OzOne wrote:
On 25 Sep 2006 20:03:25 -0700, "Joe"
scribbled thusly:

Must have been big boats Joe.

Nah a 32 ft layfette skiff, a 160 ftr .....well then the 865 ftr.

You sailed through a hurricane in a 32' skiff?

Different kinda skiff Oz, Rigged just like this one, but a bit bigger.
We owned it one season and went broke, bank repo'd the boat. The boat
would do 25kts. Had a high speed VM diesel. We left the butterfly nets
and frames ashore.

http://www.louisianafolklife.org/FOL...yetteskiff.jpg

Hurricane force winds...We were on a snapper fishing trip with the
owner that I bought the boat from. We were about 120 miles offshore and
got hammered by one of the most bad ass Northern's I've ever seen,
Horizon to horizon black wall.


Thats not the point, I'm telling you with a well founded boat no seas
on earth can scare me. Guess that cuz I figure drowning would be a nice
way to go IMO. And Ive been in seas that made most others cower in
terror and I had no fear what so ever OZ, none -de natta. I concetrate
on each wave and love the battle for some reason it's like christmas
morning for me, I love it! I'm not bragging, thats just the way it is.
I have no fear what so ever of the sea. To hear of people who will
never leave a breakwater, because they lost friends is sad IMO. My fear
would be dying in bed asleep, or in an office building closing a deal.

Joe

My friends are no 'scared', they have just decided that the risks in
ocean racing are just no longer worth the returns anymore.

Well saying they have never been out of the breakwaters again seems
spooked to me.

I've been smacked by a couple of cyclones at sea, and while taking
each wave as it comes is a nice thought, 40-50' waves with another
10-20' of breaking water on top are rarely something that you manage
to 'take' rather than survive until the next one.

Agreed.

Mind you, two of those incidents were in yachts under 40' LOA and one
resulted in the loss of a friend and his crew on board another similar
yacht which was travelling back in loose company with us.

Had a buddy's 220 fter go down in a storm in Matagorda bay, killed 5,
the cook survived by being trapped in an air bubble in the bow, the bay
was only 35 ft deep.


I will freely admit that I was scared for my life and that of my crew.
Scared enough to make every effort to stay afloat and onboard despite
seemingly unsurmountable odds.

Being scared for crew sucks, thats the only thing I dis-liked with my
wife aboard... for passangers it's as bad. Best you can do then is show
no fear and act like a captain in command of his vessel. Once they see
a glimmer of fear in the captains eyes your in for a real bad
experience all around. Fear spreads faster than fire on a boat.

We were about 8 NM from the boat that was lost and caught one radio
trans which said that she had been rolled 'again' but was OK. that
waves were becoming steeper and that we should "take care".
That was it.

Did you roll?

We turned back 2days later hoping that she had been dismasted and had
no radio range.

Sounds like a rough trip.

Joe

Oz1...of the 3 twins.

I welcome you to crackerbox palace,We've been expecting you.