RIP Nina (and her crew).

I love wooden boats, but an elderly wooden boat of traditional plank-on-frame construction would not be my choice for voyaging offshore.

About fifteen years ago, I attended a lecture by a well-known cruising couple who have authored a series of books about their ventures around the world on first a 24' wooden boat and then on a 30' wooden boat, both of which were modeled after pilot cutters and built by the husband. After the lecture, a friend told the husband of his plan to do an Atlantic circuit on a Pearson 365. The husband made a terse remark to the effect that he didn't consider a Pearson 365 to be suitable for such a venture and then walked away. My immediate reaction was that I would feel much safer offshore on a Pearson 365 than just about any plank-on-frame wooden vessel.

Now please give me a chance to take cover before the shooting begins.
 
interloper said:
I love wooden boats, but an elderly wooden boat of traditional plank-on-frame construction would not be my choice for voyaging offshore.

About fifteen years ago, I attended a lecture by a well-known cruising couple who have authored a series of books about their ventures around the world on first a 24' wooden boat and then on a 30' wooden boat, both of which were modeled after pilot cutters and built by the husband. After the lecture, a friend told the husband of his plan to do an Atlantic circuit on a Pearson 365. The husband made a terse remark to the effect that he didn't consider a Pearson 365 to be suitable for such a venture and then walked away. My immediate reaction was that I would feel much safer offshore on a Pearson 365 than just about any plank-on-frame wooden vessel.

Now please give me a chance to take cover before the shooting begins.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you were listening to the pardeys? And their Lyle Hess Bristol Channel cutters? You have to be careful about opinions of people who own those since they invariably think they're the greatest boats ever made. Quite like seajet and his Andersen 22 in fact.

As for voyaging offshore in a wooden boat, it's not more risky than setting off in a plastic one. The ones that do long voyages are not generally the knackered ones and the owners tend to know what's going on with the hull. You get dodgy plastic boats too, losing rudders seems to be a popular pastime offshore for them.

It's worth remembering that wooden boats have been crossing oceans for over a thousand years, and in the grand scheme of things far more of them made it than didn't.
 
^^

1. Regarding the Pardeys, I wasn't going to name names, but since you guessed it ...

2. Regarding the relative survival rate for wooden and plastic boats, the marinas in my area are filled with plastic boats built during the early part of the fiberglass revolution (mid-1960s through mid-1970s). Those old plastic boats just won't go away. In comparison, wooden boats built immediately prior to the fiberglass revolution are quite rare, and they were rare even twenty years ago.

3. Don't get me wrong. I love wooden boats. I think they are beautiful. I even used to subscribe to Wooden Boat magazine, and once considered buying an old deadrise workboat. I just wouldn't want my life depending on all that string stuffed into all those joints to keep the water out.
 
interloper said:
^^

1. Regarding the Pardeys, I wasn't going to name names, but since you guessed it ...

2. Regarding the relative survival rate for wooden and plastic boats, the marinas in my area are filled with plastic boats built during the early part of the fiberglass revolution (mid-1960s through mid-1970s). Those old plastic boats just won't go away. In comparison, wooden boats built immediately prior to the fiberglass revolution are quite rare, and they were rare even twenty years ago.

3. Don't get me wrong. I love wooden boats. I think they are beautiful. I even used to subscribe to Wooden Boat magazine, and once considered buying an old deadrise workboat. I just wouldn't want my life depending on all that string stuffed into all those joints to keep the water out.
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I can see your point as regards the caulking in the seams, but in real life it's not hard to keep track of what is going on there and it needs to be a rather catastrophic failure for a flaw in the caulking to actually sink a boat.

I also get your point about the myriad of old fibreglass boats, but if neglected they become just as unseaworthy as any other boat.

Quite what went wrong with the Nina I doubt we'll ever know. But as said already, since they had a satphone and epirb on board what ever happened, happened very quickly. I'm personally wondering if there's any chance they were run down because other than being rolled over I can't think of another scenario that would overwhelm a boat like that quite so fast.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/04/world/asia/new-zealand-missing-u-s-sailboat/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Last text message from missing boat says sails shredded
By Ed Payne, CNN
updated 7:19 AM EDT, Thu July 4, 2013

(CNN) -- There was a dash of hope and a dose of disappointment in the search for an American family and their friends lost at sea for the past month.
New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Centre released an undelivered text message found in the satellite phone system used by the schooner Nina. It's the last known message sent from the ship.

The message sent on June 4, but never delivered, reads: "THANKS STORM SAILS SHREDDED LAST NIGHT, NOW BARE POLES. GOINING 4KT 310DEG WILL UPDATE COURSE INFO @ 6PM."

