Those of you who don’t follow the British sailing comics may have missed the Crash Test Boat series of articles that ran in Yachting Monthly a few years back. It was a brilliant premise, cooked up by then-editor Paul Gelder: lay hands on an average plain-vanilla cruising boat and test it to death, carefully documenting everything that does and does not work when coping with various simulated emergencies. Over a period of eight months, YM systematically “tested to destruction” a 1982 Jeanneau Sun Fizz ketch and created an extremely useful series of articles and videos. All that material is now available in one book, appropriately titled The Crash Test Boat, published by Adlard Coles.

In all the book covers eight carefully crafted simulations: running aground, capsizing, a dismasting, creating a jury rig, sinking (hull breach), major leaks (failed seacock or through-hull fitting), fire onboard, and a propane explosion. The last, inevitably, wasn’t really a simulation. They actually did blow up the boat (see photo up top), sort of like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, as a magnificent denouement to Paul’s career as a yachting journalist and editor.

It’s impossible to summarize all the useful information in this book, so you really do have to buy it. The lay-out is very succinct and user-friendly, with lots of useful photos and well thought out conclusions and recommendations on how to prepare for and cope with each emergency situation. There are even QR codes prominently displayed for each chapter, so you can quickly access the relevant videos online.

My advice would be to read the book closely, study the videos, make your own conclusions about what information is useful to you, equip your boat accordingly, then keep your copy of the book onboard your boat.

The dismasting. The book includes detailed tests and recommendations on what tools work best to clear the rig

Fire onboard! Find out what extinguishers work best for what sort of fires

High and dry. Tips on how to get off again and how to survive the ordeal if you don’t

Rolled in a capsize. There are very simple things you can do to minimize the damage

Paul Gelder admires the aftermath of the propane explosion

The section on major leaks give a good sense of how creative the YM team was in testing different solutions to different problems. In addition to trying to stem the leaks they created with various commercial products–the proverbial soft wood plugs we all wire to our through-hulls, Forespar’s Truplug synthetic bung, etc.–they also tried potatoes and carrots, which worked pretty darned well.

Each section also contains “real-life story” anecdotal accounts of actual emergencies and how they were resolved, so you can compare simulated experience to the real thing.

The Crash Test Boat (2013, Adlard Coles Nautical); Forward by Mike Golding; Edited by Paul Gelder; 176 pp.

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: Loyal WaveTrain riders hopefully noticed that the site was down for a while a couple of days ago. This was because we’re in the middle of redesigning it. Hopefully the new version will get launched this week!

While dropping in occasionally at Maine Yacht Center over the winter to keep tabs on my own boat, I always had half an eyeball on Rich Wilson’s new IMOCA Open 60, Great American IV (ex-Mirabaud), which was undergoing a refit for Wilson’s 2016 Vendee Globe bid. Recently, MYC general manager Brian Harris (see photo up top) gave me a nickel tour and told me about all the work they’d done.

I gather, as big race-boat refits go, this was a relatively modest one. Here’s the run-down:

Complete electrical refit, including all power storage and generating systems and all new wiring throughout the boat. Two new 200AH Genasun lithium-ion batteries were installed. These are nourished by two newly refurbished Watt & Sea hydro-generators with brand new controllers, by four new 50-watt Solbian flexible solar panels, and by a new 300-amp water-cooled direct-drive (no belt or bracket) Nanni engine alternator with a new water-cooled regulator. Wiring for a wind-generator to be mounted later was also installed.

All new spaghetti everywhere. This is the back of the nav station, showing only some of the new wiring that was installed

The heart of the new electrical system. These two lithium-ion batteries weigh almost nothing, take up little space, and together form a 400AH house bank

That blue thing stuck between the saildrive transmission and the main body of the engine is the direct-drive alternator. This was a new one on me. You can see the plumbing for the water-cooling, which helps keep this puppy super-efficient, as alternators really hate heat. Rated at 300 amps, it actually puts out almost that much in real life, so Brian tells me, which means you can crank up the batteries from almost nothing in a little over an hour!

The alternator’s brain, a new Iskra regulator, is also water-cooled

New navigation station and galley module. To make the boat more comfortable and habitable for Wilson, an older sailor who will often be communicating with shore and creating educational content to send to his Sites Alive Foundation, a new larger nav desk was designed and built from Corecell foam, E-glass, and epoxy resin. A more substantial galley with a fixed sink, a dedicated stove mount, and dedicated storage areas was also built and installed, and the cabin layout was altered to create an area with standing headroom by the companionway.

The new nav station with a gimballed combination bench-seat/berth. The molded seat back is removable

The new galley module. It may not look like much, but on an Open 60 this is considered super deluxe

All major sailing foils serviced. The moveable canting keel and daggerboards were all removed so the keel bearing and daggerboard cassette bearings could be serviced. The bearings on the twin rudders were also serviced.

The canting keel, minus the hull

Running rigging modifications. One set of mast deflectors was removed from the existing running backstays and an additional set of backstays was installed to make the backstays overall easier to handle and more secure. Sheet leads were relocated and a symmetrical continuous-line in-hauler was installed on the jib trim rings (allowing adjustments to lead angles to be made on both sides of the boat simultaneously). Various rope clutches were also relocated.

On most Open 60s there’s just one running back on each side, with “deflectors” that pull it in against the mast at different locations so that it can back up different headsails on different forward stays. Rich wanted an extra backstay on each side, with fewer deflectors. This is heavier and creates more windage, but is more secure and easier to handle

The new continuous-line in-hauler (left of the trim ring in this photo) resets lead angles on both sides of the boat, so you don’t have to worry about what happens after you tack

Deck modifications. To improve security on deck the lifeline height was increased and the number of lifelines was increased from two to three. This necessitated the installation of all new stanchion posts and the fabrication and installation of new bow and aft pulpits. New cabintop handrails were also installed. The boat’s tiller was modified from a cumbersome yoke configuration to a simpler single inline tiller. All Harken winches and the winch pedestal were also serviced.

Higher lifelines and more of them. Again, its heavier this way, but safer

New handrails along the house make it much easier to move safely between the cockpit and deck

A one-stick tiller. It’s simpler and takes up less space

Electronics upgrades. New navigation electronics, new computers, and a new data network were installed. A new remote video system was designed and installed, with two exterior and one interior remote cameras. New processors were installed for the B&G autopilots, and a new Iridium satellite phone system was also installed.

New watermakers. A new reverse-osmosis watermaking system was installed.

Next I’m hoping to get to actually go for a sail on this thing. Brian keeps mentioning it; I just hope it happens for real!

Sailors of a certain age will remember seeing this B-movie title in TV listings for certain low-budget UHF stations back in the day: I Sailed To Tahiti With an All-Girl Crew. I certainly remember it, and I’ve used the title as a throw-away line most of my life, but I don’t think I ever actually sat through the whole movie. Quite recently I learned there was a real person and a real story that inspired the making of that film, and (as is so often the case) the real story is actually much more interesting than the one Hollywood told. This concerns a professional steeplejack, Lee Quinn (see photo up top), who had a strong adventurous streak and sort of inevitably fell into the sport of ocean sailing starting in the 1950s.

