On 10/5/2015 2:01 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Oct 2015 11:43:57 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 5 Oct 2015 10:51:16 -0400, Keyser Söze wrote:

...not really "boating" related, but not much of what is posted here is...

The cargo ship that disappeared in a hurricane off the Bahamas has sank,
the Coast Guard reported Monday morning.

One body has been found as well as a lifeboat with no one aboard. The
body was in a “survival suit” and could not be recovered. The lifeboat
was one of two carried by the ship. The other is still missing.

Despite the grim conclusion, the search will continue — for possible
survivors, but not the ship itself.

Chief Petty Officer Jon-Paul Riose told the AP that the Coast Guard and
the ship's owner concluded Monday that the 790-foot container ship El
Faro sank after encountering Hurricane Joaquin's high winds and heavy
seas last week.

Rios says Coast Guard cutters and aircraft and a U.S. Navy plane
continued searching the Atlantic Ocean for the missing crew.

Earlier, a container, pieces of another container and a life ring from
the El Faro was recovered. An oil sheen also was spotted.

The Coast Guard is conducting other search and rescue operations in the
area, but none for a ship such as El Faro, a 790-foot container ship
that departed from Jacksonville on Tuesday when Joaquin was still a
tropical storm.

The American-flagged El Faro, which means The Lighthouse in Spanish, was
headed to Puerto Rico. Aboard the ship was a crew of 28 Americans and
five from Poland

Joaquin developed into a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of at
least 130 mph beginning Thursday afternoon through Friday afternoon. The
storm lost some punch before regaining Category 4 wind speeds on
Saturday morning through about dawn on Sunday.

The storm swept across a large area of the Bahamas, and its eye passed
over Samana Cay in the southeast portion of the island chain.

Nash said Coast Guard crews have found other items in their search. A
total of seven vessels and aircraft have been searching for the El Faro,
including one salvage tug from TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, which owns the
ship.

The search began in the last known location of the El Faro near Crooked
Island, which is about 270 miles southeast of Nassau.

Read more he
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weat...#storylink=cpy

===

Sad news indeed. One can only imagine the conditions they went
through leading up to the sinking.

We have transited that area near Crooked Island a number of times
going to and from the Caribbean.

More he

http://gcaptain.com/multicple-objects-found-search-for-missing-cargo-ship-el-faro/#.VhKaVCssycM

The CG is postulating that these people had to abandon ship in a Cat 4
storm. That is certainly making the idea that anyone survived look
pretty remote. I suppose it is possible that if you got into the
survival suit and got far enough away from the ship so you didn't get
beat to death on the hull you might survive.



With sympathies to those who lost their lives and I don't mean to sound
callous, but why was that ship there in the first place? That storm
meandered around in that area for several days and the NOAA forecasters
had a pretty good handle on it's drift southward towards the Bahamas and
it's potential for intensification. It seems like the captain felt
confident they could handle the heavy seas but going dead in the water
wasn't in the plan. No propulsion in heavy seas is about the worst
that can happen on any boat or ship, large or small.