How dangerous is an ocean crossing in a small boat?

Well yes, there is actuarial data available - for the loss of containers from ships. Because the lost containers relate to 0.002% (or something similar) of the total containers carried - the esteemed insurance compay's say that there is no problem.

From the perspective of my 32 footer, there is a significant problem. Use your loaf and not statistics.
 
Well, first a pedantic point about "safety gear" - in fact everything you describe is, to use your phrase, "help me" equipment. Safety gear is good sails, hull, fittings etc. IMHO.

I've done and would continue to do Channel and Biscay crossings without EPIRP, sat phone and liferaft because I'm on a limited budget and prefer to have the boat as robust as possible and not get into the mentality of thinking that I can get help fast enough in a real emergency. Didn't have anything of the above except a liferaft on my one Atlantic crossing and that was completely superfluous because we were in a cat.

If I had more funds I'd probably buy the equipment because I could, but that would have very little to do with the real risks involved, more a case of crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

Sailing is scary, but everything I've read suggests that it's very very rarely dangerous once you've got over the early idiot-mistakes.
 
In 44 years of OSTAR only two deaths, and one of those may have been suicide. This is probably one of the more dangerous trips you could do, and there were plenty of little boats in the early days.

How many losses in the mini-transat? More than a couple but I think that's from falling over the side, still remarkable for sailing such small boats single-handed on the edge.

Having said that I think there may be quite afew that set off and are never seen again, we just never hear about them.
 
I don't think that you will really have any definitive data...simply because it's highly unlikely that every crew making a passage will file an appropriate passage plan.

I also presume that - as someone suggested above - you would discount those persons who died of heart attacks en route, since this isn't really related to the fact you are sailing, more to the fact you are unhealthy/unfit/elderly.

Perhaps the question is: how dangerous are these journeys, solely taking into account hazards caused by the sailing itself?

In other words, if a fit and healthy person set off from the UK and aimed to cross the Atlantic, what is the percentage chance that a) they will arrive safely at the other side, and b) they will arrive safely at the other side at their intended destination?
 
I would argue that there are two factors which make such a venture more hazardous than hithertofore. One is weather. It may be my perception but the weather seems more extreme and more difficult to predict than before and the chance of getting caught in dangerous conditions greater. Speed is also a factor in such a boat. You may not be able to get out of the way even when you know its coming. Secondly, is electronics. Such equipment is not bullet proof and when it fails, relying on traditional means eg sextant is not easy.
 
I'm not sure about the weather, but agree that most boats won't be able to get out of the way even if they hear about weather coming their way.

I think in general though things are far safer than 20 or 30 years ago as even AWBs are less likely to fall apart at sea compared to wooden boats and most importantly, navigation is far easier with GPS so the anxieties around position and landfall are much less, so much less chance now of making poor decisions.

Certainly a single GPS isn't bulletproof and I've crossed with 3 handheld GPS (belonging to crew members) and one chartplotter. If the whole GPS system had been switched off for a long period then we would have had some difficulties but I still think we'd have found our way to one of the chain of Caribbean islands, with our level of uncertainty depending on exactly when it went off.
 
True...very few fatalities but many rescues...Tony Bullimore, Mike Richey, Phillipe Jeantot, Dave Sellings etc.

This is the eternal problem with statistics - ostensibly objective but open to subjective interpretation.
 
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a) actual deaths must be much less than 1

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So this must then refer to when someone says "Cor, I feel half dead!" /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
You mention a few rescues but hundreds (or is it thousands?) of people sail across the Atlantic every year, with far fewer rescues needed than of people doing coastal sailing.
 
I can give figures or the ARC....

20 years of the event... 200 plus boats per year (certainly in the last 10 years) average of 4 crew per boat say 16000 crew in total and 1 fatality (unfortunately the year I did it, 2002)....

So chance of a person dying doing the ARC 1/16000 = 0.0000625% to date.
 
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You mention a few rescues but hundreds (or is it thousands?) of people sail across the Atlantic every year, with far fewer rescues needed than of people doing coastal sailing.

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It's certainly in the thousands and I agree with what you are saying but the point I made related as much to the safety of statistics as to the safety of sailing.

I listed only a few rescues because I couldn't think of more off the top of my head - but there have been many.

Any one of those rescues could have ended in loss of life and this should be taken into account when weighing up the odds because you can't assume that rescue is assured.
 
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So chance of a person dying doing the ARC 1/16000 = 0.0000625% to date.

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You forgot to multiply by 100 for percentage. So the correct figure is 0.00625%. Still pretty small, though.
 
That has always been my view. I don't think anything I have posted says otherwise. If you look back at my posts, you will see that I was commenting specifically on the casualty stats for the OSTAR.
 
How utterly ridiculous! Sending this from an internet bar in Caribbean and our observations are as follows. We would estimate a 1000 boats crossing per year (based on marinas in Canaries). So we can estimate that a quarter are ARC boats. By listening to SSB and quayside gossip it would seem that no one died (good news even for those not able to afford ARC) and that when it comes to retirements - there were more from ARC than non-ARC. We heard of one boat (First Light) that lost rudder and abandoned ship which was non-ARC. At least two ARC boats retired to Cape Verdes to have boats shipped onwards including a rather large Oyster. Face facts...out in the ocean you are on your own or with the help of friends....paying dosh to an organisation ain't going to save your bacon! If you want to cross an ocean...go for it.
 
That was Oystercatcher, belongs to the er chairman of Oyster, afaik. He rigged it up with carbon fibre whizzy thingies but came to grief in high winds. Bit embarassing but what the heck.
 
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