If you're off the west coast of the US, head east. You'll hit land
eventually. :-)

In fog, you could be lost within a couple of miles. Happens all the
time out here.

In article ,
DSK wrote:
wrote:
Is it difficult to find a 32' boat about 50 miles offshore ?


50 miles? Shucks, ten miles out is as good as infinity if
you're lost. You have no idea how big the ocean is.

DSK



--
Capt. JG @@
www.sailnow.com

A very long time ago I spent a tour of duty in the USCG, aviation unit,
as a radio man. We would fly searches looking for boats. It is
incrediby difficult to see anything down on the water. As I reacall we
would change watch standers every 15 minutes. But even so, as a watch
stander you tire quickely and you mind wanders. You find yourself
daydreaming and not paying attention. Or when you do see something it
is a 300 foot freighter and you realize that you would have never picked
up on a 30 foot sailboat.

Radar? Forget it. It may work, it may not. A small boat does not
present much of a target, especially when you have any kind of chop.

A VHF is great so they can DF in on it. An EPIRB is great, but they
don't always work. And the Coast Guard is NOT in the salvage business.

I rember once we found a guy that fell off a freighter during the night
watch. Everyone at the base was astounded.

Hopefully things have improved in the ensuing decades but I doubt it. I
recently read of a couple of kids swept out to sea in a small sailboat
who were given up for dead and then, by chance, found by a fisherman.
And that was an easy search. The CG had multiple airbourn resources out,
and boats, and there were young lives at stake.

So is it difficult to find a 32' boat 50 miles offshore? Damn straight!

Howard

wrote:
wrote:

I'm waiting to hear if Eclipse is still going to be upright
when she's recovered.


Hasn't it already been about a week or more ?

Is it difficult to find a 32' boat about 50 miles offshore ?

Perhaps we should have a service using satellite cameras and
computer programs to find lost boats (and people) in the ocean.

Popeye: Are you listening to this one, me laddie???

"Mic" wrote in message
...

http://cruisersforum.com/showthread....5&pagenumber=1

Mayday off coast of Mexico

The following information about the need to be rescued from his
catamaran has been retrieved from www.themultihull.com forum and has
also caused a considerable discussion on www.ybw.com forums as well -
principly on drogues/parachutes. The mails are from Richard Woods who
is well known in UK as a multihull designer and he has been cruising
for some time now on his latest design cat "eclipse" . His designs are
normally sold as plans for home completion, and occasionally, the
hulls are commercially moulded on the more popular designs for home
completion. The designs are clean and open plan, the resultant boats
being light but strong and also fast.


"As some of you probably now know, we are no longer on board Eclipse
but on navy frigate USS Ford where, apart from saving our lives,
everyone has been really friendly and welcoming.

We left Nicaragua on Friday 13th, which probably didn’t help matters,
and had a very frustrating sail along the coast of El Salvador and
then Guatemala. Frustrating, as the weather was really changeable. For
example we went from motoring to sailing under reefed genoa alone in
under 2 minutes. But we did have some nice sailing for a couple of
hours each day – then followed by several hours of motoring. So it was
taking longer than we wanted to get to Mexico and we were both getting
tired, but Jetti, as always, was preparing good food. There was a time
constraint as we knew there would be a bad gale coming through the
Gulf of Tehuantepec on Wednesday afternoon, and we had wanted to get
past that area by then. Sadly we didn’t quite make it.

The wind got up very quickly from south 7-10 knots to north west 30.
As we got away from land the wind increased more. There are several
proven, accepted, techniques for handling bad weather in a catamaran.
If the wave and wind are not too severe, one can just heave to or take
down all sail and lie ahull. But as the wind increases and especially
as the wave height increases, this is no longer a safe option. So the
next stage is either to run before a gale towing warps, or to lie to a
sea anchor. The problems with the former are that a) you are going
with the weather system so you stay in it longer b) if the wind
increases you eventually cannot go slowly enough so you begin to surf
and overtake the waves ahead c) you end up a long way downwind, at say
50 miles a day d) it would mean that I would be hand steering all the
time, as Jetti is not experienced (or in the event as we found later,
strong enough) to steer in big seas. So I have always preferred the
sea anchor streamed from the bows. However, in 45 years of sailing and
around 70,000 of offshore sailing, I have never had to stop sailing
because of bad weather. So it had all been theory for me, until now.

Anyway, at 8pm we decided to stop sailing and use our parachute sea
anchor. I had first got this when we did the Azores race in Banshee in
1987, but had only ever used it for practice. This was the first time
for real. It took sometime to sort out the bridle so that the boat
would stay head to waves. It tended to swing 40 degrees each way and
was scary (or so I thought at the time) when we got near-abeam of the
waves. Also, from time to time the parachute would collapse, and we’d
drift backwards until it reset, which was even more worrying.

