Author: dockmaster

On January 19, approaching the finish of leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race, team Vestas 11th Hour collided with a local fishing vessel.   All 10 men aboard that boat wound up in the water; their boat sank.  One later died after being helicoptered to hospital.  No one aboard the racing boat was hurt.

Of course, details are sketchy as always.  We do know that…

• It was the middle of the night;
• Vestas’ ground speed was 20 knots in 23 knots of breeze;
• they were 30 miles from the finish;
• Vestas was vying tight for 2nd place in that leg with another boat;
• They were in Hong Kong waters and it was crowded out there.

Sound like a recipe for disaster yet?

Coincidentally, this was the second accident for the company Vestas.  In the last Volvo Ocean Race, their team grounded and destroyed their boat and some reef in the Indian Ocean (we wrote about that then).  It’s the same company sponsoring the team, but a different boat and racing team.

Here’s a screen grab from AIS showing vessel traffic in the area one hour before the collision…

There’s an article in the Hong Kong/Macau edition of the Oriental Daily News with a video compilation that includes a Q&A with a sailor from another team and yacht.

ed. aside/sub rant:   All the PC in the world is getting to be too much.  People shudder when a white person in NY says “Oriental” when they think it should be Asian.  Here, it’s in the name of the bloody paper!  Yes, yes – context, location, etc.  Another example is in navigation courses and books in the United States.   There’s a table we create to convert between different versions of ‘North.’  The salty old pneumonic to remember it? TVMDC +W!  That stands for… True Virgins Make Dull Company – Add Whiskey!  It’s been sterilized far more than whiskey itself could ever accomplish – and it can’t be remembered.  Defeats the purpose.  End of Rant… for now.)

Back to the rant at hand.  It’s now been about a month since the accident and we know about the same stuff as when it happened.  Photos of the damage to the Vestas boat seem to indicate that the sailboat rode up and over the fishing boat, or plowed through it.  There is extensive damage to the bottom of the Vestas hull near the bow.

We weren’t there.  Neither were you (unless you’re one of the Vestas onboard team, in which case we’d love to hear from you).  We wish there were more information available.  Not out of morbid curiosity, and, yes –  that’s in human nature or tabloids wouldn’t sell so well – but out of a desire to better learn how to prevent accidents and injuries.

The answer might be to set a less difficult and potentially dangerous challenge when all that’s at stake is money and ego.  Endangering ones own life is a self entitlement until it endangers, or even just wastes the time and resources of, others.

“We were traveling two knots. We were extremely safe.”

And then, the keel came off on something.   Or something.

Another odd tale of tempestuous tall waves, or tales, or tails…

A couple, aged 24 and 26, bought a sailboat to live on and cruise the Gulf.   Two days into the trip, that ended abruptly.  The 28-footer (make undetermined – help me out here, peeps?), lay  swamped on its side awaiting removal on pain of pissing off the Coast Guard., at a potential cost to exceed the total purchase price of the boat.

The couple said they’d sold everything to buy and improve the boat, and basically lost all that when they had to abandon ship.  Their Walker Bay dinghy seems to have survived, so perhaps there was that.  And the pug.  Ah, the pug…

“Dangerous Currents?”  I’m assuming that’s what the sign says.  Did Danger Pug (a/k/a Remy) get them off the stricken vessel and into the Walker Bay Life Pod?  Pugs can be pretty smart.  I know one pug that plays his parents like a couple of instruments to get treats.  I digress…

So, in the interests of being fair and reporting more fully, here’s what little we know…

1. The couple, who seem modest and very nice, left their life in Colorado behind, and bought the boat in Alabama before bringing it to Florida.  They lived aboard their new home, “Lagniappe,” at Tarpon Springs for about a year.
2. They worked at a marina and also did boat deliveries.
3. They departed for Key West to begin their journey.
4. The next day, they struck something in John’s Pass and the boat apparently lost its keel and capsized.
5. They began a GoFundMe campaign, and soon wound up with over $14,000, well exceeding their target of 10k.
6. They say their plans are to salvage Lagniappe and get another boat.

The quote at the top is from the boyfriend – they were traveling at 2 knots.  That’s indeed a safe speed.  I’m really wondering how they could have separated what ought to have been a swing keel from that hull at that low speed.  Even at some velocity, swing keels don’t tend to lock in the down position.  They lift up, which absorbs the impact.

