Rescue off galicia

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Wansworth

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Five men rescued by Galician star helicopter as their boat founders in mountainous seas and strong winds,from the Telly looks like a normal grp single masted cruiser with sail shot to rib bands,anyway all safe in Coruna
 
Seven Spades said:
Is there an explanation of why their boat is sinking?
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No reason given in the rescue blurb, but lying beam-on like that might suggest loss of steerage? Main sail looks shredded, maybe as a consequence. Wind 65kn it says, so not easy to leave the cockpit except on hands and knees!
 
Heading back under own power with crew back on board - wonder what the problem was, unles they felt it prudent to bale out? Seas like that with help at hand cannot really blame them.
 
We were a bit further up the Bay of Biscay in S Brittany. Winds were forecast as up to 65mph Force 10 further out at sea and F8 just offshore so we stayed in port and waited for it to blow over.

Three Breton lifeboatmen were drowned in assisting a French fishing boat. Not nice weather at all
 
You wonder why they felt they had to leave the boat in the first place. It obviously wasn't damaged (except for the sails). If the boat was seaworthy then why leave, and why risk the lives of the rescue crew (in the helicopter)
 
Many have done that in the past - close the hatches, lie on the floor and wait it out. Last thing you would do is leave a boat that's still floating and seaworthy. Anyway we're all different and take different decisions.

GHA said:
Lying beam on to breaking seas like that?
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kof said:
Many have done that in the past - close the hatches, lie on the floor and wait it out. Last thing you would do is leave a boat that's still floating and seaworthy. Anyway we're all different and take different decisions.
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Have you any direct knowledge of the circumstances of abandonment or is this just sofa speak?
 
Two things that come to my mind:

  1. "The boat was well equipped" - Why no sea anchor or drogue deployed?
  2. How did they get back to the boat and board?
Does anyone know?

and an observation - In the video from the helicopter, it looked like someone onboard the yacht was using a laser flare.
 
As a sofa hero, I was also wondering whether abandoning was the right thing to do. I've always been taught that you "step up into your liferaft", something I hope never to have to do. Looking back to that Fastnet, the majority (all?) of casualties abandoned vessels that were subsequently found afloat.

Watching that guy being picked up from the water set me thinking. That's a bad place to be for any length of time. Was he instructed to go in the water to be picked up more easily? Also, did they abandon under instruction from the rescue team when the helicopter was in sight so the mast didn't get in the way?
 
LadyInBed said:
Two things that come to my mind:

  1. "The boat was well equipped" - Why no sea anchor or drogue deployed?
    .
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  1. They clearly were unable to hove to so I imagine they either had no storm trysail and just relied on heavily reefed mainsail which proved inadequate, or by the time the mainsail shredded it was too dangerous to go on deck to try and set a stormsail. I have never tried setting a drogue in bad weather but I understand its not for the faint hearted. The optimum would be from the bows to hold her head to sea but I wouldn't want to be on the foredeck in such weather. I note the laser flare which seems good for helicopter guidance if not so useful in summoning aid.

    Well equipped boats come to grief due to exhausted crews all the time. I think we should not criticise the crews decision to abandon. Lin and Larry Pardey have successfully sat out storms mid Pacific by retreating below but they had little choice and others may not have been so fortunate.
 
Stemar said:
As a sofa hero, I was also wondering whether abandoning was the right thing to do. I've always been taught that you "step up into your liferaft",
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On thing to bear in mind is that beam on to large breaking waves is a very dangerous place to be...

Waves shown on the video stated to be 4m - 6m. Bav 40 has beam about 4m so 4.8m breaking wave could capsize it.

These studies showed that in beam seas, the location of the vessel relative to the breaking position of the wave is critical. If the vessel is caught in the curl of a plunging breaker, or in the secondary wave created by the jet impact of the plunger, capsize is possible in waves as small as 1.2 times the beam of the vessel.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281444357_JohnsonRoguePaperUS

Another study >
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/43259/1/015.pdf

Hopefully will never to deploy the jordan series drogue onboard but nice to know it's there.... :)
 
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