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From: Peter Ogilvie (no email)
Date: Mon Feb 06 2006 - 20:13:28 EST
As I said, abandoning a perfectly good boat puts not only the crew, but the rescuers at risk. Yes a sailboat without a mast has a much worse motion than one without. That was not the case with the Satori. Satori was not suffering any distress other than would be expected from some significant wind and waves. Staying with the boat would have been a much safer proposition for all. I've done thousands of miles in a Wetsnail and they are about as comfortable a boat as you'll get when it gets very nasty. Haven't been in 'Perfect Storm' weather but have been in some nasty weather.
As far as the Fastnet and other races, could it be the design of the hulls and rigs that are the problem. Extreme draft, wide beam, flat bottoms and light weight are not a formula for comfort at sea. These boats have extremely quick motion and the higher tech. they are, the more fragile they seem to be. Take a look at the three/four spreader masts and it makes you wonder how they are able to stay standing in the harbor and the same goes for the ultra thin hulls.. Yes they will go fast but do you want to be on one when it gets nasty.
As far as the Satori's skippers decision to leave in the first place, the weather forecast was apparently not so bad. Either storm in itself was apparently no biggy. It was when they combined into a single cell that they became truly dangerous. An average Noreaster could be ideal reaching conditions for a heavy displacement boat like Satori. Storms off of Bermuda typically wander northeast and peter out. This one went due north and intensified as it combined with the other low. It was not conditions that I would have begun a passage. It also was not obvious that anything significant was going to develop.
Anyway, in most situations, staying with the boat may be the best solution. Bailing out is usually a result of seasickness and fatigue which don't put you in an ideal state of mind to make life and death decisions.
As far as being beaten up by the boat and it's contents. That smacks of poor preperation. Someone's treatise on preparation for ocean voyaging says to imagine the boat upside down. If there is anything that won't stay put in that orientation, it either needs to be secured or discarded.
Aloha
Peter O.
Bryan Genez <> wrote:
On 1/31/06, Peter Ogilvie <> wrote:
>
> People panic and bail out on perfectly safe boats. In doing so they risk
> the lives of the rescue crews, as well as their own. To say a person would
> not have survived on a boat that was perfectly fit including the rigging
> after the storm is really pushing the limit. In a boat that isn't in
> danger of foundering, it is safer to stay with the vessel. The Fastnet
> race is a prime example where many of the fatalities occured in
> abandoning boats that were later found floating and in no danger of
> sinking.
One often overlooked finding of the Fastnet race is that some crews
abandoned their boats because they were being beaten to death inside the
tumbling hulls. It was actually safer in the liferaft than it was in the
still floating, but dismasted hull.
Surely, many boats are abandoned because of crew panic. But others are
abandoned after a careful evaluation of the situation. It's virtually
impossible for people sitting on dry land to appreciate what goes into that
decision.
To use the rationale that because a boat survived intact, its crew should
have known better than to abandon it, is just not dealing with the reality
of the environment. Hindsight is always 20-20.
--
Best,
Bryan Genez
"Capella" V40-158
New Bern, NC
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