Next message: Ken James: "[world-cruising] leave the boat?"
On 2 Feb 06 14:36, <> wrote:
>
> > I see you've read the owner's son's website. Your information is
> > incorrect. The owner could not be "forced" to abandon his boat
> > against his will. And there were no penalties should he have decided
> > to stay.
>
> It is clear you have a sense of personal offence ass about the skipper.
> My information comes from more than multiple sources.
> Here are just two accounts from the USCG.
>
> The account of the rescue swimmer of the USCG, Dave Moore:
> __________________________________________ _____________
>
> Moore, who is now a firefighter and paramedic in Santa Rosa, Calif.,
> jumped 15 feet from a Coast Guard helicopter into 30-foot waves.
>
> ''The first time I swam to the sailboat, I couldn't get to it,'' he
> remembered. ''I was blown back. The wind was blowing about 60 mph.
>
> ''I was nervous that things would go wrong,'' said Moore, who was 25 at
> the time. ''I was nervous that I would never get back.''
>
> Moore climbed back in the basket to be hoisted up for another jump. This
> time he succeeded, urging the three on the boat to jump off into the
> high dark waves, and carrying them to safety.
>
> Satori's captain refused to leave the boat, saying he had sailed through
> hurricanes before, Moore said. So Moore declared the voyage ''manifestly
> unsafe,'' meaning he could force the captain to abandon ship.
> ------------------------------------------ ---------------------
> ------------------------------------------ ---------------------
>
>
> Herb Summers was a Coast Guard Petty Officer second class, working on
> the 205 foot Cutter, the Tamaroa, based at the New Castle Coast Guard
> Station:
>
> "It was too rough to drop a line to the Sartori," said Summers. "The
> women (Karen Stimpson and Sue Bylander) wanted off the boat. We made a
> decision that the Sartori was on an unsafe voyage and determined that
> they would have to leave.
Yes, I'm offended by the son's attempt to shift his father's incompetence on
to the Coast Guard.
BTW, there is no rescue swimmer in the Coast Guard empowered with the
authority to declare a voyage "manifestly unsafe". That authority resides
in District Commanders (in this case the Commander of the First Coast Guard
District in Boston). Second, while I'll acknowledge my understanding of
this law is incomplete, I know of no such determionations that can be made
in the circumstances that Satori was in, because the voyage had already
begun, there was no finding that the vessel was inherently unsound, and
there was no appeal process.
I'll give you an example of one "manifestly unsafe" determination I was
involved in. In that case, a family (husband, wife, and two young children)
were about to leave a West Coast port for Hawaii, in a leaky old wooden
sailboat. No one in the family had any experience whatsoever in sailing or
ocean passages. The boat's condition was so poor that it would have been
risky crossing from Long Beach to Catalina Island. The owner, realizing
that he had insufficient fresh water tankage, added two 55 gallon steel
drums of water, which he lashed to his compass binnacle. Get the idea?
But let's give the captain of the Satori the benefit of the doubt and agree
that he was coerced off his boat against his will. That does not relieve
him of the responsibility for placing himself, his crew, and his rescuers
into harms way. His presence in that storm was solely due to his own
incompetence. I cannot feel too sorry for his loss, though I'm grateful no
one was killed.
--
Best,
Bryan Genez
"Capella" V40-158
New Bern, NC
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/world-cruising/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