We spent the night like that, with no sleep of course. Next morning
the wind and sea was much worse. Certainly a full gale, but not so bad
that I thought the Eclipse was in real danger. Tests, theory and
practice have shown that a catamaran can only capsize if it beam onto
waves that are as high as the beam of the boat. So we are 100% OK in
waves under 20 feet high, and these were 10 feet.

I kept checking the warps and bridles but as the boat swung, the loads
on the bridles were very high and eventually first one and then the
other 12mm anchor warp bridle broke. Apart from holding the boat into
waves the bridle also spreads the load onto 3 wear points. Now, all
the load was on one bow roller and the parachute warp was beginning to
chafe. I rigged up a second line with rolling hitches, which was
rather wet to do on the foredeck. At some stage the forward trampoline
started to tear but was still useable with care. (I had planned to get
a new one this year as they have about a 5 year life). The wind and
sea state had been steadily increasing. Every hour we said, “It can’t
get windier can it?” By now it was probably a steady 40 knots and
10-15 foot seas breaking over the boat every 10 minutes or so. Our
safety depended on our parachute sea anchor holding. But in case it
failed, I set up the 2 main anchors to be used as drogues behind the
boat.

Surprisingly it was not the warp that broke, but the parachute. This
was a 10ft cargo-style parachute specially made for use as a yacht sea
anchor. I pulled it on board, the boat drifting beam on at this stage,
and on quick inspection found it had shredded and that several
parachute lines had pulled out. As I said earlier, I had only used the
sea anchor in calmer conditions for an hour or so, just to practice.
It seemed an excellent idea, the boat would just bob up and down, just
like being on a conventional anchor, but in a real gale the loads were
much worse, and the boat was being pulled and jerked as the waves
passed. I didn’t like it, and I don’t think I would recommend a sea
anchor again.

We threw the anchors over the stern and also added the shredded sea
anchor. It was very difficult to steer, but eventually I got the boat
moving downwind. We were sailing at 5-6 knots despite the drogues. We
let out more warp which helped slow us to 3-4. I think that might have
still meant surfing down some of the bigger waves which would have the
potential for a disastrous broach. However the real problem was now
the following waves could catch us up and break into the cockpit. For
the first time ever on any catamaran I’ve sailed we had to close the
companionway door. The first wave broke into the cockpit. The second
wave was much bigger and swamped the cockpit. Even worse it filled the
dinghy which we keep in davits. The water weight broke some of the
straps, and we had to cut the dinghy loose and so lost it. Clearly
running downwind was not an option.

So we now decided to try towing the anchors from one stern. This would
allow the boat to lie at a 45 degree angle to the waves. Despite this
temporary arrangement it actually seemed to work better than the sea
anchor had done. Of course all the time the wind was increasing. We
went below again to recover and see how the boat was handling the
conditions. An hour later the wind suddenly got up even more. It was
now screeching and the rig began vibrating which I had only noticed
once before, when tied up in a marina during a 70 knot gale. The waves
were now often over 20 feet so it was definitely getting to the
dangerous, life threatening stage. We began to discuss the option of
abandoning ship. Unfortunately our Raymarine wind speed indicator was
obviously only designed for inshore sailing because it was still
reading 32 knots. So I don’t know how windy it really was.

By 1pm the waves were now consistently over 20 feet, maybe
occasionally 30 feet. I know I tend to underestimate wave heights,
partly because everyone normally over estimates. For example when
sailing in Alaska in the summer I thought we were in 2-3 ft waves, but
our skipper wrote 6ft waves in the log. It was getting more and more
serious as there didn’t seem to be any limit to how high the wind and
waves could get. By 1.30pm the wind really got up. The sea state
changed and the whole surface was covered in flying spume, all the
wave tops were blown off. It was much the worse conditions I have ever
seen, even when standing on a beach looking out at 100 knot winter
gales. When I went outside I couldn’t stand up except by holding to a
tether line. I could feel the skin on my face distorting in the wind.
I guess there is a known wind speed when that happens, but I’d never
felt it before.

That was when we decided to send out a Mayday, as we knew it would be
several hours before any chance of rescue. Of course it was
particularly hard for me as Eclipse is not insured. And of course no
one likes the idea of abandoning a boat – usually boats are picked up
later undamaged. I can always build another boat, and I had earlier
said to Jetti that we might not survive. Accordingly we set off our
EPIRB but also called Pip using our satellite phone. He gave us the
UK’s Falmouth Coastguard phone number, and we called the Coastguard
direct. We called back every hour to check on progress and to give a
weather update and position check. We heard that Mexico was sending
out a launch to stand by.