Google around a bit and you’ll see there’s not much available online about Quinn–just a few old news clippings and some stray archive pix. The only full-length coherent narrative of his life is found in the pages of a self-published autobiography, Above and Beyond: The Simple Life, written by his ex-wife, Mary Ann Quinn. She, too, was a steeplejack, probably the first woman ever to take it up professionally, and shared many of Lee’s adventures.

If you google the movie title, you’ll get many more hits, but not much substantive information.

The film was released in 1968 and evidently was popular in drive-in theaters, presumably because what people did mostly in drive-ins was make out. The story line was pretty thin–two yachtsmen get into argument about who’s a better sailor, and one of them bets the other $20,000 (which was quite a lot of money in those days) that he can beat him in a race to Tahiti, even with the handicap of taking on an all-girl crew. There are a few plot twists, of course, one of which involves one of the female crew being wanted for murder, as referenced in this YouTube clip.

If you want to actually watch the whole film, you can buy what I’m guessing is a bootleg DVD cheap on eBay, though I think your money would be much better invested in a copy of Mary Ann’s book.

Lee and Mary Ann working a job in Honolulu in 1958

Lee and Mary Ann got married in 1946, soon fell into the steeplejack business as a team, and in their spare time had wild adventures together. They bicycled and motorcycled around Europe together, hitchhiked across North Africa, hopped a freighter across the Med (on which Mary Ann almost got raped), took up flying, and crashed a plane into the palace of dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Seriously, the list goes on and on. These two were big-time adrenalin junkies.

In 1952, Lee got it into his head that they should take up sailing. He talked Mary Ann into buying a 30-foot sloop, Flamingo, that almost immediately was destroyed by a tsunami raised by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake. Lee was still determined to go sailing, however, so he at once built himself a 16-foot catamaran out of plywood and set out to sail it solo down the coast of Baja California.

Lee test-sails his homemade cat at Long Beach

He got caught in some very fierce weather, almost lost the cat, but was saved by a fishing boat that simply hoisted him and the boat right on to their deck.

Lee got distracted by flying for a while, but soon enough came back to sailing and in 1961 bought a 45-foot ketch in Sausalito that he appropriately named Neophyte, as testament to his status as a sailor. On an early shakedown sail with Mary Ann, they nearly lost the boat when they were almost run down by a freighter near Point Conception.

Neophyte under sail

Mary Ann at the helm

Lee was not daunted by this and immediately started making plans to sail Neophyte around the world. Mary Ann wasn’t interested in that little adventure, as she was starting to get into competitive surfing, so Lee determined he’d simply go alone. Mary Ann objected to this, insisting he had to have a crew, and Lee essentially retaliated by recruiting an all-girl crew. After signing on one young German woman he met at random, Giselle, who according to Lee had “the physical attributes of a voluptuous Italian movie queen,” he advertised in the paper for more women crew and was besieged with applicants.

And this was beginning of his great schtick. From 1962 to 1970 Lee Quinn roamed the world in two different boats named Neophyte and always sailed with all-girl crews. In all a total of 105 women from 18 different countries joined him and together they attracted major publicity wherever they went. There was a constant string of newspaper articles, Lee gave many profitable lectures, and eventually the “all-girl” sailing schtick made it into the movies.

Lee Quinn’s crew receives a package of ice cream from a U.S. Navy warship while underway in 1963

As for Quinn & Co., yes, they did make it to Tahiti, among many other places, including Antarctica. Mary Ann was a very good sport about it all (to hear her tell it, anyway) and joined the boat and crew at certain points. Eventually, though, she and Lee divorced amicably, in 1964, and Lee married one of his crewmembers, Bea Berkson. Just two years later, however, they divorced and Lee started courting Mary Ann again. She appreciated this, for they did have a special bond, but she cherished her independence and was too busy with her own life–running the steeplejack business, traveling on her own, plus competing as both a surfer and skier–to reunite with her wayward ex-husband.

Unfortunately, Lee’s life ended in tragedy, as his predilection for nautical mishaps was never sated. The first Neophyte eventually succeeded in getting run down by a freighter, just off Sydney Heads in Australia in 1965. Lee at this point toyed with the notion of abandoning his voyage, but Mary Ann, ironically, urged him to continue, and he soon purchased another boat, a 48-foot cutter, which he christened Neophyte Too.

Neophyte Too under sail

Soon enough Lee was having more misadventures. He put his new boat up on the Great Barrier Reef for a while, then she was dismasted a year later, off Baja California, not long before Lee finally closed the loop on his circumnavigation in 1967.

He soon set out on yet another peripatetic voyage, again with all women as crew. This time he decided to start with a loop of the North Pacific and sailed to Japan via Honolulu and southeast Asia. On October 11, 1970, Lee and and four women, two of them Japanese, departed Aburatsubo, Japan, on Neophyte Too headed back for San Francisco.

They were never seen or heard from again.

It’s very appropriate that Mary Ann is the one left to tell Lee’s story. He was an overwhelming force in her life, and it’s a great testament to her own ambition and willpower that she succeeded in carving out an independent life of her own… and that she succeeded in surviving him.

Sailors of a certain age will remember seeing this B-movie title in TV listings for certain low-budget UHF stations back in the day: I Sailed To Tahiti With an All-Girl Crew. I certainly remember it, and I’ve used the title as a throw-away line most of my life, but I don’t think I ever actually sat through the whole movie. Quite recently I learned there was a real person and a real story that inspired the making of that film, and (as is so often the case) the real story is actually much more interesting than the one Hollywood told. This concerns a professional steeplejack, Lee Quinn (see photo up top), who had a strong adventurous streak and sort of inevitably fell into the sport of ocean sailing starting in the 1950s.

Google around a bit and you’ll see there’s not much available online about Quinn–just a few old news clippings and some stray archive pix. The only full-length coherent narrative of his life is found in the pages of a self-published autobiography, Above and Beyond: The Simple Life, written by his ex-wife, Mary Ann Quinn. She, too, was a steeplejack, probably the first woman ever to take it up professionally, and shared many of Lee’s adventures.

If you google the movie title, you’ll get many more hits, but not much substantive information.

The film was released in 1968 and evidently was popular in drive-in theaters, presumably because what people did mostly in drive-ins was make out. The story line was pretty thin–two yachtsmen get into argument about who’s a better sailor, and one of them bets the other $20,000 (which was quite a lot of money in those days) that he can beat him in a race to Tahiti, even with the handicap of taking on an all-girl crew. There are a few plot twists, of course, one of which involves one of the female crew being wanted for murder, as referenced in this YouTube clip.

If you want to actually watch the whole film, you can buy what I’m guessing is a bootleg DVD cheap on eBay, though I think your money would be much better invested in a copy of Mary Ann’s book.

Lee and Mary Ann working a job in Honolulu in 1958

Lee and Mary Ann got married in 1946, soon fell into the steeplejack business as a team, and in their spare time had wild adventures together. They bicycled and motorcycled around Europe together, hitchhiked across North Africa, hopped a freighter across the Med (on which Mary Ann almost got raped), took up flying, and crashed a plane into the palace of dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Seriously, the list goes on and on. These two were big-time adrenalin junkies.