The transmission is important because it gives search teams the approximate location and actual time of the last transmission, said Nigel Clifford, Maritime New Zealand's general manager safety and response services. Information can be used to help rescue teams plot search areas.

The message was found in the system of the satellite phone provider, Iridium.

...

"Records show that conditions at the last known position for the vessel, on 4 June, were very rough," Maritime New Zealand said. Winds of 50 mph with gusts of 70 mph had to have battered the 70-foot sailboat, while 26-foot waves tossed it around.

...

The search from the air began, and it continues.

"While we have grave concerns for the crew on board Nina, we have not given up hope of finding survivors," mission controller Neville Blakemore said.

...
 
The sails were shredded ..... i.e. the yacht is bare poled. The comment by Maritime New Zealand seems to be a little naive re the battering a yacht would take when it is either running before, or more likely hove-to in these conditions ..... and yes you can hove-to without sails.

There is a lot of talk about the loss of comms. I understand that the Iridium phone would have had to be used out on deck. If this is the case then in all likelihood it got damaged in those conditions. What would cause that message to be undelivered? How reliable are Iridium comms when the unit is operating correctly but in bad weather in this area?

There is still hope.
 
http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2013-07-08#Story6

...

Based on an hour aboard Niña, dinner with the couple, and another meeting, Tompkins said it was clear that both David and Rosemary had "totally embraced the schooner." But to his very critical eye, the schooner looked "a bit rundown" and "like an old boat that was struggling to be kept going." We asked him for specifics. "I noticed that a couple of the turnbuckles were slightly deformed. These were very large bronze turnbuckles that might have been the first the Merriman Brothers ever made. They needed to be replaced. David also explained to me that they had rebuilt the foundation of the forward mast — without unstepping it. I don't see how that could be done properly without unstepping the mast. Thirdly, he told me that they had sheathed the entire hull, and I believe the keel, in a quarter inch of fiberglass. 'That's what enabled us to do this trip,' he told me. That suggests to me that the underlying 86-year-old hull was not in the best condition."

We asked Commodore to speculate on what might have gone wrong on the schooner.

"The first thing that occurs to me is that there was still something wrong with the base of the foremast, and that under the tremendous compression of heavy weather, it opened up the garboards. That would sink the boat in a hurry. The second thought is that maybe one of the deformed turnbuckles had failed, causing the big aluminum main mast to fall, fill with water and, still attached to the boat, ram a big hole in the hull. Or the butt could smash a large hole in the hull. A distant third possibility is that some of the fiberglass sheathing no longer adhered to the hull and led to some kind of hull failure."

...

The biggest mystery to us is why no EPIRB signal has been received. It suggests three possibilities: 1) There was some failure so catastrophic that nobody had time to get to the EPIRB, which had to be manually activated; 2) the EPIRB went down with the vessel so quickly that there was no time for the signal to get out; 3) the EPIRB battery was dead and/or there was some other problem with the EPIRB.

...
 
They may well be still afloat dismasted with a low radar & thermal signature, or in a dinghy / liferaft, remember such cases as Maurice & Marilyn Bailey, ' 117 Days Adrift ' as well as Once is Enough ' by Miles and Beryl Smeeton whose 47' boat was pitchpoled trying to round Cape Horn, after repairs they tried it again and got rolled.

It must be said they were a pretty unique indomitable couple ( their life story ' High Endeavours ' is a fascinating read, I have no connection ) but the fact remains they made it to port safely if slowly with jury rig and repairs.

It sounds like a dinghy or liferaft might be the crew of Nina's best bet, and remember Captain Bligh sailed across the ocean when set adrift in a small overloaded open boat.

Best Wishes to Nina and her crew.
 
Seajet said:
Once is Enough ' by Miles and Beryl Smeeton whose 47' boat was pitchpoled trying to round Cape Horn, after repairs they tried it again and got rolled.
Click to expand...

Not that it much matters, but in both instances they were quite some distance from Cape Horn, around 500 miles NW of the W end of the Magellan Straight. (Which didn't make it any less of an adventure.)
 
interloper said:
http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2013-07-08#Story6

...

Based on an hour aboard Niña, dinner with the couple, and another meeting, Tompkins said it was clear that both David and Rosemary had "totally embraced the schooner." But to his very critical eye, the schooner looked "a bit rundown" and "like an old boat that was struggling to be kept going." We asked him for specifics. "I noticed that a couple of the turnbuckles were slightly deformed. These were very large bronze turnbuckles that might have been the first the Merriman Brothers ever made. They needed to be replaced. David also explained to me that they had rebuilt the foundation of the forward mast — without unstepping it. I don't see how that could be done properly without unstepping the mast. Thirdly, he told me that they had sheathed the entire hull, and I believe the keel, in a quarter inch of fiberglass. 'That's what enabled us to do this trip,' he told me. That suggests to me that the underlying 86-year-old hull was not in the best condition."

