On 1/19/2014 10:06 PM, Wayne.B wrote:

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Clearly there were some issues with the boat but I believe they made a
very foolish choice to go offshore from New Jersey, in the middle of
winter, into the teeth of several North Atlantic gales. It would have
been far more prudent to go down the east coast via Chesapeake Bay
and the ICW at least as far as North Carolina. From NC you assess
the weather and wait for a window when you can cross to Bermuda with
reasonable safety. However in a boat that size, in the middle of
winter, it is far safer to go all the way to Florida via the ICW and
then head down through the Bahamas on the so called "Thornless Path"
to the Caribbean. Having made the winter trip through the Bahamas
several times in a 50 footer, even that route is something less than a
walk in the park.


I can't agree with you because I did exactly this once myself. My
information was that the ICW was difficult to navigate and not cleared
at my almost 6' draft until south of Hampton, VA and even then it can
get dicey. While i have no personal experience in the ICW north of VA, I
can believe that a huge cat like this would be most difficult to deal
with inland. OTOH, heavy weather of 40kts isn't so extreme as that one
would expect it'd disable the boat as it did. I mean, reading the
narrative quickly as I did, it seemed to me that the boat fell apart
very much like a pro captain I met once described an O'Day doing the
same thing under him in lesser conditions.

To be fair, though, the O'Day wasn't ever represented as an offshore
vessel while presumably the cat was. I hit 40 kt conditions and while I
didn't enjoy the ride, nothing broke.