In 1952, Lee got it into his head that they should take up sailing. He talked Mary Ann into buying a 30-foot sloop, Flamingo, that almost immediately was destroyed by a tsunami raised by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake. Lee was still determined to go sailing, however, so he at once built himself a 16-foot catamaran out of plywood and set out to sail it solo down the coast of Baja California.

Lee test-sails his homemade cat at Long Beach

He got caught in some very fierce weather, almost lost the cat, but was saved by a fishing boat that simply hoisted him and the boat right on to their deck.

Lee got distracted by flying for a while, but soon enough came back to sailing and in 1961 bought a 45-foot ketch in Sausalito that he appropriately named Neophyte, as testament to his status as a sailor. On an early shakedown sail with Mary Ann, they nearly lost the boat when they were almost run down by a freighter near Point Conception.

Neophyte under sail

Mary Ann at the helm

Lee was not daunted by this and immediately started making plans to sail Neophyte around the world. Mary Ann wasn’t interested in that little adventure, as she was starting to get into competitive surfing, so Lee determined he’d simply go alone. Mary Ann objected to this, insisting he had to have a crew, and Lee essentially retaliated by recruiting an all-girl crew. After signing on one young German woman he met at random, Giselle, who according to Lee had “the physical attributes of a voluptuous Italian movie queen,” he advertised in the paper for more women crew and was besieged with applicants.

And this was beginning of his great schtick. From 1962 to 1970 Lee Quinn roamed the world in two different boats named Neophyte and always sailed with all-girl crews. In all a total of 105 women from 18 different countries joined him and together they attracted major publicity wherever they went. There was a constant string of newspaper articles, Lee gave many profitable lectures, and eventually the “all-girl” sailing schtick made it into the movies.

Lee Quinn’s crew receives a package of ice cream from a U.S. Navy warship while underway in 1963

As for Quinn & Co., yes, they did make it to Tahiti, among many other places, including Antarctica. Mary Ann was a very good sport about it all (to hear her tell it, anyway) and joined the boat and crew at certain points. Eventually, though, she and Lee divorced amicably, in 1964, and Lee married one of his crewmembers, Bea Berkson. Just two years later, however, they divorced and Lee started courting Mary Ann again. She appreciated this, for they did have a special bond, but she cherished her independence and was too busy with her own life–running the steeplejack business, traveling on her own, plus competing as both a surfer and skier–to reunite with her wayward ex-husband.

Unfortunately, Lee’s life ended in tragedy, as his predilection for nautical mishaps was never sated. The first Neophyte eventually succeeded in getting run down by a freighter, just off Sydney Heads in Australia in 1965. Lee at this point toyed with the notion of abandoning his voyage, but Mary Ann, ironically, urged him to continue, and he soon purchased another boat, a 48-foot cutter, which he christened Neophyte Too.

Neophyte Too under sail

Soon enough Lee was having more misadventures. He put his new boat up on the Great Barrier Reef for a while, then she was dismasted a year later, off Baja California, not long before Lee finally closed the loop on his circumnavigation in 1967.

He soon set out on yet another peripatetic voyage, again with all women as crew. This time he decided to start with a loop of the North Pacific and sailed to Japan via Honolulu and southeast Asia. On October 11, 1970, Lee and and four women, two of them Japanese, departed Aburatsubo, Japan, on Neophyte Too headed back for San Francisco.

They were never seen or heard from again.

It’s very appropriate that Mary Ann is the one left to tell Lee’s story. He was an overwhelming force in her life, and it’s a great testament to her own ambition and willpower that she succeeded in carving out an independent life of her own… and that she succeeded in surviving him.

This is the second time Lucy and I have done this, but the first time we’ve done it on Father’s Day. We both thought it a good a idea, though Lucy, inevitably, wanted to know why there isn’t a Daughter’s Day, so we could go out then, too. Of course, we all know the answer to that. Last time, you may recall, Lucy was very focussed on climbing rocks and trees. This time it was the mast. We arrived at the Goslings quite late Sunday afternoon, having slashed through a sporty 20-knot breeze on a close reach to get there, and she had me haul her up the mast in the bosun’s chair five times after we got settled in. And yes, she did almost make it to the masthead a couple of times.

Mostly though she was tripping on how many jellyfish she saw in the water around the boat. At one point she counted eight. I’ve also noticed a few this year from deck level, which is odd. I don’t remember ever seeing jellyfish on the Maine coast before. It seems like everything is changing and we live on a whole new planet now, doesn’t it?

How do you get kids interested in going sailing with you? Here’s Cheap Trick No. 1: let them watch TV on your iPad for a bit while they’re hanging out onboard

She woke me up promptly at 6 the next morning and asked if I could put another blanket over her. Very thoughtful that. Then, right after she inhaled a bagel, a nectarine, and some Cheerios, she had me haul her up the mast again so she could check on the jellyfish.

Afterwards we went ashore and poked around a bit, and… found a whole lot of stranded jellies on the beach!

Lucy is always very curious about animals. First she grabbed a small bit of shell and poked a jelly with that, but somehow her finger got stung anyway, though she never actually touched the jelly with it. So she tried with something longer, a stick, and that worked better. We wondered if the stranded jellies were dead, or whether they were alive and just waiting for the tide to come back in. It says something about what simple life-forms they are that you can’t even tell the difference.

When we came back aboard our shoes were kind of mucky, so we had to leave them in the cockpit to dry. We had very light wind sailing back to Portland, and Lucy spent a fair amount of time lounging in the mainsail. Sometimes she wore her life-jacket on deck when I told her to, but not this particular time.

I’m planning on getting a new mainsail soon, and this is one question I ask myself: should I have the foot made with a shelf in it and bend it on to the boom the way it is now? Or should it be loose-footed? Really the only argument in favor of the shelf is that Lucy loves lying in the sail.

Also, when we got to Portland she asked to be hauled up the mast again, but I refused. So she used the mast-steps and went up on her own.

It probably was a good thing her mom wasn’t around.

PS: WaveTrain has a new look! Hence the delay in publishing this article and the reduced postage lately. Let me know when you find stuff that doesn’t work.

This wasn’t so much a cruise as a delivery to nowhere, as the goal was to get Lunacy from Portland to Rockland, get her measured for new sails by Doug Pope, and then get her back to Portland again as quickly as possible. The scheduled window for accomplishing this was Tuesday through Friday of last week. Coming along for the ride was my old partner-in-crime, Phil “Snakewake” Cavanaugh (see photo up top), who in his dotage has taken to wearing country-western garb while sailing.

We got off from Portland on Tuesday at about 1100 hours in a variable breeze that had us variously close-reaching at speed, drifting under the cruising spinnaker, and motoring under a floppy mainsail. We got as far as Damariscove Island, where we pulled into the tiny harbor to find two other mid-size cruising boats tied up to moorings, plus a third small one moored way up at the head of the cove.

The miniature harbor at Damariscove. The tower on the left represents the Coast Guard station. Back in pre-colonial days, when this was a seasonal fishing station, up to 30 boats at a time supposedly moored in here

Stern anchor deployed from Lunacy‘s stern on nylon rode. That’s a Kaiser Gale Force 34 behind us on the right and a sweet L. Francis Herreshoff ketch on the left

We dropped anchor just south of the two larger moored boats, alongside the old Coast Guard station, and for a short while the faint south breeze kept us lined up properly in the cove. It soon shifted a bit southeast, however, setting us on the west-side rocks a bit, so we roused ourselves into activity and set a stern anchor–the first time I’ve ever done this on Lunacy. I was very gratified that I actually had all the necessary bits onboard, and that the deployment went smoothly.

