Tragic accidents... all the skippers fault?

[Nostrodamus]

It seems to me that most fatalities in the boating world seem to happen when the skipper makes a wrong decision.
It often involves heavy weather and a boat trying to get into a sheltered marina.
I don't know any statistics but I wonder how many fatalities happen when a boat just sits a bad storm out at sea?
It seems to be rare for a boat to fail to the point of sinking or even to the point of having to deploy life-rafts.
Yes, sitting it out it really bad weather can be complete hell but the chances are you will get a few rounds bought you talking about it afterwards.
I may be wrong but that is how it seems.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Yes often stated as best course of action in Yachting and Sailng books by many authors.

but

Did not a boat (replica poss) suffer badly over in the West Atlantic recently, skipper was lost at sea I recall, by choosing to ride out a storm/ hurrican instead of avoiding it??

 

[Nostrodamus]

Yes often stated as best course of action in Yachting and Sailng books by many authors.

but

Did not a boat (replica poss) suffer badly over in the West Atlantic recently, skipper was lost at sea I recall, by choosing to ride out a storm/ hurrican instead of avoiding it??

I am not aware of this but did the boat survive and if the skipper had been curled up below would the boat have kept him safe?

 

[Deleted member 36384]

It was a replica of HMS Endeavour, the boat that Captain Cook sailed. She was sinking because the pumps could not keep out the water from the worked plank seams. It has been alleged that she was quiet rotten in places and that that exposure to such stress would not have been a good idea. The vessel was sinking and the captain eventually had to abandon her. Pictures from the US Coastguard show her decks below sea level, partially capsized, masts broken and waves breaking over her. From the pictures it doesn't look as if staying onboard was a choice — it would be a desperate act compared to taking to the water in a life raft or survival suit. If one needs to remain at sea, the boat needs to be capable of maintaining integrity in survival type conditions. I think many leisure yachts may be compromised and many coded yachts may not be as good as the coding implies they should.

Are decisions by skippers the cause of crew fatalities? Perhaps in most cases, on hindsight a different decision would have had a different outcome. It can be easy for a leader to become trapped on the need to deliver an objective (reaching a safe refuge), where stopping, stepping back and reassessing would be a better option (conclusion to stay at sea). It's this ability to stop and be prepared to change ones mind and do something else that makes a good skipper. What makes a great skipper is one that can do this in a quite manner that doesn't involve the crew developing a presumption that the skipper can't make his mind up.

 

[onesea]

I think I am old fashioned on this one.

Everything that happens on a boat is the skippers responsibility. I make that very clear to crew, if it goes wrong its my fault.

If I am leaving them on watch or giving them a responsibility, I am trusting them to do the job and if it goes wrong it is my fault (not there's). It is the nature of boats you cannot manage a tight situation when things are not going to plan by committee you need a leader.

A good skipper as has been said will listen to there crew and learn and adapt with/ from them.

So yes IMHO tragic accidents are the skippers fault, foreseeable or not.

If it is correct that they are sued or have criminal proceedings brought in the event something goes wrong is a different debate.

 

[savageseadog]

I think I am old fashioned on this one.

Everything that happens on a boat is the skippers responsibility. I make that very clear to crew, if it goes wrong its my fault.

If I am leaving them on watch or giving them a responsibility, I am trusting them to do the job and if it goes wrong it is my fault (not there's). It is the nature of boats you cannot manage a tight situation when things are not going to plan by committee you need a leader.

A good skipper as has been said will listen to there crew and learn and adapt with/ from them.

So yes IMHO tragic accidents are the skippers fault, foreseeable or not.

If it is correct that they are sued or have criminal proceedings brought in the event something goes wrong is a different debate.

It's not always possible to know what the correct action is. A skipper might make hundreds of correct decisions and one day he'll make a wrong one, but that wrong decision may have been the correct one on balance at the time it was made. Things will happen at sea, it's as simple as that.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Thank you BlowingOldBoots for providing the info; It was the accident that I recalled.

