Gordon wrote:
Had a friend that put in many, many thousands of miles with at least
7 round trips between New Zealand and Victoria BC.
In that time he hit one container and one sleeping whale. This was in a
homebuilt 33' steel cutter. Both hits in the South Pacific.

I wonder what time frame this was? I think shipping losses of
containers is much higher in the late 1990s ~early 2000s although they
say it's tapering off now.

I also wonder what happened to the whale.

The container left a good dent in the bow and the whale bent the rudder.
I guess what I'm trying to say is the chances of hitting something
large enough to cause serious damage is very slight and then probably
wouldn't be catastropic


In a steel boat

Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
That is somewhere around 45,000 N.M. so if he hit two objects in that
distance it averages one object every 22,000 miles. How many people
will cruise that distance in their whole life.


Lots and lots and lots. Not so many do that many open-sea miles. But
look at the odds another way... if you had a revolver with 1,000
chambers, and "only" one chamber had a live round.... would you spin
the chamber, put it to your head, and pull the trigger? Just for fun?

If the odds are low, but consequences very serious, then it's worth a
little work and study to avoid that BANG. Of course, YMMV

DSK