Also wondering about the boat and the purchase price.  They say they were into that boat for 10k.  In a generally depressed used boat market, with most boats under around 30 feet not holding much value, and this one being an awkwardly large trailerable, these numbers don’t add up for me.  (I should note that after Irma, the market for used boats might have improved due to loss of inventory down south.)  But, where did 5k go into that boat?

Some naysayers are predicting that this couple will pocket the money and not replace the boat.  Others are taking them to task for getting into boating irresponsibly and therefore getting into trouble.   I wasn’t there every step of the way; we have their statements as evidence and little else.  Time will tell what will float to the surface to be revealed.  Perhaps a new boat for them should be called… Pugnacious?  Pugnacity?  Danger Pug?

Here are links to a few articles and some video on the story so you can try to gauge for yourself…

Tampa Bay Times (winner of 12 Pulitzers, apparently)

Miami Herald

…and Yelp gave us an award for it.  Behold:

Yelp helps level the playing field.  In our case, being a very small business, and one where our talents don’t necessarily lie in web design, SEO, digital branding and marketing, etc, we need it.  So, we’re very pleased to have just received this award of distinction from Yelp.  Nice email to start the week!

We do well on Google, too.  In fact, we have a perfect 5-star rating in their reviews.

We the People love Yelp.  We use it to find things for ourselves.  We compliment or critique, and sometimes just plain crap on, businesses and services we use that are on Yelp.  And we at NY Sailing are out there and subject to the same.

We have 17 reviews on Yelp.  All but one are 5 stars.  (One is a 2-star, but still has some good stuff to say.)  And they’re all legit: real reviews from real clients.  Be sure to check out the ‘filtered’ reviews as well – the ones that Yelp’s algorithms deem suspicious and label as “not currently recommended.”  They start at the bottom and one has to click twice to read them all.

Here’s where you can read our Yelp reviews:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/new-york-sailing-center-city-island-2

Want to see our Google reviews?  Just do a Google search for New York Sailing Center. 

It’s not going well for the formerly very reputable Clipper Round the World Race.  So far in this season’s event, one vessel was totaled when it ran aground, and another lost a crew member overboard who tragically didn’t survive.

In the 2015/16 race, one vessel suffered two separate fatalities – a trauma injury aboard, and an overboard fatality.

So, what’s going on?  Is it like the Greek ferry system – enough volume that there will be inevitable accidents – or is something rotten here?

Time will tell, we suppose, but in the meantime, the British Government weighed in after the dual tragedy of the 2015 race, and issued some findings.  But first, some background for context…

The Clipper Race is a multi-leg, circumnavigation event with large one-design (basically identical) racing yachts.  What sets it apart from the Volvo Ocean Race and other events is the amateur status of the crews.   There’s a professional skipper on each vessel, with crew who are not.  These amateurs, who pay to play, sign on for anywhere from one leg to the entire event, and go through formal training specific to and run by the event organizers before participating.

This is the 11th running of the Race.   It’s had a clean history until 2015.  This is trans oceanic racing, and it’s sometimes grueling.  Stuff is going to happen from time to time.  But, casualties are not expected even for serious offshore racing.  Fatalities do occur, but are rare and usually confined to very severe weather events.  So, what’s going wrong here?

Perhaps the British Government has some insights.  Their Marine Accident Investigation Board convened an inquiry after the 2014 deaths.  Their core conclusion?  Perhaps one ‘pro’ skipper isn’t enough:

‘While a single employee on board a commercial yacht may provide sufficient company oversight in many circumstances, the special nature of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race places a huge responsibility on one person to ensure the safety of the yacht and its crew at all times.

‘Therefore, in addition to acknowledging the completed and ongoing actions taken following the two accidents featured in this report, I am recommending Clipper Ventures plc review and modify its onboard manning policy and shore-based management procedures so that Clipper yacht skippers are effectively supported and, where appropriate, challenged  to ensure that safe working practices are maintained continuously on board. In particular, consideration should be given to the merits of manning each yacht with a second employee or contracted ‘seafarer’ with appropriate competence and a duty to take reasonable care for the health and safety of other persons on board.’