By 6pm it was dark so we could no longer see the waves. We could still
hear them crashing onto the boat, but so far, apart from the lost
dinghy and torn but useable trampoline there was no other damage. The
inside was beginning to become a mess. Normally on a catamaran one can
leave cups on the table; there is no need for fiddle rails, etc. Now
everything was being thrown around. There seemed little point in
putting everything back in place, so most just stayed on the floor or
was put on the bunks. The inside stayed dry though, no water had got
below except for the one wave when we were running downwind and lost
the dinghy. So it was dry and warm below.

But all the time a wave/wind squall could have our name on it. We
wouldn’t survive a capsize. We were still expecting the Mexican
coastguard to call up on the VHF to say they were enroute. So it was a
great surprise to hear a female American voice at 11pm saying she was
in a helicopter and 10 miles from us. This was the first we knew that
the US was involved. We kept in radio contact as they flew in and then
set off a flare and made visual contact, although I suspect the pilot
had seen us long before through their night vision equipment.

The last book I had read was Perfect Storm, so I knew all about the
skills and training of naval rescue personnel. We had earlier prepared
some dry bags which we filled with passports, money, ship papers. All
those can be replaced, so what else? What I really wanted to take was
my computer with all my work on it. But I felt it was too big. So
Jetti took her makeup bag, I took our CD’s. In hindsight we could have
taken more. We tied the bags to each other and put on shoes and
inflated our lifejackets.

The US navy helicopters have a SAR (search and rescue) swimmer who
jumps out of the helicopter and swims to the stricken vessel with a
lifting strop. It looked very scary to me. A brave man. Eclipse was
still moving around quite violently in the seas, but the conditions
were fortunately not nearly as bad as they had been when we put out
the Mayday. Ironically we probably were over the worst of the gale.
Jetti was the first to jump into the sea and into the swimmer’s
waiting arms. Five minutes later it was my turn. As I was hoisted out,
I looked down and back at Eclipse and hoped I would see it again.

I had not flown in a helicopter before. They look big on the outside,
but are cramped inside and very noisy. Our flight back to the USS Ford
lasted about 10 minutes. We watched the in-flight movie: the night
vision viewer of the frigate as we approached was fantastic. Jetti was
shown the weather radar and saw that Eclipse was right in the centre
of the storm.

We landed on the ship and faced a welcoming party of apparently the
whole ship’s company, despite it now being 3 in the morning. A quick
debrief, medical check, shower, and then into a set of navy issue
jumpsuits. Next, a massive breakfast. We are not sure if it was put in
front of us as a test, but it was the biggest meal I’ve ever eaten.
Jetti finished her plates as well. But then neither of us had eaten
anything for 36 hours except a few slices of bread. Then a 3 hour
sleep.

In the morning we had discussions with the crew. The helicopter pilot
said she had great difficulty controlling her helicopter as she was
flying at 50 knots to stay in position and going up and down 20ft to
stay with the waves. Independent confirmation that it was still a full
gale, if not F9. Even so, it was far less severe than earlier in the
day. She also said it was her first real sea rescue. She, like the
swimmer, had only done simulations in weather this severe. She also
admitted that her helicopter had not been airworthy the day before as
the rotor blades were being changed. We met the captain who said he
had been steaming his frigate away from the area to keep away from the
bad weather. He considers this area worse than sailing round Cape
Horn. Even now as I write on board USS Ford, it’s hard to keep in my
chair as the ship is rolling and pitching. Yet, looking outside, the
sea state looks relatively flat compared to what we had been in
yesterday.

We have 24 hours before getting to port. We are desperate to see if we
can salvage Eclipse. It is undamaged and will probably float for ever.
Currently it is only 50 miles from a big fishing harbour, and we hope
to find a salvage operator there to tow Eclipse in.

Despite all that happened, I was very impressed with the seaworthiness
of Eclipse. No real damage (we didn’t like our dinghy anyway), and the
boat had survived a major storm without capsizing. Certainly life
would have been much more uncomfortable on a monohull, and ultimately
I think had we been on one, we would still have put out a Mayday, as
did the yacht in the Perfect Storm.

I’ll finish this by thanking all the crew on USS Ford. There will be
more about them later.

We don’t know what the future holds now. In a few days we will know
about Eclipse. If it is salvaged, clearly we have to sort that out. If
not, we will fly home.

That’s it for now.