We had a wretched night onboard. First came a big northbound ground swell and some treacherous fog, then came a brisk southerly breeze, and finally some thunder squalls. This was actually more-or-less consistent with the forecast, and all I could do was give myself a big dope-slap for not believing it. The boat was pitching madly, and neither of us slept much, and I was praying fervently that the anchor would hold.

Looking back at my last post on Damariscove, I see I had a similar experience last time I was there. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that. In my defense, all I can say is that I like this place so much, I’ll apparently go through hell to stay there.

We were, in any event, quite happy to leave in the morning. The wind was south shifting northwest through the day, and as I studied the chart, pondering the distance to Rockland as we sailed by Monhegan Island, it suddenly occurred to me it would be much easier to just go up the St. George River to Thomaston instead. Shorter distance, flatter water, just as close (almost) to Doug Pope’s shop, and I hadn’t actually been up the river since the late 1990s, when I first started sailing my old Golden Hind 31 Sophie.

The Thomaston waterfront, about 10 miles up the St. George River. It doesn’t look it, but this was once a major center for shipbuilding

By the time we got up there the northwest wind, slanted almost straight west by the terrain, was blowing hard, and the tide was at maximum flood running in the opposite direction. There was zero chop, but picking up the town mooring buoy was still something of an adventure.

Phil shows off his battle mud after wrestling with the mooring pennant

I actually lived in Thomaston a long while back, and it was very interesting walking around town again. Relatively little has changed. Down on the waterfront I was hailed by an old friend, Peter McCrea, who has been cruising and racing a Freedom 32 named Panacea since before time began. Later we hooked up with an even older friend, Loric Weymouth of Weymouth Yacht Rigging, who gave us a ride in his funky antique Land Rover and took us over to Rockland for dinner.

Lunacy lying in the river, with wind and tide aligned

The yard at Lyman-Morse, as viewed through Lunacy‘s foretriangle. This is a great town for checking out other people’s boats

Clammers in a creatively modified runabout, heading downriver for a tide’s worth of digging in the morning

We enjoyed a blissfully quiet night. The next morning we had Doug Pope onboard for an hour, doing his tape-measure thing, and were off again by 1030 hours. The wind was still in the northwest, blowing briskly with gusts to 24 knots, and we had a scream of a sail heading downriver and then west again. Once out the river we were either closehauled or on a close reach all day and made major miles.

By 1800 hours, to our surprise, we were rounding Cape Small and were back in Casco Bay. After studying the chart for a bit, I decided we’d try spending the night in Small Point Harbor.

We anchored east of Newbury Point, a bit north of red nun 4

If you study the Taft and Rindlaub cruising guide, you’d think this was a very bad idea. They state the main harbor is too open to be tenable and suggest instead it’s best to squeeze through the very tight entrance into Cape Small Harbor, just east, for a good night’s sleep. But their text is worded in such a way that it seems likely they’d never actually tried spending a night here.

I figured after a day and a half of strong northwesterlies, any swell from the southwest would be greatly minimized and that it was worth a shot. Approaching from the south, we were able to sail right in, and the fact that there was not one single mooring out, or a single boat anchored here, suggested either a) T&R are right and this is a miserable place to be; or b) everyone believes what they read in T&R.

Our prospects seemed good, for as soon as we anchored two couples in a center-console skiff came by and plied us with free cocktails. We slept like babies again that night, and though there was a bit of motion in the anchorage, it was very subdued.

At anchor at Small Point Harbor. Were we the first ever to attempt this?

Next morning we toured Cape Small Harbor in the dinghy. It seemed a very magical, perfectly protected place, but the entrance is a worry. On the chart there you can see a 5-foot and 3-foot spot in the main channel, and my chartplotter offered no better detail when zoomed in. I saw no deep-draft sailboats inside and would probably want to survey the entrance with a portable depthsounder or a leadline in the dinghy before taking Lunacy in.

After our dinghy tour we were off again, screaming along in another firm northwesterly, and were back in Portland before noon–on schedule, mission accomplished.

I wrote about this once in a print magazine, and some people were skeptical. But I’m telling you–it really does work. I’ve done it twice at sea successfully; no fuss, no muss. If you lose a halyard up your mast, this is how to get it back from deck level without having to climb the mast.

There is one prerequisite. You need a spare halyard with a shackle on it that is in reasonably close proximity to the one you were stupid enough to let fly up the mast. Given this, retrieving the lost halyard should be easy.

Step 1: Take a loose length of line that is long enough to reach the lost halyard from the deck and tie a noose in it with a slip knot, so that you can pull the noose shut.

Step 2: Clip the noose line with noose open into the shackle at the end of your spare halyard, as shown in the detail drawing above. It need not be a snapshackle. (Note the relative size of the shackle and noose line in that drawing is all askew. The shackle will, or should, be small enough that the slip knot can’t pull through it.)

Step 3: Use the spare halyard to hoist the noose line aloft up close to where the lost halyard is.

Step 4: Now twiddle about with the noose line and spare halyard from down on deck until you succeed in lassoing the lost halyard. This is not as hard, or as unlikely, as it sounds. It helps a lot if your noose line is a bit stiff with salt and/or UV damage, as this helps the noose stay open. It may take some patience and persistence, but you should succeed eventually.

Step 5: Having lassoed the lost halyard, pull gently on the noose line until the noose closes around the lost halyard.

Step 6: Now pull the noose line down to the deck, and it will bring both the spare halyard and the lost halyard along with it.

If you don’t believe me, just try it while tied up to a dock or mooring.

Aluminum centerboard cruisers like this are not often seen in North America, but they are common in Europe, particularly in France. Garcia Aluminum, a highly respected French builder, now reorganized as Garcia Yachting, often works on a custom basis but also builds to several standard designs. This Passoa 47, drawn by Phillipe Harle, is very representative of its species. Unlike the keel/centerboard boats most Americans are familiar with, these French boats have integral centerboards descending directly from their bilges. They draw very little water when their boards are up and make great coastal gunkholing boats. They stay upright when aground and can be driven straight on to a beach if desired. They also carry a great deal of fixed internal ballast in their bilges and are self-righting, thus are also suitable for ocean sailing.

Garcia is renowned for its workmanship and builds only in marine-grade 5086 H3 aluminum alloy. The Passoa 47 has a robust construction with 10mm plate down low that decreases in thickness as it climbs the hull. The chainplates are supported underneath by curved I-beams girding the breadth of the hull’s mid-section and are strong enough to lift the boat with. The fuel and water tanks, including the tank baffles, are integral parts of the boat’s bilges and form, in effect, a series of collision compartments that provide extra security when scraping over reefs and rocks. The ballast, consisting of 11,000 pounds of iron pigs (preferred over lead for galvanic security), is sheathed in glass and fixed in place in sealed bilge tanks filled with an insulating bed of tar.