I know its age related, but from my experience the Yachting and Sailing books that I refered to were written when boats had long keels, poss drew deep water under them, and so were regarded as Seaworthy craft.

 

[macd]

It's not always possible to know what the correct action is. A skipper might make hundreds of correct decisions and one day he'll make a wrong one, but that wrong decision may have been the correct one on balance at the time it was made. Things will happen at sea, it's as simple as that.

Quite agree. It seems increasingly a part of western culture to assume that because something went wrong, someone must have been to blame. Yet sh*t happens even to the best-laid plans.

Even if loss, injury or fatality follows the skipper's actions or those of his/her crew, that is not per se proof of fault. Other decisions could have resulted in the same, or worse, but those courses, in the nature of things, were not tested. All this assuming that the skipper has exercised due prudence in terms of pilotage, checking weather, briefing crew, etc.

 

[Tony Cross]

We were moored in Agios Nikolaos on Zakinthos (where there is a terrible surge in northwesterlies by the way) back in 2006 and out at sea we could all see a wall of black cloud heading our way. Everyone shut hatches, secured dinghies, loose stuff on deck etc. and waited for the storm to hit. A minute or so before it hit we saw a large yacht racing to get into port before the storm hit. At the last minute we saw him turn and head out to sea. The storm was short-lived (15 minutes or so) but severe, 50-knot winds, lashing rain, water pouring off the quay in great waterfalls, that sort of thing. As the storm cleared away everyone looked out to sea wondering what had become of the yacht. And then we saw them slowly making their way into the now relatively calm port. The crew were all in full foul-weather gear (this was August in the Ionian!) and life-jackets. Everyone (and I mean everyone) got off their boats to help them moor and they got a spontaneous round of applause from all of us. Absolutely the right call.

 

[Sinnot]

We were moored in Agios Nikolaos on Zakinthos (where there is a terrible surge in northwesterlies by the way) back in 2006 and out at sea we could all see a wall of black cloud heading our way. Everyone shut hatches, secured dinghies, loose stuff on deck etc. and waited for the storm to hit. A minute or so before it hit we saw a large yacht racing to get into port before the storm hit. At the last minute we saw him turn and head out to sea. The storm was short-lived (15 minutes or so) but severe, 50-knot winds, lashing rain, water pouring off the quay in great waterfalls, that sort of thing. As the storm cleared away everyone looked out to sea wondering what had become of the yacht. And then we saw them slowly making their way into the now relatively calm port. The crew were all in full foul-weather gear (this was August in the Ionian!) and life-jackets. Everyone (and I mean everyone) got off their boats to help them moor and they got a spontaneous round of applause from all of us. Absolutely the right call.

Wow, tough call to make. To be almost in port and to decide to go out into a storm not knowing how long its going to last. I'm guessing that guy had a lot of beers bought for him later that night...

 

[Deleted member 36384]

.... Yet sh*t happens even to the best-laid plans....

Having investigated many, many incidents and read many more incident investigation reports, it is extremely rare that the cause of fatalities is down to bad luck/stuff just happens. It is remarkably common that somewhere in the chain of events which lead to a fatality (or even just pranging ones yacht against the quay) a human being has done something or made a wrong decision.

There are two relatively common underlying trends in fatalities: meeting a dead line becomes the overriding objective and accepting inefficiency in a process e.g. I'll fix it one day/can live with it/don't know but it will be all right. It is rare that sh*t just happens e.g. being struck by a meteorite.

 

[Sybarite]

It seems to me that most fatalities in the boating world seem to happen when the skipper makes a wrong decision.
It often involves heavy weather and a boat trying to get into a sheltered marina.
I don't know any statistics but I wonder how many fatalities happen when a boat just sits a bad storm out at sea?
It seems to be rare for a boat to fail to the point of sinking or even to the point of having to deploy life-rafts.
Yes, sitting it out it really bad weather can be complete hell but the chances are you will get a few rounds bought you talking about it afterwards.
I may be wrong but that is how it seems.

