Manslaughter Waiting to Happen

Spirit (of Glenans)

Spirit (of Glenans)

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In the link below, the casualty vessel was reported to be unable to lower its mainsail as a result of a total loss of (electrical) power:
Achill Island RNLI Rescue Lone Sailor in 14 Hour Overnight Operation to Broken Down Yacht 40 Miles West of Achill
The mind boggles!
It's bad enough that one can be left with a full genoa out at the most inconvenient time, due to the inadequacies of most headsail furling systems, but, IMHO, whoever designed the fault described in the article, into a sailing yacht is a homicidal idiot. Please discuss.
 
More than that, in force 3-4, even if his main was stuck up, why was he "at the mercy of the wind"? He could have sailed in any direction to the wind in those conditions, even with a full main I would have thought.
 
Something's not adding up there.... Singlehanded racing yacht, loss of power, mainsail stuck up... No steering due to loss of power....?

I can't think of a racing yacht that would be that disabled by a loss of power, certainly not a singlehanded one anyway.... Sounds more like a hydraulic in mast furling main to me.
 
There is more information on the OSTAR/TWOSTAR Facebook page about the issue. I think the RNLI report is rather 'far from' what is being reported from other sources. An electrical failure appears to be the root cause and every sailing boat with electric winches has a manual override.

Good to see all are safe and well.
 
The only reason I can think of that the main couldn't be lowered was that it was in mast furling with vertical battens and even then it should be possible, but given the conditions why would you want to sail the boat as it's meant to be sailed. There must be a lot more to the story.
 
Sandy said:
There is more information on the OSTAR/TWOSTAR Facebook page about the issue. I think the RNLI report is rather 'far from' what is being reported from other sources. An electrical failure appears to be the root cause and every sailing boat with electric winches has a manual override.

Good to see all are safe and well.
Click to expand...

I don't think Selden's electric winches have any manual over-ride, a design decision that's a little unusual let's say, not least when they're designed mostly to work in sync with their furling systems.
 
sailorbenji said:
I don't think Selden's electric winches have any manual over-ride, a design decision that's a little unusual let's say, not least when they're designed mostly to work in sync with their furling systems.
Click to expand...

The Seldon E40i doesn't this from Seldons blurb
Q: Are there emergency operation available if I run out of power?
A: Furlex Electric - an emergency line driver with endless line is fitted to the side of the drive unit and it is included as standard. SMF - use a winch handle in the original line driver.
E40i - pull the line from E40i over to a regular winch.

However the more common Harken and Lewmar do.
 
vyv_cox said:
I assumed that because he could not start his engine he was unable to motor head to wind to lower the mainsail. But in that case why did the RNLI not tow him upwind for lowering?
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Most boats when hove -to, will lie at an angle to the wind such that the mainsail is not drawing, and can be furled, reefed or handed without difficulty.
 
Spirit (of Glenans) said:
Most boats when hove -to, will lie at an angle to the wind such that the mainsail is not drawing, and can be furled, reefed or handed without difficulty.
Click to expand...
Or alternatively with many boats, sheet in jib / genoa for close hauled and sail upwind under jib. This backwinds the mainsail which is easy then to hoist, reef or stow.
 
I know of the skipper from our time at Haslar … Neil Payter. Boat name Cariberia, Class 40 Open yacht.

Competing in OSTAR/TWOSTAR. 10 entrants. 5 retired so far. Hit a nasty low.

On the way to Plymouth he lost one of his two auto-pilots and a plea went out for someone to repair it. Never heard if this was done. He lost a main halyard and had to go up the mast to recover it. He blew out a Code 0 early on. His project had asked for crowd funding of £20,000 … last time I looked only £650 had been raised so did he put to sea ‘£19000’ underprepared? If not, why the £20k?

He WAS doing well even around the low pressure but the boat started to let him down. One of the water ballast tanks dumped 750 litres of water inside the boat, a jammer exploded … I think this is why he had a problem fully dropping the main, he lost electrics which meant he couldn’t start the engine to give him power ?, The tracker stopped working. His wife couldn’t raise him on sat phone.

Last tracking showed him heading for Scotland, then there was a course change towards Ireland.

No contact from him lead to a fixed wing search then a helicopter liaising with a life boat to tow him to Ireland.

No idea where electric winches or steering failure comes into the picture..

Loss of power, blown sails, inability to beat, jammed main is more accurate.

As for the title of this post, words fail me.
 
sailorbenji said:
I don't think Selden's electric winches have any manual over-ride, a design decision that's a little unusual let's say, not least when they're designed mostly to work in sync with their furling systems.
Click to expand...
Then the designer needs to be shot.

I've only ever been on one 'ocean racing dinghy' and everything was manual. The other boat I regularly sail with electric winches has them disabled, but we sail with over 20 onboard and hoisting the mainsail can be done by 10 people, six if they had three shredded wheat for breakfast.
 
Sandy said:
Then the designer needs to be shot.

I've only ever been on one 'ocean racing dinghy' and everything was manual. The other boat I regularly sail with electric winches has them disabled, but we sail with over 20 onboard and hoisting the mainsail can be done by 10 people, six if they had three shredded wheat for breakfast.
Click to expand...
You’re missing the point of the e40i somewhat - it is supposed to be an auxiliary leccy winch for use alongside the manual ones.

Whether this is a good idea in itself or not, I have no comment. But ‘pulling lines’ from other winches is, I believe, how it is intended to be used anyway.
 
dankilb said:
You’re missing the point of the e40i somewhat - it is supposed to be an auxiliary leccy winch for use alongside the manual ones.

Whether this is a good idea in itself or not, I have no comment. But ‘pulling lines’ from other winches is, I believe, how it is intended to be used anyway.
Click to expand...
This is how they promote it on their own website :

THE EASILY PLACED ELECTRIC WINCH
The coach roof is the normal place for a winch that operates halyards, reef lines, outhaul and control lines.

It's not designed to pull lines from other winches, it's designed primarily as a coachroof winch (as you lose no headroom with the integrated motor, which I'm not denying is a big plus). Of course its other big USP is speed-synchronisation with their electric Genoa or in-mast main furlex systems, such that the outhaul speed of the e40i matches the payout speed of the furler.

The big issue for me is still the lack of manual over-ride, and being up on the coachroof normally, it's not an easy position to simply run the line over to another winch, which would normally be lower down on the cockpit coaming somewhere, and therefore very prone to riding turns with such a steep lead-in.
 
Selden do seem to think you’ll only want/need one of them…

or maybe they’re just limiting their giveaways to one per YouTuber?!
 
vyv_cox said:
I assumed that because he could not start his engine he was unable to motor head to wind to lower the mainsail. But in that case why did the RNLI not tow him upwind for lowering?
Click to expand...
He could heave to and then drop the main in the shaddow of the backed genoa. In many circumstances that is our preferred way to drop the main.
 
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