do not know if the error estarzinger found with the Navionics program was a factor in this incident, although it is an attractive hypothesis. All we have is seamanship - or lack thereof - and a naive assumption that sea room wasn't needed. It is not "bile" to point this out, imho, it is necessary to protect other naive, inexperienced sailors. Learn the concept of sea room, if necessary, turn off the chartplotter so that you can see the break on the reef!

Your eyes and ears are useful tools, don't tune them out.

I would also stay off the woman's case: #1 she was probably in shock: her dreams had just come to a violent end; and #2, she probably had no idea of what actually had gone wrong, #3 her sciatica was playing up, and #4) she was fixing dinner. She was not helping with watch keeping. They'd had some ocean miles, all had gone okay before, no problems were anticipated. They were using their boat like a motor sailer. And their cruise ended on the reef at Huahine....it would be normal to be grieving, and few people like to accept responsibility for something going wrong: displacement is common.

This is just another computer-assisted grounding, failure to keep an effective watch, and failure to allow sea room to a charted hazard, Huahine's fringe reef.

Ann

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Sailors who started out with paper charts, and learning piloting skills learned to plot courses, and keep track of how they were doing relative to their courses, by reference to charted land objects (sector lights, radio towers [conspic], and so on.) Boats were built with navigation stations that contained space for said paper charts.

Elsewhere on this forum I just read that an American just follows his progress on the chart plotter, without reference to land objects. What would he need that for?????
And he's most likely not the only one.

At this point, we do not know if the error estarzinger found with the Navionics program was a factor in this incident, although it is an attractive hypothesis. All we have is seamanship - or lack thereof - and a naive assumption that sea room wasn't needed. It is not "bile" to point this out, imho, it is necessary to protect other naive, inexperienced sailors. Learn the concept of sea room, if necessary, turn off the chartplotter so that you can see the break on the reef!

Your eyes and ears are useful tools, don't tune them out.

I would also stay off the woman's case: #1 she was probably in shock: her dreams had just come to a violent end; and #2, she probably had no idea of what actually had gone wrong, #3 her sciatica was playing up, and #4) she was fixing dinner. She was not helping with watch keeping. They'd had some ocean miles, all had gone okay before, no problems were anticipated. They were using their boat like a motor sailer. And their cruise ended on the reef at Huahine....it would be normal to be grieving, and few people like to accept responsibility for something going wrong: displacement is common.

This is just another computer-assisted grounding, failure to keep an effective watch, and failure to allow sea room to a charted hazard, Huahine's fringe reef.

Ann

Excellent synopsis; excellent post!

Ann, you have covered every relevant point succinctly and IMO, nothing more needs saying. In aviation terms, this event in very similar to what is know as CFIT - Controlled Flight Into Terrain. In any thoughtful analysis, the fault was human error.

History is full such events; I speculate that unfortunately some (many?) will not accept that the humans made the mistakes. I know I have made similar errors but have been fortunate enough to not lose my boat.

I am reminded that the legendary seaman Bernard Moitessier lost three boats in his life. I also note that Ann Gash who single handed a 26' Stella class Folkboat between Australia and the UK with very little prior sailing experience, was wrecked after her return on an uncharted rock in Sydney Harbour - one of the most charted places around.