...
Click to expand...

I have owned wooden boats for forty years, and crossed oceans in them.

If that account is even halfway correct, she was a deathtrap.
 
Minn said:
I have owned wooden boats for forty years, and crossed oceans in them.

If that account is even halfway correct, she was a deathtrap.
Click to expand...

The fibreglass sheathing is interesting. Very few people would do such a thing to a sound carval hull. But if it was done properly it should rule out scenarios such as the garboards being forced open or the caulking giving up.

The suggestion that they rebuilt the mast step with the mast still in place is disturbing though and the whole description doesn't make for a boat that I'd take anywhere near the southern ocean.
 
macd said:
Not that it much matters, but in both instances they were quite some distance from Cape Horn, around 500 miles NW of the W end of the Magellan Straight. (Which didn't make it any less of an adventure.)
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macd,

I prefer to stay on the Hampshire side of Cape Horn !

I plan to round it one day and get the tattoe / ear ring ( though I don't really fancy either ).

Agree with what's been said about old wooden boats - lots of joins working in big seas - but we should also remember the tales of survival in grp tenders and liferafts, such as ' 117 Days Adrift ' and ' Survive The Savage Sea '.

Fingers crossed,

andy
 
burgundyben said:
Very sad.

Did you read the MAIB report on the loss of the Isle of Purbeck? Many similarities I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

Apart from that it is possible that both boats sank, and there was no EPIRB distress call, and both boats were made of wood and floating in sea water, there are no similarities!

I don't know the condition of Nina before she sank, nor I suspect are the people that are claiming that the Nina was 'unseaworthy' are qualified to make such an assertion. The Nina is currently lost. She may remain so. But unless evidence is found on how she met her end, if indeed she is no longer floating or washed up on a shore or reef, the speculation is just that.

As for the Isle of Purbeck, she was in poor condition. The surveys should have stated this and not have allowed a recent paint job to prevent invasive survey techniques. The surveyor owes it to themselves, the insurance companies, and to the crew to be thorough and professional.

It must be a priority for any seaman and the responsibility of any captain to ensure that the vessel in which they go to sea is structurally sound, correctly loaded, and properly equipped.
 
TradewindSailor said:
I don't know the condition of Nina before she sank, nor I suspect are the people that are claiming that the Nina was 'unseaworthy' are qualified to make such an assertion.
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I take this to be a reference to my post no 33 above. I did not use the word "unseaworthy" and neither did the reference I cited. I did make it clear that IF those statements were correct, then she was a deathtrap. However, you will no doubt have noticed that the man who made the original comments is Warwick Tompkins Jr, the son of Warwick Tompkins. I would think that it is rather brave of you to call such a man "unqualified", but that's up to you.

TradewindSailor said:
As for the Isle of Purbeck, she was in poor condition. The surveys should have stated this and not have allowed a recent paint job to prevent invasive survey techniques. The surveyor owes it to themselves, the insurance companies, and to the crew to be thorough and professional.
Click to expand...

That is easy to write and more difficult to do. The "Purbeck Isle" was built in the early Sixties by Hinks; not exactly rubbish boatbuilders. The "Nina" was built in 1927, I believe, and, pertinently, she had an "advanced" offshore racer's hull form, by 1920's standards, with wineglass sections and a big lump of lead on the bottom. It's instructive to turn up pp 55-60 of Uffa Fox's "Sailing Seamanship and Yacht Construction" which has her lines and GA in reduced scale. The foremast is very far forward and stepped on the apron.

TradewindSailor said:
It must be a priority for any seaman and the responsibility of any captain to ensure that the vessel in which they go to sea is structurally sound, correctly loaded, and properly equipped.
Click to expand...

I rather think that is the OWNER's responsibility... and the law has been pretty clear on that since the days of Samuel Plimsoll. To place that burden on the Master is utterly unacceptable, for reasons that should surely be obvious.
 
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I find the fiberglass sheathing disturbing.If not properly done it'll lead to rotting of the hull and loss of integrity.Tabarly did it to Pen Duick I on two occasions and in the end it became a second hull outside the wooden original one.The boat is still going strong but the sheathing is much thicker than that on Nina.Let's hope they're still there drifting but the absence of an epirb signal is not encouraging.
 
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