"When in doubt, stay out."

 

[macd]

Having investigated many, many incidents and read many more incident investigation reports, it is extremely rare that the cause of fatalities is down to bad luck/stuff just happens.

Quite. Rare is not the same as non-existent.
Much the same applies with air disasters. The most common cause, as I understand it, is pilot error. But that does not warrant an a priori assumption in any investigation that pilot error is to blame.

 

[Grumpybear]

It was a replica of HMS Endeavour, the boat that Captain Cook sailed. She was sinking because the pumps could not keep out the water from the worked plank seams. It has been alleged that she was quiet rotten in places and that that exposure to such stress would not have been a good idea. The vessel was sinking and the captain eventually had to abandon her. Pictures from the US Coastguard show her decks below sea level, partially capsized, masts broken and waves breaking over her. From the pictures it doesn't look as if staying onboard was a choice — it would be a desperate act compared to taking to the water in a life raft or survival suit. If one needs to remain at sea, the boat needs to be capable of maintaining integrity in survival type conditions. I think many leisure yachts may be compromised and many coded yachts may not be as good as the coding implies they should.

Are decisions by skippers the cause of crew fatalities? Perhaps in most cases, on hindsight a different decision would have had a different outcome. It can be easy for a leader to become trapped on the need to deliver an objective (reaching a safe refuge), where stopping, stepping back and reassessing would be a better option (conclusion to stay at sea). It's this ability to stop and be prepared to change ones mind and do something else that makes a good skipper. What makes a great skipper is one that can do this in a quite manner that doesn't involve the crew developing a presumption that the skipper can't make his mind up.

Was it not a replica of the Bounty?

If so, the argument is altered by the captain having apparently deliberately decided to leave port in the face of a bad forecast: not quite the same thing as being caught out at sea. I believ there is quite a long thread about this tragedy.

 

[gasdave]

.... it is extremely rare that the cause of fatalities is down to bad luck/stuff just happens. It is remarkably common that somewhere in the chain of events which lead to a fatality (or even just pranging ones yacht against the quay) a human being has done something or made a wrong decision.

Much has been written in the past few decades about the origin and science of errors - which does not include the study of apparent bad luck, or stuff just happening. The former are relatively common, the latter are extremely rare "acts of God" type events.

Accident analysis almost always reveals a chain of events, most of which can be categorised as either active failures (of comission or omission), or latent failures (in our system processes or environment) waiting to expose an opportunity. Eventually the required circumstances are met and an incident results. On most days perhaps none or only one or two of these individual factors are in play and we "get away with it". But sometimes all of the contributing factors are primed for whatever reason and the usual barriers of prevention are breached, leading to accidents. This is Reason's Swiss cheese model of accident aetiology - the holes all line up.

What we as individuals are able to control will vary between us and on different days. Some of the latent failures we may be able to correct (e.g. not accepting that doubtful standing rigging which we have known about for ages but kept putting off). How much resilience we build into our boats or plans is up to us. But ultimately there are probably not many occasions where only bad luck (what is luck anyway?) contributes to accidents at sea, e.g. a lightening strike, a breaching whale landing on the deck.

What I do believe is important however is to be extremely cautious about aportioning blame as blame in itself is rarely constructive. We ought to focus on the analysis in order to learn. It has already been pointed out very sensibly that in the worst accidents the non-chosen options may not have been any better, or even may have been worse. This fact on its own pretty much excludes the possibility of blame as an option and the best outcome to be derived is simply an explanation and an opportunity to identify and avoid the same sequence of events happening again.