What it’s about. Yes, you can beach the boat if you want

The boat is reasonably light for its size, but is driven by a conservative rig. A standard Passoa 47 has a relatively short deck-stepped mast (just under 60 feet from the waterline) supporting a cutter rig that yields an SA/D ratio that seems timid for a modern design. This helps the boat’s stability, as does its relatively wide hull form, but its theoretical AVS, about 110 degrees, is still a bit low compared to most conventional boats. In the real world, however, a Passoa with its board up will skid away from breaking waves that send conventional boats tripping over their keels. Several Passoas have circumnavigated and have cruised in high latitudes and there is no record of any significant capsize problems.

In spite of its non-aggressive sail plan, the boat can be very fun to sail. In addition to the centerboard, there is a daggerboard between the skeg that supports and protects the propeller and the low-aspect spade rudder. By adjusting these two underwater foils you can precisely balance the boat against the pressure in its rig and, of course, can also vary the hull’s wetted surface area.

The rudder is very shallow, so the boat can be beached, but there’s also a retractable daggerboard aft between the rudder and prop to help increase directional stability

On an offshore passage I once made aboard a Passoa 47 from Massachusetts to Virginia, I was amazed at how much balance can be introduced into the helm by playing the boards a bit. In moderate wind with the sails and boards set right you can leave the wheel to itself with no brake on. I often found the cleanest, quickest way to steer was almost totally hands-off, with just a touch on a spoke from time to time to make small corrections.

The boat can also significantly outperform its numbers sailing off the wind in a good breeze. Pull up the centerboard, leave down the daggerboard, and what you’ve got is a big metal surfboard with a nice fin aft to keep everything lined up straight. With 20 knots apparent wind on a dead run under the main and a poled-out jib with the board up we maintained a steady 9 knots of boat speed during my passage and frequently hit 14 knots surfing in moderate seas. Best of all, because all the ballast is right up in the hull, the boat has a much smoother motion than its comfort ratio suggests.

Garcia built 60 of these boats between 1983 and 2000, but no two are exactly alike. Metal construction, unlike fiberglass construction, does not depend on molds, and this allows for a great deal of customization. Most of the boats have an integral solid-aluminum stern arch abaft the cockpit, some of which are sharply raked and have lifting arms for hoisting tenders aloft as though on stern davits. These stern arches, of course, are great for mounting radomes, solar panels, and various antennas.

This is a more-or-less stock cockpit, but with a custom hard dodger added. The super-secure companionway hatch is standard. Climbing in and out is a bit harder, but you can dog it down tight in severe conditions

Some boats also have smaller integral arches forward of the cockpit, and these provide a great foundation for a dodger and can support a mainsheet traveler if desired. Having solid vertical supports to grab on to at either end of the cockpit makes it very easy to move around this normally busy space in a seaway; they also make it easy to rig an awning over the cockpit when anchored out under a tropical sun. At least one boat I inspected also had a unique super-large flush bridgedeck instead of a conventional cockpit, with just one small foot well all the way aft for the helmsman behind the wheel.

The interior accommodations likewise are extremely variable. Garcia in the past built boats to any stage of completion and there are a few Passoas with owner-finished interiors. Most, however, were finished for Garcia at their yard by the respected French firm Rameau. The standard layout has two small staterooms aft with a large master stateroom forward of the galley/saloon area and a large forepeak forward of a watertight collision bulkhead. The galley/saloon is situated within the short raised trunk cabin and on all Passoas I’ve seen this is the only area with full (over 6 feet) standing headroom, though Garcia may have extended the trunk cabin by request on some boats.

On most Passoas the saloon table is forward of the companionway, opposite the galley

On a few the saloon table is abaft the companionway, under the cockpit. The engine is under the table and can be completely exposed

On two boats I’ve been aboard (one owner-finished, the other yard-finished) the saloon table is situated all the way aft right under the cockpit and is surrounded by an enormous wrap-around settee. I thought this worked extremely well, though it does cost two aft staterooms. It allows for a very large galley and nav desk under the trunk cabin and turns the entire after half of the boat into an enormous social space that can serve as party central in amiable anchorages. As a bonus, the settees also make great sea-berths while sailing.

Specifications

LOA 46’11″

LWL 38’0″

Beam 14’1″

Draft

-Boards up 3’5″

-Boards down 8’1″

Ballast 11,000 lbs.

Displacement

-Light ship 26,200 lbs.

-Loaded 32,000 lbs.

Sail area 797 sq.ft.

Fuel 180 gal.

Water 250 gal.

D/L ratio

-Light ship 213

-Loaded 260

SA/D ratio

-Light ship 14.43

-Loaded 12.62

Comfort ratio

-Light ship 29.17

-Loaded 35.63

Capsize screening

-Light ship 1.89

-Loaded 1.77

Nominal hull speed

-Light ship 9.0 knots

-Loaded 8.3 knots

Typical asking prices $200-480K

The U.S. Coast Guard are coming under major pressure today after they announced yesterday they were suspending their search for possible survivors from Cheeki Rafiki, a Beneteau First 40.7 that went missing in the North Atlantic about 1,000 miles east of Cape Cod on Friday. On Saturday a container ship participating in the search, Maersk Kure, found an overturned hull, with no keel (see photo up top), that most likely was Cheeki Rafiki, but they were unable to inspect the hull closely and found no other debris, no liferaft, and no other signs of survivors. Various luminaries, including Robin Knox-Johnston, the crew’s families, and tens of thousands people who have endorsed an online petition are pleading with the Coast Guard to resume the search.

Cheeki, which is managed by a British firm, Stormforce Coaching, had raced at Antigua and was being delivered back to the UK by an experienced crew of four. They contacted Stormforce on Thursday to report they were taking on water and were diverting to the Azores. On Friday two satellite rescue beacons were ignited–evidently these were personal beacons, not the ship’s EPIRB–and there’s been no word since.

Cheeki Rafiki racing at Antigua earlier this month. She finished first in the CSA 5 division

Last known location

A very tough call this. Knox-Johnston and others are claiming it is “very likely” the crew is adrift in a liferaft, but I’m not so sure. Assuming that the overturned hull is the boat in question, it may be she flipped very suddenly when the keel fell off. (An impending keel failure may well be what was causing the leak.) Two crew on deck thrown suddenly into the water as the boat turtled would explain the personal beacons being ignited. A sudden inversion would also explain why the ship’s EPIRB, presumably stored below, wasn’t ignited. If there was no time to light off the EPIRB, there likely wouldn’t have been enough time to launch and board a liferaft.

It’s a shame the container ship crew couldn’t check out that hull in detail. There could be bodies onboard. But conditions at the time were very strong, and a container ship, obviously, isn’t equipped for that sort of work.

My sudden-inversion scenario is purely speculative, but based on the facts we have now, it seems the likeliest explanation. It certainly makes you think about modern keels. I have bloviated before about the vulnerability of keels on high-end race boats, but this was a common production boat. Unfortunately, other such boats have also lost keels in the past. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to take it for granted that my keel will stay put.

The Coast Guard reports they searched 53 hours for survivors, and that the estimated best-case survival time given the conditions was 20 hours. The crew onboard were James Male, Andrew Bridge, Steve Warren, and Paul Goslin, all from great Britain.

