Really pleased that he was able to deal with the situation himself and get back unaided.
Yes, that sounded properly hairy. He was lucky to get out of that unscathed.
Whatever it was, it blew a hole in the bottom of his boat.
Sounds likely as it was after all the electrics got flooded with sea water
Hmmm. If that’s what it was, it only goes to further my concerns about lithium batteries, and whether they are too good to be true. I’ve been wary of them ever since a mate’s laptop caught fire.
I’d assume that the commercial vessel also had someone keeping a lookout and enough electronics to alert the watchkeeper long before a collision was likely. So clearly we have two skippers who both failed to take sufficient action to avoid a collision.
Hardly possible. With all the air flow they have inside their boats, it's next to impossible some gas leak could find the right stoichiometric combination with oxygen/air to make the mixture become explosive.
They were using lithium ion??
Which is exactly what keeps me awake when single-handed but of course at some stage one needs to sleep.
And is why I would never singlehand on journey's where you need to sleep. IMHO its irresponsible and should probably be banned. I'm not a big one for banning things but if you can't keep a proper lookout at all times you are not properly manned.
Does seem odd when it doesn't take much power or cash to have a radar & ais receiver both with alarms. Not really first time either.
I think Alex Thomson proved fairly conclusively in the last Route du Rhum that it’s entirely possible to sleep through an alarm……..
He's crazy racer pushing beyond the edge every time second though , nothing like the rest of us. Alarms work fine, get a loud one. And don't get too tired.