How dangerous is an ocean crossing in a small boat?

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This is following on from a previous post about the dangers of small boat voyaging.

For the sake of argument, we will say 'small' means a sub-42ft sailing yacht with auxiliary propulsion.

In terms of

a) fatalities per 100 participants

and

b) safe arrivals per 100 boat departures

How dangerous is:

1/ A typical Biscay crossing May - Aug
2/ A tradewind Atlantic crossing (non-ARC)
3/ Doing the ARC
4/ A 'trade wind' circumnavigation?

Does anyone know, or would anyone like to hazard some wild and speculative guesses?

- Nick
 
42 feet..... is SMALL? ??? !!!
I obviously have to revise my rather outdated vocabulary.......

Any way I would guess less than 1% for a) - all four
b)
1. biscay 10%
2. non ARC transat 50%
3. ARC 1%
4. circum 25%

the discrepancy (sp?) is accounted for the fact that a lot of people don't die but don't actually manage to arrive where they intended to go ....... including me !!!
 
a) actual deaths must be much less than 1 - we'd hear of every single death but there are very few.

b) i would bet far more than 1 per hundred fail to reach destination but settle for a different destination, but non-fatal. Witness arc dropouts not sure of how many turned back but it was more than er 2.5 out of 250ish boats.
 
IMHO (I'm really getting the hang of this web-talk jingo) not very dangerous if you approach with plenty of preparation and common sense.

Sailed a 11.8m/38ft Wooden boat to Trinidad from W Mersea, and I can honestly say that not once did I ever doubt she'd get me there safetly, she's an incredible boat.

1) Biscay Crossing, we left in August from Falmouth, the waeather was prety bad, but we felt we had to leave when we did, because depression after depression was being hurled accross the pond by I think, Hurricane Charlie.

If we left it any later, we'd hit the Autumn Equinox. In the end, a depression we thought we'd escape, came through earlier then expected and further South than we thought. Had an 18hr period of F8/9, but couldnt heave to, or run away, or it would have put us on the rocks of Ushant.

We plugged along under Stay'sl, we were scared as hell and miserable, Amadis looked after us though, no worries.

2) Tradewind crossing, had old fashion set up of twin running foresails on a twin grooved furler, worked brilliantly. Wind never went higher than a F5, Cumulous all the way (guess whos studying meteorology in their YM Course!)

3) Dedicated NARC-er thankyou very much!

4) Havent done my Circumnav yet.

Overall, size in my opinion, is slightly irrelevant, its desing which is much more important.

I'd feel much safer in a 28ft Colin Archer design than a 45ft AWB, no offence to anyones pride and joy intended.

Though you do worry me when you say sub 42ft is small? In a couple of years I'll be looking for a boat to cross Oceans in, and much as I'd love a 50ft Ketch, I'll struggle to afford a 30 footer! But I'm OK with that, I'll just make sure I choose the design well.
 
I'm coming from the standpoint that boating is safe, very safe.

I'd expect that for all of your passages below 0.1 deaths per 100 persons and that 99.9 persons arrive alive.

This gives 1 in 1000 as a problem. But this is an over simplification surely. For beginers maybe these odds are correct but for the season sailor with thousands of trips under the keel perhaps 5x better odds. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
Given that many long distance sailors are retired, they probably have more risk of death from natural causes, than they do of death from accident, though the number of containers floating about is certainly increasing the risk.
 
Never mind the size, feel the quality.

I would say other factors are more relevent than overall length: GZ curve, skeg or not, strength of hull and fittings, etc
 
I think this is a great question, and from the set of replies here - no-one seems to know the answer. (the 'I got there OK' argument doesn't really help!)

Given that some people respond to our cruising plans with 'isn't that dangerous - how can you think of taking the kids?!', I'd really like to see some data on this.

I try to say that it's less dangerous than strapping them into half a ton of steel and rocketing down the M11 at 70 mph with all the other maniacs. But I have to admit I don't have any data to support that argument.

Sounds like a great topic for a piece of research - perhaps the MAIB have some data but I guess it's localised so less use in assessing ocean crossings.
 
To find out if small boat sailors consider it dangerous or not the question "would I go without any safety gear " IE sat phone ,epirb , radio etc . If you dont think its dangerous then there isn't a lot of point in taking them is there ?? do you cross oceans?? if so you carry "help me" equipment ? if so why??
 
Its only ever as dangerous as the person in charge....you could go out in a F 7/8 and sink a yacht off the needles, but does that make it dangerous?

Most deaths I would think are from heart attacks as those taking part in ocean crossings as skippers/owners are often retired, possibly stressed and maybe not that fit.

Its all statistics, if its your boat that hits a container then its dangerous.
 
Well, there MUST be actuarial figures - how else would our esteemed insurance companies be able to give us such assured reasons for our insurance premium increases?
 
Well, SURELY there MUST be actuarial figures - why, how else would our esteemed insurance companies be able to justify their premiums?
 
Sorry about the double post......server a bit slow tonight, hence the slight modification - but you get my drift.......
 
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