Richard and Jetti, no longer on board Eclipse"

________________________________________

This was a very interesting story with some practical knowledge.
Mic sailing '67

hi folks,

why do people abandon ship ?

it's a naive question i'm sure, i have not ever been in this kind of a
situation where things are so bad you "have to abandon ship", and i
only know from what i've been reading in books and things how scary it
must be, etc. and for a cat if it flips over it's flipped and that's
the end of it, so i can kind of understand leaving, i guess. but for a
"normal" sailboat, a monohull, isn't it always the best idea to stay
ON/in the boat ? why do you EVER "have to abandon ship", it's the
"have to" part i'm not understanding ? i mean you go through regular
storm management ... heave to, run before the storm, maybe later put
out a sea anchor or something, all the usual things ... but even if
that all goes to hell, shouldn't you STILL stay in the boat ? i mean
the hull is sort of like a ping pong ball, even if it flips over, loses
it's mast, has all it's deck hardware ripped off, loses it's rudder,
everything ... as long as it's not full of water you should stay in it,
right ? it's still going to float. it might be rolling over every few
minutes, but it's still floating. isn't the idea to stay IN something
that floats ? even if a big breaker comes aboard and cracks the hull,
you can still leave, it's not going to go down like a rock, you'd have
a little time to get out, right ? how often does the sea actually
crack the hull anyway ? like this article says, most of the time they
find the boat drifting after the storm, wouldn't you want to be
drifting there inside of it ? why leave it in the first place ? it
just seems like you have more going for you IN the boat than OUT of the
boat. out of the boat, in the ocean, it seems like you'd have a whole
lot less going for you. like i said, i'm sure it's naive, but it just
seems like a lot of people leave a perfectly good floating boat for
even greater danger to me, i must be missing something ? people
sometimes joke that skydivers are crazy for jumping out of a perfectly
good airplane, isn't it just as crazy to leave a perfectly good
floating hull ? lol and even in this cat, if it flipped completely
over and stayed flipped over, it's still floating, right ? it just
seems like the only reason you "have to" abandon ship is the thing is
filling up with water and is headed for the bottom of the ocean.

"purple_stars" wrote in message
oups.com...
hi folks,

why do people abandon ship ?

Injury, fatigue, hunger, thirst, hypothermia,

JimB

In article ,
News f2s wrote:

"purple_stars" wrote in message
roups.com...
hi folks,

why do people abandon ship ?

Injury, fatigue, hunger, thirst, hypothermia,

JimB

Jim, I'm sure those are reasons, but they're not particularly good
reasons. You're not going to be doing better in a smaller and much
more uncomfortable liferaft.

Perhaps psychosis or delusion would be a better excuse. :-)


--
Capt. JG @@
www.sailnow.com

"Jonathan Ganz" wrote in message
...

why do people abandon ship ?

Injury, fatigue, hunger, thirst, hypothermia,

JimB

Jim, I'm sure those are reasons, but they're not particularly
good
reasons. You're not going to be doing better in a smaller and
much
more uncomfortable liferaft.

Perhaps psychosis or delusion would be a better excuse. :-)

You're quite right of course. Proper reasons for abandoning ship
(for a life raft) are fire and uncontrollable leakage such that
the vessel is about to sink.

The reasons I gave above are reasons for transferring to a larger
vessel, which wasn't the point of the previous poster, but is the
most common type of abandonment, the one being discussed earlier
in the thread.

JimB

In article ,
News f2s wrote:
You're quite right of course. Proper reasons for abandoning ship
(for a life raft) are fire and uncontrollable leakage such that
the vessel is about to sink.

The reasons I gave above are reasons for transferring to a larger
vessel, which wasn't the point of the previous poster, but is the
most common type of abandonment, the one being discussed earlier
in the thread.

I would think that some boat interiors would become uninhabitable if
the boat were dismasted. This happened in the Fastnet Race, and I'm
sure it's happened other times.



--
Capt. JG @@
www.sailnow.com

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 10:11:56 -0000, "News f2s"
wrote:

why do people abandon ship ?

Injury, fatigue, hunger, thirst, hypothermia,

Fear.

"Wayne.B" wrote
why do people abandon ship ?

Injury, fatigue, hunger, thirst, hypothermia,

Fear.


Yes, fear. In this case, fear for themselves, with no consideration of the
risk to the rescue crew. Did anybody else notice that they asked others to
risk their lives?

By the time of the rescue, the worst was past: "conditions
were fortunately not nearly as bad as they had been when we put out
the Mayday. Ironically we probably were over the worst of the gale."

" In the morning we had discussions with the crew. The helicopter pilot
said she had great difficulty controlling her helicopter as she was
flying at 50 knots to stay in position and going up and down 20ft to
stay with the waves. Independent confirmation that it was still a full
gale, if not F9. Even so, it was far less severe than earlier in the
day. She also said it was her first real sea rescue. She, like the
swimmer, had only done simulations in weather this severe. She also
admitted that her helicopter had not been airworthy the day before as
the rotor blades were being changed. We met the captain who said he
had been steaming his frigate away from the area to keep away from the
bad weather. "

Yes, this was an extreme situation, but all too often we hear of morons
calling for assitance, when there is little real danger, or when reasonable
planning could have averted the situation. Coast Guard (or Navy) personnel
WILL come get you out of it - but every mission, even in the best
conditions, puts them at risk.

Sal's Dad