Enjoying your little tiffs you guys. Obviously you both have a certain
amount of sense as you are both still around or else the gods have been
particularly kind....

Just come back from Fiji where we stayed for several months. Many of the
charts predate GPS's and the result is that they may be out by as much as
..33nm from the GPS position. Also the beacons shown may or may not exist due
to cyclonic weather. What does exist still is the reef system and is quite a
good idea to avoid. We watched 2 rather expensive yachts have arguments with
a reef and heard of a number more. Reefs are not much of a problem on nice
sunny days but when overcast it may become impossible to "eyeball". What to
do depends upon the circumstances.

However using GPS alone would shorten the cruise and you wouldn't have the
bother of sailing home.

jofra

"Jofra" wrote in message
...
Enjoying your little tiffs you guys. Obviously you both have a certain
amount of sense as you are both still around or else the gods have been
particularly kind....

Just come back from Fiji where we stayed for several months. Many of the
charts predate GPS's and the result is that they may be out by as much as
.33nm from the GPS position. Also the beacons shown may or may not exist
due to cyclonic weather. What does exist still is the reef system and is
quite a good idea to avoid. We watched 2 rather expensive yachts have
arguments with a reef and heard of a number more. Reefs are not much of a
problem on nice sunny days but when overcast it may become impossible to
"eyeball". What to do depends upon the circumstances.

However using GPS alone would shorten the cruise and you wouldn't have the
bother of sailing home.

jofra

Year before last we had a 38 foot sailboat enter Minerva reef by GPS. After
a couple of days decided to go out the other side via visual...Guess
what...Well they salvaged much of the equipment I understand. Seems to me
visual shortened their cruise and cost a lot of money.

Jim Donohue

Jim

Year before last we had a 38 foot sailboat enter Minerva reef by GPS.
After a couple of days decided to go out the other side via visual...Guess
what...Well they salvaged much of the equipment I understand. Seems to
me visual shortened their cruise and cost a lot of money.

Jim Donohue

Jim

Thanks for comments Jim but not sure what point you are making. Are you
suggesting that if they had gone out of the Minerva Reef using GPS they
would still have their yacht? Possibly they would. I would like to know more
about the case. What were the conditions like, time of day, position of the
sun, cloud cover, sea conditions? Also when they went inside the reef using
GPS did they know the accuracy of the chart in relation to the GPS?

cheers

jofra

It was a 39 foot Ericson by the name of Pneuma. Went aground coming out of
Minerva in November of 2003. Still has a web site. The details of the
grounding do not appear to have been made public. Conditions were close to
perfect.

I suspect Pneuma crew is not talking about what happened as the site is
silent on the subject. There is lots of discussion of the incident and the
rescue but little of the causals. Word at the time however was that they
were operating visually in almost perfect conditions.

Jim


"Jofra" wrote in message
...
Year before last we had a 38 foot sailboat enter Minerva reef by GPS.
After a couple of days decided to go out the other side via
visual...Guess what...Well they salvaged much of the equipment I
understand. Seems to me visual shortened their cruise and cost a lot of
money.

Jim Donohue

Jim

Thanks for comments Jim but not sure what point you are making. Are you
suggesting that if they had gone out of the Minerva Reef using GPS they
would still have their yacht? Possibly they would. I would like to know
more about the case. What were the conditions like, time of day, position
of the sun, cloud cover, sea conditions? Also when they went inside the
reef using GPS did they know the accuracy of the chart in relation to the
GPS?

cheers

jofra

Thanks for the info. Jim.

I can understand the crew not wanting to talk about what must have been a
devastating experience. However we all can learn from other people's
misfortunes.

Last year I attended a Power Point talk by the skipper who had lost his
yacht a month before. He explained what he had done leading up to the
grounding what he believed he had done correctly and the mis-calculations he
had made. He also answered questions. We all learned from the loss but it
must have taken considerable courage to talk to experienced yachties and
commercial fishermen on the loss.

You mentioned "Pneuma" and it is worth looking at web-site
http://www.latitude38.com/LectronicL...v21/Nov21.html

I quote in part:-

"Pneuma, Seattle-Based Ericson 39, Lost on South Minerva Reef
November 21 - Minerva Reef, South Pacific

Pneuma, the Ericson 39 from Seattle being cruised by Guy and Melissa
(no last name available) was lost Tuesday night while at anchor at South
Minerva Reef. The couple are safe. Minerva Reef is located about 250 miles
from Tonga on the way to New Zealand. It consists of two open ocean reefs,
which only fully break the surface at low tide."





Regards

Jofra








"Jim Donohue" wrote in message
news:lNEId.6837$ry.3578@fed1read05...
It was a 39 foot Ericson by the name of Pneuma. Went aground coming out
of Minerva in November of 2003. Still has a web site. The details of the
grounding do not appear to have been made public. Conditions were close
to perfect.

I suspect Pneuma crew is not talking about what happened as the site is
silent on the subject. There is lots of discussion of the incident and
the rescue but little of the causals. Word at the time however was that
they were operating visually in almost perfect conditions.

Jim


"Jofra" wrote in message
...
Year before last we had a 38 foot sailboat enter Minerva reef by GPS.
After a couple of days decided to go out the other side via
visual...Guess what...Well they salvaged much of the equipment I
understand. Seems to me visual shortened their cruise and cost a lot
of money.

Jim Donohue

Jim

Thanks for comments Jim but not sure what point you are making. Are you
suggesting that if they had gone out of the Minerva Reef using GPS they
would still have their yacht? Possibly they would. I would like to know
more about the case. What were the conditions like, time of day,
position of the sun, cloud cover, sea conditions? Also when they went
inside the reef using GPS did they know the accuracy of the chart in
relation to the GPS?

cheers

jofra