After a truly amazing public appeal by a number of British public officials, well-known sailors, and 200,000 random civilians who signed an online petition, the U.S. Coast Guard yesterday resumed its search for Cheeki Rafiki, a Beneteau First 40.7 that went missing on Friday while returning to the UK after racing at Antigua Sailing Week. Joining the search are elements of the World Cruising Club’s ongoing ARC Europe rally, led by the Outremer 64 catamaran Malisi (see photo up top). Yachting World’s technical editor Matthew Sheahan has also posted a detailed description of the search areas now involved and is urging any yachts transiting the area to join in the effort.

It makes perfect sense, of course, that people on yachts should help find the four missing crew from Cheeki Rafiki. But there is an element of risk involved–the overturned hull found by a container ship on Saturday, which presumably was Cheeki Rafiki, is certainly a hazard to other yachts. I would hate for anyone to find it by running into it.

If anyone does find it again, here’s another question: what exactly do you do with it? Is there any way to flip it over again? If not, how do you inspect the interior? Even for a well-equipped, well-trained diver, I imagine it would be a challenge.

Matt Sheahan in his post argues against the scenario I discussed in my last post, that what likely happened was that the boat suddenly flipped before the crew could deploy and board a liferaft. Sheahan urges the loss of the keel might have been gradual, giving the crew time to react. Others have argued that the fact that there were two personal rescue beacon hits from devices lit off in sequence, one after the other, proves that there must be survivors in a liferaft.

Again, the question in my mind is: under what circumstances do you have time to board a liferaft without bringing along the ship’s EPIRB? Two PLB hits in sequence does, of course, suggest there are two or more people cooperating on getting rescued, but they could just as easily be together in the water as in a raft while doing it.

I have read one report that states the ship’s EPIRB was ignited on Thursday, when the crew first reported they were taking on water, but no source is cited and I find no other reports confirming it. Given what we know, it seems unlikely. The crew reported Thursday they had a leak that was under control and that they were diverting to the Azores; given their experience, you wouldn’t think they’d also light off their EPIRB at this time. If they had, SAR resources would have immediately been focussed on recovering them.

One can only assume that the Coast Guard’s working assumption when they called off the initial search after just 53 hours was that any survivors had to have been in the water. I believe they made the right call resuming the search, given all the interest and unusual circumstances, but realistically I think the odds of finding survivors are slim.

Here’s yet another question I’m asking myself: if this had been a plain-vanilla cruising crew instead of a reasonably high-profile racing crew, would Robin Knox-Johnston, Sir Ben Ainslie, the British government, et al, have gone to such lengths lobbying the Coasties to keep on searching???

The fate of the four crew members aboard Cheeki Rafiki was confirmed on Friday when the U.S. Navy again found the overturned keel-less hull and inspected it closely enough to determine that its liferaft was still onboard. So with much drama and angst and effort we have at least confirmed what the U.S. Coast Guard initially surmised when it first suspended its search for survivors. I don’t think the effort was wasted or useless. Given the enormous interest in the fate of these four men, I think it was well worth it to achieve closure on that point.

I would hope some people who criticized the Coast Guard rather harshly for suspending the search might now express some regret (I noted, for example, that Brian Hancock, a well-known racing sailor, accused the Coasties of abandoning the search “without really trying”), but I’m not holding my breath on that. What’s more important is to focus on what we can take away from this tragedy to make sailing safer.

Time to wake up! This happens all the time

I’ve seen people discussing liferafts and such, but for me this big issue here is keels. The four crew on Cheeki died because the boat’s keel fell off, probably very suddenly, and this is not, as some have suggested, an unusual occurrence. It is frighteningly common. Modern fin keels fall off cutting-edge high-end race boats all the time (e.g., keel loss is a common reason for Vendee Globe withdrawals) and off less exotic race boats (e.g., I have one good friend who lost a keel off a TP52 while racing and know of many other similar incidents) and off common production boats, both while racing and cruising.

The underside of Cheeki Rafiki, showing the area where the keel ripped off. Note the large swath of damaged laminate below the keel’s footprint

On production boats like Cheeki, a Beneteau First 40.7, it is probably true that most keel failures are the result of damage sustained in groundings. This is a tricky business, as grounding damage can be very hard to assess accurately, and damage can be cumulative over several groundings. Even worse, with charter boats like Cheeki, there may be one or more groundings that take place and are never reported to the boat’s owner or those responsible for maintaining it.

For an excellent discussion of the damage sustained on Cheeki, I recommend you dive into this Sailing Anarchy thread here, from whence I pilfered these photos:

Enhanced out-take of the keel’s footprint from the image above. Questions raised: 1) are those bolt-heads and washers we see on the two forward keel bolts? Or are they broken off? 2) the aft bolt clearly seems to have been corroded, so is this where the trouble started? 3) the central bolts seem to have been the last to let go and took with them a big chunk of laminate, but was the laminate under the keel cored?

Another First 40.7, Barracuda, that lost its keel. Note the similarity in the damage to the underbody

Keel-bolt pattern on a stock First 40.7, as seen from inside. Note that the keel’s attachment points are not tied directly into the structural bilge grid. Also, this is an exceptionally shallow bilge!

Interestingly, on page 7 of the SA thread you’ll find one participant, ClubRacer.be, who claims to have been on two different supposedly undamaged never-grounded First 40.7s where the aft keel bolts started weeping when you honked down hard on the backstay. Another commenter, axobotl, claims to have been on a First 40.7 that grounded at hull speed without sustaining any detectable damage.

Thinking of that rusty aft bolt on Cheeki, I have to wonder if this is a weak spot on all First 40.7s that have been raced hard. (And there are a lot of them. They have an active one-design thing going on.) If you trap moisture against that bolt every time you crank down hard on the hydraulic backstay adjuster, corrosion seems inevitable.

In perusing the online commentary, I’ve seen that some people don’t believe it is possible to engineer a bolted-on fin keel that is not vulnerable. That this is a risk you have to take when sailing on boats like this.

Personally, I don’t accept this. I’m not an engineer, but I have to believe it is possible to design a keel attachment that spreads loads over a much wider area of the hull. After all, we never (or at least almost never) hear of wings shearing off of airplanes. Yes, I am sure “over-engineered” keel attachments would be heavier (and thus would decrease performance) and more expensive (thus less economically attractive), but they must be feasible. On page 6 of the SA thread, for example, you’ll find links to a patented Swedish system for attaching a fairly aggressive fin keel that looks incredibly strong.

As a starting point, I would say a “properly” engineered fin-keel attachment should spread loads over such a large area that you should need to effectively destroy the hull to remove the keel (like on a full-keel boat). Also, there should be some mechanism or “fuse” that lets you know when the assembly has been critically damaged.

I can only hope that all the energy that went into browbeating the Coast Guard to continue looking for Cheeki might now be channeled into this purpose. Then the crew of Cheeki would not have died in vain.

How do we create this new standard of construction in what is effectively an unregulated industry? It would help a lot, I think, if race organizers and rule mavens started the ball rolling. If the high-end race boats whose keels fail most often were forced to be safer in this regard, a lot would follow from that.