 

[Uricanejack]

It was a replica of HMS Endeavour, the boat that Captain Cook sailed. She was sinking because the pumps could not keep out the water from the worked plank seams. It has been alleged that she was quiet rotten in places and that that exposure to such stress would not have been a good idea. The vessel was sinking and the captain eventually had to abandon her. Pictures from the US Coastguard show her decks below sea level, partially capsized, masts broken and waves breaking over her. From the pictures it doesn't look as if staying onboard was a choice — it would be a desperate act compared to taking to the water in a life raft or survival suit. If one needs to remain at sea, the boat needs to be capable of maintaining integrity in survival type conditions. I think many leisure yachts may be compromised and many coded yachts may not be as good as the coding implies they should.

Are decisions by skippers the cause of crew fatalities? Perhaps in most cases, on hindsight a different decision would have had a different outcome. It can be easy for a leader to become trapped on the need to deliver an objective (reaching a safe refuge), where stopping, stepping back and reassessing would be a better option (conclusion to stay at sea). It's this ability to stop and be prepared to change ones mind and do something else that makes a good skipper. What makes a great skipper is one that can do this in a quite manner that doesn't involve the crew developing a presumption that the skipper can't make his mind up.

I believe it was the replica of the "Bounty"

 

[TQA]

It was a replica of HMS Endeavour, the boat that Captain Cook sailed. She was sinking because the pumps could not keep out the water from the worked plank seams. It has been alleged that she was quiet rotten in places and that that exposure to such stress would not have been a good idea. The vessel was sinking and the captain eventually had to abandon her. Pictures from the US Coastguard show her decks below sea level, partially capsized, masts broken and waves breaking over her. From the pictures it doesn't look as if staying onboard was a choice — it would be a desperate act compared to taking to the water in a life raft or survival suit. If one needs to remain at sea, the boat needs to be capable of maintaining integrity in survival type conditions. I think many leisure yachts may be compromised and many coded yachts may not be as good as the coding implies they should.

Are decisions by skippers the cause of crew fatalities? Perhaps in most cases, on hindsight a different decision would have had a different outcome. It can be easy for a leader to become trapped on the need to deliver an objective (reaching a safe refuge), where stopping, stepping back and reassessing would be a better option (conclusion to stay at sea). It's this ability to stop and be prepared to change ones mind and do something else that makes a good skipper. What makes a great skipper is one that can do this in a quite manner that doesn't involve the crew developing a presumption that the skipper can't make his mind up.

Do you mean the Bounty, a wooden ship built for a Marlon Brando film in the 1960s which sank off the coast of North Carolina after the capatain LEFT port and headed out into hurricane Sandy. The captain and one crew were lost.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I believe it was the replica of the "Bounty"

Do you mean the Bounty,....

Yep, thats the one, thanks. I am half way through "Voyages of a Simple Sailor", Roger D Taylor and if my befuddled brain is correct he gets wrecked in a replica of Endeavour.

 

[blackbeard]

Yep, thats the one, thanks. I am half way through "Voyages of a Simple Sailor", Roger D Taylor and if my befuddled brain is correct he gets wrecked in a replica of Endeavour.

Yes, that's right. I had the pleasure of listening to a talk by Roger and his account was quite terrifying! The immediate cause of the wreck was a common one for square-rigged sailing vessels in the days of sail, being caught in a bay with an onshore wind so strong that it was impossible to make to windward. It was compounded by very poor visibility so that the vessel could not know exactly where she was (this was WAY pre-GPS). The vessel could only sail in a series of tacks, each one bringing her closer to shore, presumably hoping for a wind shift that never came, until she struck land. But the reason the vessel was in this position was a deadline for arriving in a port, which caused the captain to sail too close to land in deteriorating weather (against the advice of the Mate). But you may argue whether the wreck was due to an error by the captain, or by an owner (not on board) or sponsor (presumably knowing little of sailing vessels) who set the deadline, or due to foul weather.

Let him who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone. I know I have, on occasion, been is situations I shouldn't have been; without serious consequences (so far) ...

 

[Nostrodamus]

so, it would appear there are very few instances of fatality where the boat gave out rather than the crew. So in most cases just huddling in a saloon and praying to ones god may save your life more than actually trying to do something?