Yacht rescue in Mid-Atlantic

Re: underwater crowbar

What he didn't do, was ask someone to put up a post on this forum. It's a great thing to do if you have a bit of a problem.
 
Bobbing around for 34 days must be a frustrating time but, if I may be allowed some thread drift, the record has to go to a bloke I met in Luperon, Dominican Republic in March 1992.
He was travelling from South Africa to UK in a home built 45' junk rigged ketch with unstayed masts. In fact the masts had started life as fibreglass lamposts in Johannesburg and he had lost the foremast en route to Luperon.
We became quite good friends with Len during our stay in Luperon but eventually we had to continue our journey to the BVI's and he was heading directly for UK.
We completed our journey, sold the boat in BVI and returned to the rat race. I was on a business trip to South Africa when I picked up a local paper, The Star, to find an item headed "Disaster-prone sailor back on dry land".
It reported that Len had taken FIVE MONTHS to get to the UK, eventually being picked up off Barry, South Wales, after his flares were spotted. He had lost the remaining mast shortly after departure, had no engine and his steering failed irreparably en route. His speed on a good day was 1 knot with his jury rig, a blanket supported by various bits and pieces. He was, presumably, carried along on the Gulf Stream.
What a trip that must have been.
If you're reading this Len Daniels, well done!
 
I saw him in Barry Harbour but didnt get a chance to meet him unfortunately.He was spotted passing Nash point under a Tiny jury rig with a Q flag flapping in the breeze.

About the same time a guy arrived off Barry from SA in a small catamaran. He had no fuel for his outboard so I gave him a lift to a garage with some cans.

He remarked that petrol was cheap here in Britain which surprised me a bit.Then when he went to pay for it he discovered that its sold in litres these days /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
ok so
if the sterns being pushed one way couldn't you arrange
either
pull a small sail under the stern, first using weighted line to get it right under then haul the sail forwards past the rudder, that would cut most of the force / turning motion out.
or
just as Thames barges do
break a door off get it over the side to counteract the rudder

I'd certainly think about a quick swim under and round to ascertain if there were any thing causing it to jam with a line attached
but because it should be fairly well protected even though the paper says unable to fix !!! I'd go for a failure inboard option re hydraulics a worn ram suddenly jamming first or if supported re a skeg a failure there

imagine it a nice boat like that drifting !!!!! who would own it under those circumstances ?

mick
 
[ QUOTE ]
...... who would own it under those circumstances ?

mick

[/ QUOTE ]

he does, till the insurers accept a claim for total loss. then they own it.
 
Re: satfone to ybw

I dunno, with the thread drift you get around here, you would probably end up bobbing around mid atlantic with half a mast whilst the gang go off on one about the superiority of a slab reefed main over a in-mast system and if only you had not had a inferior Rocnor anchor you could have jury rigged your duvet into a spinnaker, if only you had carried a sewing machine with you like I did and had then used the number 25 guage needle... blah blah blah...
 
Re: satfone to ybw

Quite a few people on here have contacted forumites while 'in need' and received very good serious advice with no real thread drift. The focus tends to change when there is a genuine need for on the spot advice, rather than analysis of what could have been done differently
 
Re: satfone to ybw

I reckon this incident has attracted so much thought here because we all like to think we can sort these problems out. We also go through the "what would I do in that situation?" mental rehearsal because ....well it might happen to us one day.

But we can't do that properly because we don't why the rudder was jammed hard over - which is damned frustrating!

Here we have an experienced crew that tried everything they could think of for a few weeks before giving up. So certainly not faint hearted. Of course we don't know the detail but if the guy has been living on board for 8 years, done a hat full of Atlantic crossings then he knows his boat pretty well, so we should also give him the credit for trying to fix the problem.

The bottom line is we are tantalisingly short of facts on this /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I would like to learn more once the are back in the UK.
 
hove to

um, rudder over tho not hard over kerzunk whack jammed?

3 weeks hove to is quite lot of tea, altho I have been on a boat with TK and reckon I might have tried getting going again after, well, okay, probably a month of chat. But the flippin transat is all downwind gentle F4-6?

Actually, TK and I (plus swmbos of course) met a few months ago on the M3 southbound for a chinwag across all three lanes, and that was quite nice even with no rudders at all, although there was a 2-mile buildup of traffic behind us. Heyho. So, it might be that the Italian ship has in fact rather rudely interrupted this leisurely cruise and bloody press is trying to cover it up?
 
Re: satfone to ybw

Yes, and much appreciated when i was object of advice/comment.

BTW next adventure runs may-june09 W-E, then med-canaries late aug, then arc nov22 provided i don't get banned....
 
Re: satfone to ybw

Agreed.

Um, but does the boat have to be actually back in blightly (actually, in Lymington I suppose?) before these strange foreign-sounding rum goings-on can be properly investigated and resolved? Okay, I suppose they do. The warm water probably ruined the setup, and the sunshine made them go mad...
 
Re: satfone to ybw

ooh, I like the lightweight combined anchored duvet spinnaker idea, i'll try that. Hah! Only joking, I have already tried it but the sewing machine overloaded the batteries, I reefed the duvet and fouled the courtesy flag, and the lightweight weight anchor flew away taking the ensign and nav lights with it....
 
Re: underwater crowbar

Neat idea! Strongest source on board is probably the electric windlass, just a bit tricky getting the lines to it.
 
On the basis that other peeps problems are always the best to learn from I am hugely keen to know what actually happened. I have keel rudder configuration the same as this and why could he not fix it? Over the side with a spinny pole whatever....... I am sure they tried everything. I have witnessed various 'incidents' that have later been reported in the press and there is rarely any connection between the press end result and reality.

Hope someone eventually gets the whole story and tells us all.
 
happy, that both of them are safe on board of the tanker!
i have asked myself a question as the information provided from dailymail is quite not acurate:
1.the boat have drifted about 2200 nm for 40 days
2.the drift was in the area where the weather is not so bad during this time of the year (the stormy weather is usualy in north atlantic), specially during the first half of the time - commence drifting from point of about
14-15N/040W in westerly direction and from point 16N, 055W the drift was northerly and from 28N, 052W - NW-ly!
all this time , about a month and a half, do not have a chance to find an opportunity and small window of good weather, to go overboard, for about 5-10 min, just to have a look and investigate the problem from outside ? do not need to work , just to collect an info for what have happened!
hove-to, can help a lot!
nb
just from experience - when going under the boat in swell condition (do not recommend at all), hold firmly the hull or what you have handy with one hand, gaining to achive the same move of your body as the boat have due to waves! this way, can reduce the effect or impact of moving hull
anyhow an incident with lucky end ! hope one day to find reason !
 
hm, well, we just don't know.

We do know that they drifted north, and further north than 15N , and altho the carib around leewards etc is more benign (tho still solid 2.5+ m waves) further north there's bigger wind - frinstance some pilots rate Bermuda as having 8 gales in Fenruary alone, so that's a lot of sea in my book.

With bigger seas, and especially as they got weaker, any notion of going over the side -a bit flaky to start with- must have become just a non-starter.

And it must have been a bit bleedin awful - a monhul not steerable downwind very much, lots of disorientation, exhaustion etc.
 
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