-Steve Clinch, Chief Inspector of Maritime Accidents, in his Foreword to the “Report on the investigations of two fatal accidents on board the UK registered yacht CV21 122nm west of Porto, Portugal on 4 September 2015 and mid-Pacific Ocean (39° 05.3N, 160° 21.5E) on 1 April 2016”

The report is extensive, and you can read as little or as much as you like on your own here.  The quote above is worth noting on its own due to the nature of the event.

Here’s another:

“Although MOB drills had been briefed on board CV21, no practical MOB drills were completed with the crew for the Race leg together, an omission in common with other Clipper yachts.”

-from the synopses of the report.

Several of our own students at New York Sailing Center have gone on to do trans oceanic voyages, including one who participated in the Clipper Race and was himself washed overboard in rough weather but remained tethered to the yacht.  Sarah Young, the overboard victim in the 2015 race, was not tethered to the vessel.  Simon Speirs, who perished in the current race, was tethered, but the gear failed.   Both sailors were lost in gale or near-gale force winds.  We sail in those sometimes in Long Island Sound with advanced classes, but it’s not the same.  Winds in the 30’s that are ‘offshore,’ or blowing from land to sea, don’t create large waves that can make the vessel pitch dramatically and also break over the boat and literally pick people up and deposit them wherever.

Sarah Young’s failure to clip on in those conditions was an anomaly, but the gear failure that allowed Simon Spiers to be separated from the boat was a testament to the forces involved – and not a totally freak occurrence.  In the real rough stuff, it’s been known to happen before in offshore circles.

Given the amateur nature of the Clipper Race crew make up, perhaps there should be rules governing when people may go forward on the boats in rough weather.  In this case, it was to do a headsail change.  That’s inherently dangerous in large seas.  If the necessity to do this is due to the choice of rigging, maybe it needs to be changed.  If it’s due to the size of headsails that are allowed, perhaps those should be limited.  Perhaps once seas kick up to a certain height that suggests worse to come, but is reasonable at the time, that ought to be the point at which a proactive headsail change is done if the equipment can’t be altered to accommodate staying in the cockpit.  If modern furling systems aren’t up to the task of open ocean racing, then that’s the next best thing.

The Clipper yachts use ‘cutter’ rigs, where there are two places to have sails forward on the vessel.  That should allow very good flexibility in sail plan choice, and reduce the time spent forward dealing with sails – or potentially eliminate it.  I don’t claim to be an expert in open ocean sailing, but if there’s a pattern developing with safety issues in this event, then let’s keep everyone safer – and still on an even keel – with gear changes and strict safety rules that mitigate this risk.

Here’s a link to the UK’s accident report, and also the Clipper Race site…

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/58ee0b5040f0b606e7000166/MAIBInvReport07_2017.pdf

https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/about/about-the-race

By now, you’ve probably heard about the two women who were sailing a yacht from Hawaii to Tahiti, and wound up at sea for five months before being rescued from their sailboat, the Sea Nymph.  They wound up much closer to Japan than their declared destination by the time they were approached by a tender from a US warship (video at end of post).

Here’s a happy moment after rescue.  Apparently, the surf’s up…

The voyage, as they reported it, sounded quite dramatic.  Soon after departure, they got caught in a tough storm that cost them their engine and compromised their rigging.  And then…

• They made distress calls for 98 days with no reply.
• Their water purification system failed, but they fixed it.
• They departed with a projected 1-year supply of food, but it was 90% gone by the time they abandoned the vessel.
• On at least two occasions, sharks showed up and attacked the boat.
• After being rescued, they said that that they believed they would have died within 24 hours of when the US Navy arrived.

But, it doesn’t add up.  Some of it seemed shaky to this writer when the story first broke, and more questions have surfaced since.

The rig looked fine.  The mast was intact, and the boom was attached with the main roughly secured on it.  Barring halyard failure, which wasn’t mentioned, there was no visible reason why the main couldn’t go up.  The headsail was smoothly furled up with waiting sheets.  The only specific indication in any news report was that there was spreader damage – but the spreaders looked perfect.  So, did they sail?  Also not mentioned in any news report we saw.

They said they were caught in a “Force 11” storm right after departure, with wave heights to 30 feet and winds to 60 knots – for three days.  Or was it more?  Depends who you listen to. 