Those of you who don’t follow the British sailing comics may have missed the Crash Test Boat series of articles that ran in Yachting Monthly a few years back. It was a brilliant premise, cooked up by then-editor Paul Gelder: lay hands on an average plain-vanilla cruising boat and test it to death, carefully documenting everything that does and does not work when coping with various simulated emergencies. Over a period of eight months, YM systematically “tested to destruction” a 1982 Jeanneau Sun Fizz ketch and created an extremely useful series of articles and videos. All that material is now available in one book, appropriately titled The Crash Test Boat, published by Adlard Coles.

In all the book covers eight carefully crafted simulations: running aground, capsizing, a dismasting, creating a jury rig, sinking (hull breach), major leaks (failed seacock or through-hull fitting), fire onboard, and a propane explosion. The last, inevitably, wasn’t really a simulation. They actually did blow up the boat (see photo up top), sort of like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, as a magnificent denouement to Paul’s career as a yachting journalist and editor.

It’s impossible to summarize all the useful information in this book, so you really do have to buy it. The lay-out is very succinct and user-friendly, with lots of useful photos and well thought out conclusions and recommendations on how to prepare for and cope with each emergency situation. There are even QR codes prominently displayed for each chapter, so you can quickly access the relevant videos online.

My advice would be to read the book closely, study the videos, make your own conclusions about what information is useful to you, equip your boat accordingly, then keep your copy of the book onboard your boat.

The dismasting. The book includes detailed tests and recommendations on what tools work best to clear the rig

Fire onboard! Find out what extinguishers work best for what sort of fires

High and dry. Tips on how to get off again and how to survive the ordeal if you don’t

Rolled in a capsize. There are very simple things you can do to minimize the damage

Paul Gelder admires the aftermath of the propane explosion

The section on major leaks give a good sense of how creative the YM team was in testing different solutions to different problems. In addition to trying to stem the leaks they created with various commercial products–the proverbial soft wood plugs we all wire to our through-hulls, Forespar’s Truplug synthetic bung, etc.–they also tried potatoes and carrots, which worked pretty darned well.

Each section also contains “real-life story” anecdotal accounts of actual emergencies and how they were resolved, so you can compare simulated experience to the real thing.

The Crash Test Boat (2013, Adlard Coles Nautical); Forward by Mike Golding; Edited by Paul Gelder; 176 pp.

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: Loyal WaveTrain riders hopefully noticed that the site was down for a while a couple of days ago. This was because we’re in the middle of redesigning it. Hopefully the new version will get launched this week!

Aluminum centerboard cruisers like this are not often seen in North America, but they are common in Europe, particularly in France. Garcia Aluminum, a highly respected French builder, now reorganized as Garcia Yachting, often works on a custom basis but also builds to several standard designs. This Passoa 47, drawn by Phillipe Harle, is very representative of its species. Unlike the keel/centerboard boats most Americans are familiar with, these French boats have integral centerboards descending directly from their bilges. They draw very little water when their boards are up and make great coastal gunkholing boats. They stay upright when aground and can be driven straight on to a beach if desired. They also carry a great deal of fixed internal ballast in their bilges and are self-righting, thus are also suitable for ocean sailing.

Garcia is renowned for its workmanship and builds only in marine-grade 5086 H3 aluminum alloy. The Passoa 47 has a robust construction with 10mm plate down low that decreases in thickness as it climbs the hull. The chainplates are supported underneath by curved I-beams girding the breadth of the hull’s mid-section and are strong enough to lift the boat with. The fuel and water tanks, including the tank baffles, are integral parts of the boat’s bilges and form, in effect, a series of collision compartments that provide extra security when scraping over reefs and rocks. The ballast, consisting of 11,000 pounds of iron pigs (preferred over lead for galvanic security), is sheathed in glass and fixed in place in sealed bilge tanks filled with an insulating bed of tar.

What it’s about. Yes, you can beach the boat if you want

The boat is reasonably light for its size, but is driven by a conservative rig. A standard Passoa 47 has a relatively short deck-stepped mast (just under 60 feet from the waterline) supporting a cutter rig that yields an SA/D ratio that seems timid for a modern design. This helps the boat’s stability, as does its relatively wide hull form, but its theoretical AVS, about 110 degrees, is still a bit low compared to most conventional boats. In the real world, however, a Passoa with its board up will skid away from breaking waves that send conventional boats tripping over their keels. Several Passoas have circumnavigated and have cruised in high latitudes and there is no record of any significant capsize problems.

In spite of its non-aggressive sail plan, the boat can be very fun to sail. In addition to the centerboard, there is a daggerboard between the skeg that supports and protects the propeller and the low-aspect spade rudder. By adjusting these two underwater foils you can precisely balance the boat against the pressure in its rig and, of course, can also vary the hull’s wetted surface area.

The rudder is very shallow, so the boat can be beached, but there’s also a retractable daggerboard aft between the rudder and prop to help increase directional stability

On an offshore passage I once made aboard a Passoa 47 from Massachusetts to Virginia, I was amazed at how much balance can be introduced into the helm by playing the boards a bit. In moderate wind with the sails and boards set right you can leave the wheel to itself with no brake on. I often found the cleanest, quickest way to steer was almost totally hands-off, with just a touch on a spoke from time to time to make small corrections.

The boat can also significantly outperform its numbers sailing off the wind in a good breeze. Pull up the centerboard, leave down the daggerboard, and what you’ve got is a big metal surfboard with a nice fin aft to keep everything lined up straight. With 20 knots apparent wind on a dead run under the main and a poled-out jib with the board up we maintained a steady 9 knots of boat speed during my passage and frequently hit 14 knots surfing in moderate seas. Best of all, because all the ballast is right up in the hull, the boat has a much smoother motion than its comfort ratio suggests.

Garcia built 60 of these boats between 1983 and 2000, but no two are exactly alike. Metal construction, unlike fiberglass construction, does not depend on molds, and this allows for a great deal of customization. Most of the boats have an integral solid-aluminum stern arch abaft the cockpit, some of which are sharply raked and have lifting arms for hoisting tenders aloft as though on stern davits. These stern arches, of course, are great for mounting radomes, solar panels, and various antennas.

This is a more-or-less stock cockpit, but with a custom hard dodger added. The super-secure companionway hatch is standard. Climbing in and out is a bit harder, but you can dog it down tight in severe conditions

Some boats also have smaller integral arches forward of the cockpit, and these provide a great foundation for a dodger and can support a mainsheet traveler if desired. Having solid vertical supports to grab on to at either end of the cockpit makes it very easy to move around this normally busy space in a seaway; they also make it easy to rig an awning over the cockpit when anchored out under a tropical sun. At least one boat I inspected also had a unique super-large flush bridgedeck instead of a conventional cockpit, with just one small foot well all the way aft for the helmsman behind the wheel.

The interior accommodations likewise are extremely variable. Garcia in the past built boats to any stage of completion and there are a few Passoas with owner-finished interiors. Most, however, were finished for Garcia at their yard by the respected French firm Rameau. The standard layout has two small staterooms aft with a large master stateroom forward of the galley/saloon area and a large forepeak forward of a watertight collision bulkhead. The galley/saloon is situated within the short raised trunk cabin and on all Passoas I’ve seen this is the only area with full (over 6 feet) standing headroom, though Garcia may have extended the trunk cabin by request on some boats.

