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Don White
 
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Default Mayday off coast of Mexico-rescued from catamaran

Gary wrote:
Don White wrote:

Gary wrote:

Bob wrote:

Hi Bruce:

Sounds as though you may have some insight here. How about a "what if."
Lets say I am a US citizen sailing about 350 miles off the CA shore. I
am not flying any flags. After all, I am less than 12 meters LOA and a
recreational vessel. I just spent a few months in Peru and returning
home to Astoria, Or. A US warship says, pull over we want to board.
Can I tell them to buzz off and keep sailing?

Bob

As the Captain of a Canadian warship, I can tell you, we can't do
that. We'd need probable cause and loads of approval. We'd
probably just put some other resources on you and watch you quite
closely until we got the permission. Now, in the Persian Gulf......





Sail on one of the 'Halifax Class' ships?


No. HMCS Oriole.

www.navy.gc.ca/oriole



Lucky you!..
What's with that picture of you leading 'Bluenose II'?
Someone doctor it up for propaganda purposes?
I've got a couple of nieces in the Navy. One is a recruiter and the
other is reserve (fleet diving)
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Bruce in Alaska
 
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Default Mayday off coast of Mexico-rescued from catamaran

In article .com,
"Bob" wrote:

Hi Bruce:

Sounds as though you may have some insight here. How about a "what if."
Lets say I am a US citizen sailing about 350 miles off the CA shore. I
am not flying any flags. After all, I am less than 12 meters LOA and a
recreational vessel. I just spent a few months in Peru and returning
home to Astoria, Or. A US warship says, pull over we want to board.
Can I tell them to buzz off and keep sailing?

Bob


At that point Maritime Law says "He who has the Biggest Guns at the
momment, decides what the Law is, at that momment".....
I suspect that you would be hailed, and asked, to state, or show a Flag.
If you choose not to, then you would be boarded as a "Pirate". If you
choose to lie, and declare a Flag of another nation, and got caught,
you would be boarded and taken into custody as a Pirate. If you
stated you were a US Flagged vessel, you would be boarded and inspected
like any other US Flagged Vessel.

The US Navy, wouldn't be hailing you on the High Seas, unless they had a
specific Tasking to do so, so I suspect that this wouldn't actually be a
real senerio. The USCG however does routinely hail and board unFlagged
vessels in international waters.


Bruce in alaska
--
add a 2 before @
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Bob
 
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Thank you Bruce.
Bob

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Andy
 
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Default Mayday off coast of Mexico-rescued from catamaran

Mic wrote:
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.


I am surprised no one has mentioned that trying to cut straight across
the Gulf of Tehuantepec in January (which is when this happened
according to news reports) is wildly reckless. As even some cursory
research will show, the winds in the Gulf of Tehuantepec in January are
pretty much non-stop gales. Even if someone predicted that the winds
in the Gulf would be less than gale force in January, I wouldn't
believe them for a second. The only non-suicidal way to traverse
Tehuatepec in January is stop in Puerto Madero and wait patiently for a
weather window (which may take weeks) and then stay 50 feet off the
beach and creep along the shoreline the whole way around.

The other thing I found bizarre about this story was the fact that the
author seemed to have little understanding of the stucture and dynamics
of the Tehuantepec gales. When a Tehuantepec winter gale starts
blowing it could easily last for 10 days or more, especially in
January, and the zone of gale force winds can extend something like 350
or more miles out to sea. Its not like a low pressure system that
blows through; its a stationary gale that can last weeks. Putting out
a sea anchor in Tehuantepec in a January gale is pretty much
guaranteeing that you will be beat up by gale force winds until you or
your boat falls apart. Also, the Tehuantepec gales shoot out of the
Gulf like a jet from a firehose; if you can work your way to the edge
of the gale zone you can go from 20-30 knot winds to dead calm in the
space of 5 miles.

The real lesson in this story is not about heavy weather tactics, its
about researching conditions before you start a passage, which these
people didn't seem to do.

I crossed Tehuantepec going north around late Nov 2002. I stopped at
Puerto Madero, and then went to the internet cafe every day and
downloaded NWS TPC weatherfax for Tehuantepec. It took 10 days until
they predicted a brief break in the gales (5 knot winds for 2 days).
Then we set out creeping along the shoreline. Just as we were about at
the top of the Gulf the winds were still light and were still predicted
to be less than 10 knots, and we decided that it couldn't be that bad
to cut across the last little bit of the Gulf about 15-30 miles off the
beach. Wrong. We got hit with 30 knot plus winds, double reefed the
main, rolled up the jib to just a scrap, and then flew across the gulf
at 2 knots over hull speed on a beam reach heeled over like crazy.
Since we were relatively near shore the waves weren't too bad, and
since we were near the top of the gulf we only had a short distance of
the wind tunnel to cross, so after about 6-8 hours we were out the
other side and motoring in dead calm, but it was still a hair raising
experience. If we had tried to heave-to, or put out a sea anchor (not
that we had one), we probably would have spent the next couple weeks
drifting slowly downwind in non-stop gale conditions.

Andy

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Bob
 
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Default Mayday off coast of Mexico-rescued from catamaran

Hi Andy:

So true. The original poster on this topic summed it up best whith a
quote from the skipper of the cat,

"....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...."

"I don't think were're in Kansas anymore Toto."
Dorthy



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otnmbrd
 
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Default Mayday off coast of Mexico-rescued from catamaran

The best way to forcast a Tehauntepecer is to watch the weather in the Gulf
of Mexico.
If you have a Blue Norther or strong North wind there, fiqure you're in for
a pasting in Tehauntepec.....hug the beach.

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"Andy" wrote:
...
The real lesson in this story is not about heavy weather
tactics, its about researching conditions before you start
a passage, which these people didn't seem to do.
...


I can't help but wonder if Richard Woods wanted to test
his catamaran design in a heavy weather condition but
just didn't expect it to get as bad as it did.
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Bob
 
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Andy wrote:

In any event, it offended me that Mr. Woods described what happened to
him as if it was just some unlucky twist of fate that he got caught in
a gale, when in fact it was almost a certainty that he would get
plastered doing what he did.

Andy


Yes.......... I agree!
And I would add humbly to Andy's observation that Freak, Maverick, and
Sneaker waves might also fit with that example. Sorry guys, I really
feel strongly that the unpredictable can be expected, and reasonably
predicted. Its the old Observe-Anticipate-Take corrective actions
routine. As mariners, we do not have the luxury to blame the fickle
finger of fate for our troubles. An earlier sailor here said that a
more accurate analogy would be to get into a car, drive down the road,
and have a tree fall on us. How could we predict that? Anybody ever
live in the mountains where an interstate freeway cuts through a pass.
Ever see those 4x4 SUVs from the warmer and flatter elevations go
roaring pass at 70 mph over the packed snow with a Starbucks in one
hand? I usually would pass them in the ditch. A very sobering and
edicational sight for my then 16 year old daughter. She learned from
the mistakes of others. Ever talk to one of those SUV drivers after
their crash? "All of sudden the care went completely out of control !"
Duh, wonder why? So, who was driving???
Sounds a lot like those charterboat operators who killed their
passengers when a Rogue
Wave "came out of nowhere."

Bob
(Emerging Sock Puppet)

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