“We had no way to realize we were about to enter a typhoon that had winds of 110-150 miles an hour and minimum wave heights of 40 foot in height.”

-from an interview on CNN, according to an article by NPR.

This supposedly cost them their engine, and possibly the proper functioning of their mast or attached rigging and electronics.  However, the National Weather Service says there was no “organized storm” activity near Hawaii at the time.  NASA satellite imagery confirms.  Kinda hard to miss a weather system of this magnitude.  (The NWS did issue a small craft advisory for some areas in Hawaiian waters on the day they departed, but that’s pretty f-in far from Force 11.)

The owner of the boat (one of the women on the voyage) claims to have added 6 tons of fiberglass to the 50-foot boat in order to beef it up.  Perhaps this was a misprint of some kind, but assuming any part of that was correctly reported by the news outlets – the number, the material, or the unit of measurement ton were correct – it still makes no sense.

Regarding sharks attacking the boat: one of the women said she could hear her own teeth rattle in her head when they rammed it, and they they all lay down together inside the boat and tried to be quiet.  She said the sharks could hear them breath, and smell them, and that they told their dogs not to bark.  Dog Whisperers?

A 50-foot vessel would be more than twice the length, and probably more than three times, of any sharks they might have encountered.  If they brushed up against the boat, or butted their heads against it, no doubt it would have frightened just about anyone.  But lets not blow it completely out of proportion.  Many sharks use contact to assess whether something is worthwhile (or actual) prey.  But even large species, including tiger sharks mentioned in the press, aren’t known to ram vessels far larger than themselves.  Sometimes they bite running engines, as the electrical field generated by them mimics that of living things they track and prey on.  But this engine was gone, and ostensibly, most of their electronics.

Apparently, that didn’t stop them from communicating near Tahiti, their stated destination, in June.  According to the Coast Guard, contact was made with a vessel called the Sea Nymph (same as the womens’ vessel).  The captain of the Sea Nymph said they were not in distress and that they intended to make landfall soon.   That begs the question of how they basically got to Tahiti, turned around, and then wound up most of the way to Japan.  The discrepancy is staggering: between 3,500 and 5,000 nautical miles.  This very rough estimate is due to secrecy of the US Navy on final position, which was approximately 900 miles from Japan.

They reported that they had six forms of communication when they departed, and that all failed.  That in itself is somewhat suspicious.  One was a cell phone that went overboard soon after departure.  Fair enough.  I didn’t see a list of all the others anywhere yet.  But the most interesting one of all was the EPIRB.  This didn’t actually fail.  TURNS OUT…  It was never used!  They didn’t mention having one in their initial interviews.  But when the Coast Guard got through with them (and perhaps they’re not yet), they said they had one and chose not to deploy it.  An EPIRB is a satellite based rescue beacon that is highly reliable, and would almost certainly have resulted in their position being known.  They said in retrospect that there were two occasions where they should probably have activated it.  The owner contradicted herself somewhat regarding EPIRB use.  On the one hand, she said in interviews that when they were found, they believed they wouldn’t have survived another 24 hours.  But she also told the Coast Guard that in her “experience” (her language), they shouldn’t be deployed unless death is imminent within 24 hours.

Speaking of this 24-hour threshold, it’s quite completely unclear why they felt they had only about 24 hours left to live.  Reports were somewhat conflicted, but according to ABC News, the owner said they could not speak on why they felt they only had 24 hours left.  She stated very specifically:

“I would love to answer that question now. I’m not actually allowed to answer that as long as we are on the vessel,” Appel said before going on to detail how their sailboat was damaged while it was being towed by the Taiwanese vessel.

“The pictures speak a thousand words. It is absolutely phenomenal the amount of damage that they did to the structure of that boat. So that kind of help speaks for itself.”

(They reported that they were first discovered by a Taiwanese fishing vessel, and that the owner swam from her vessel to this one to make a radio distress call.  (HEL-lo: sharks?????).  Sounds like they were taken in tow at some point for some undisclosed amount of time, and they make it sound like this damaged their vessel. )

Their two dogs and they looked surprisingly healthy upon rescue despite all this.

And now, the video clip we promised…

If/as more details come to light, we’ll report and poke around here.