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

"Jonathan Ganz" wrote in message
...

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.

The boat becomes very much more stable, giving it an extremely
rapid natural rocking motion. If this is sparked off by waves, the
boat is all but untenable.

The problem is that in those conditions a liferaft also rolls
viciously, and is likely to be overturned from time to time. Three
of us experienced that liferaft motion in a wind over tide, 2
metre breaking waves, just off Appledore in the Bristol Channel.

It was a training exercise that went wrong. The lifeboat call-out
was delayed. We were blown downwind into the race. Like being in a
washing machine. Lots of minor injuries, one broken arm. Never
again. We were stuck in this rotating hell for about 15 minutes,
then when the lifeboat arrived it took a further 20 minutes to get
us all aboard. By that time all of us were cripplingly seasick -
and we were experienced sailors, used to offshore racing, who
prided ourselves on our strong stomachs. Yuck.

JimB

"News f2s" wrote in message
...

"Jonathan Ganz" wrote in message
...

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.

The boat becomes very much more stable, giving it an extremely rapid
natural rocking motion. If this is sparked off by waves, the boat is all
but untenable.

The problem is that in those conditions a liferaft also rolls viciously,
and is likely to be overturned from time to time. Three of us experienced
that liferaft motion in a wind over tide, 2 metre breaking waves, just off
Appledore in the Bristol Channel.

It was a training exercise that went wrong. The lifeboat call-out was
delayed. We were blown downwind into the race. Like being in a washing
machine. Lots of minor injuries, one broken arm. Never again. We were
stuck in this rotating hell for about 15 minutes, then when the lifeboat
arrived it took a further 20 minutes to get us all aboard. By that time
all of us were cripplingly seasick - and we were experienced sailors, used
to offshore racing, who prided ourselves on our strong stomachs. Yuck.

JimB

I think you mean "because more *unstable*" right? I'm not sure what would
have been worse... a washing machine with sharp objects or just an empty
washing machine with soft sides. I think I'd like to avoid both!

--
"j" ganz @@
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

In article .com,
purple_stars wrote:
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

Besides filling up with water and being about the sink (always step up
to the liferaft philosophy), there's the issue of being rolled over
and over and over. You'd be inside a washing machine with lots of
heavy and possibly sharp objects flying around. In the '79 Fastnet
race, that reason was used by many who chose to get off the boat.

I can't think of another reason. But, I'm open to suggestions.

The bigger the boat, the better off you'll be, so you should stay with
the boat if at all possible.

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