On most Passoas the saloon table is forward of the companionway, opposite the galley

On a few the saloon table is abaft the companionway, under the cockpit. The engine is under the table and can be completely exposed

On two boats I’ve been aboard (one owner-finished, the other yard-finished) the saloon table is situated all the way aft right under the cockpit and is surrounded by an enormous wrap-around settee. I thought this worked extremely well, though it does cost two aft staterooms. It allows for a very large galley and nav desk under the trunk cabin and turns the entire after half of the boat into an enormous social space that can serve as party central in amiable anchorages. As a bonus, the settees also make great sea-berths while sailing.

Specifications

LOA 46’11″

LWL 38’0″

Beam 14’1″

Draft

-Boards up 3’5″

-Boards down 8’1″

Ballast 11,000 lbs.

Displacement

-Light ship 26,200 lbs.

-Loaded 32,000 lbs.

Sail area 797 sq.ft.

Fuel 180 gal.

Water 250 gal.

D/L ratio

-Light ship 213

-Loaded 260

SA/D ratio

-Light ship 14.43

-Loaded 12.62

Comfort ratio

-Light ship 29.17

-Loaded 35.63

Capsize screening

-Light ship 1.89

-Loaded 1.77

Nominal hull speed

-Light ship 9.0 knots

-Loaded 8.3 knots

Typical asking prices $200-480K

Having decided that part of this summer’s cruising program on Lunacy will involve a two-week jaunt over to Nova Scotia and back, it dawned on me that I needed to make sure I actually have charts for Nova Scotia. In the previous century, which really wasn’t that long ago, this would have been a simple process. I would consult my ever-growing stack of paper charts, discover I had no relevant charts, and then call the Armchair Sailor in Newport. These people were personally known to me, and I was known to them. I would say: “Hi! Howzit going? I’m sailing to Nova Scotia. I need coverage from Yarmouth to Halifax.” And two days later my charts would arrive in the mail.

No fuss, no muss. Alas, the Armchair Sailor is no longer, a victim of the Internet Revolution, and procuring charts is no longer so easy.

This is how the process runs now:

Step 1: Check the current inventory. Nope. No paper charts, and the chart card in my antique (read 7-year-old) Raymarine A65 chartplotter does not cover any part of Canada. But here! That Navionics chart app I purchased for my iPad does include Nova Scotia and indeed all of Canada.

Question: Is this all I need? Answer: Say what? I have never successfully navigated anywhere on my iPad, I can’t really read its screen in daylight, and its GPS receiver (if it has one; I’m still not really sure about that) can’t work belowdeck.

Yes, I know some people navigate exclusively on iPads now. But we know what happens to them! Take, for example, the sad story of John Berg, who lost his Nordic 40 Seaquel on the coast of Hawaii just last month. He was running an iPad with iNavX software, was approaching a waypoint outside a harbor, and… Whoa! All of a sudden the tablet screen was taken over by Apple, who wanted him to log into FaceTime and iCloud for some reason. No matter what he tried he couldn’t clear the screen, and next thing you know…

He’s up on the reef! Poor Seaquel in extremis

And they couldn’t get her off, so she was destroyed by earth-moving equipment and hauled off to the dump. Apparently, the boat was also partly looted by locals beforehand

No sir! I want paper charts, plus I want a Canadian chart card for my plotter, and maybe along the way I’ll practice with that iPad thing, which I have never understood, because there are no written instructions for it, and the only way to figure out how it works is through a long tedious process of trial and error.

Step 2: To figure out what paper charts I need I google “Canadian charts” and quickly find the webpage of the Canadian Hydrographic Service. Clicking on “Paper Charts” I am led in a few more mouse clicks to a PDF chart catalogue (see image up top, which actually represents only a tiny portion of the catalogue) that is very hard to read on a computer screen. After much zooming in and out and rotating this way and that, I at last extract the numbers for the eight paper charts I would like to have onboard for my cruise.

Step 3: Actually buying the charts at first looks easy. I press the How To Purchase button on the CHS paper-chart page and I’m led to a dealer-locator function that tells me the nearest dealer to me is the West Marine store in Seabrook, New Hampshire, just a few miles down the road from my home.

Brilliant! I call them up, read them my list of chart numbers, and am put on hold. Many long minutes later I am told the store has no Canadian charts of any description and that I should instead call this particular number at West Marine HQ and they will print out the charts for me and send them on post haste.

OK. That doesn’t sound so bad. So I call that magic number, again read out my list of chart numbers, and am again put on hold. Many long minutes later I am told West Marine doesn’t really sell Canadian charts, has no ability to print out charts of any description, and that what I really need to do is check out Bluewater Books & Charts in Ft. Lauderdale.

Step 4: I am familiar with Bluewater Books. They are the people who bought the Armchair Sailor in Newport and later closed it down. I have tried to buy charts from them before, with no success, so now I am getting wary. I check their website and see they do indeed purport to sell the charts in question, but that delivery for some of them may be delayed, which suggests an inventory problem.

Best then to call and see what the situation is. So I do that and, even before I get to read out my chart numbers, I am put on hold.

Many long minutes later I am still on hold, listening to elevator music. The people on the other end still have no idea why I’m calling. This, I remember, is what happened last time, and that I never got anyone to ever help me on the phone. So I press zero a few times, trying to get back to a live person.

That doesn’t work, so I figure I might as well load a shopping basket on the website while I wait. This turns out to be incredibly difficult. The system is very balky and cumbersome, there are many steps involved in locating and depositing each chart in my virtual basket, and in all it takes about 20 minutes to complete the job.

Meanwhile, I am still on hold on the phone. I hang up, dial the number again, and I am once again put on hold before I can explain that I have already been on hold for at least half an hour.

What the hell. Let’s just buy this stuff and see what happens. So I attempt to buy the eight charts I have placed in my basket, and at the end of the process I am stuck on a frozen page, with no acknowledgement that I have purchased anything. I know better than to press Buy again, so I wait about an hour to see if an e-mail confirmation comes through. Nothing comes, so I have to assume I have not purchased the charts.

Step 5: I resolve never again to buy anything from Bluewater Books for as long as I live and figure I might as well try Boxell’s Chandlery in Boston. Many moons ago I bought charts from them, and they were reliable, knowledgeable, and courteous. I find their website online, and though they do claim to have Canadian charts, and there is a mechanism for buying them online, I note the online shopping function looks positively neolithic and the site hasn’t been updated in seven years. So I dial their phone number to do a reality check. No answer. The phone rings forever, and there isn’t even voice-mail. I dial several more times over the course of the day. Same result.

Step 6: Having now spent a few hours on the problem without getting anywhere, I give up for the day. The next morning, however, I get a promotional e-mail from Landfall Navigation and am reminded by this that they too sell charts. I check their website and find a complete list of Canadian charts with no warnings about delivery delays.

I try loading a basket with my eight paper charts. It is a relatively easy process, and when I click Buy at the end I actually get an acknowledgement. Thirty seconds later another acknowledgement appears in my e-mail box.

Greatly heartened by this, I search their site to see if they have Canadian chart cards for my A65 plotter. Yes, they do! So I plop that in another shopping basket, along with a Canadian tide-table book and a copy of the 2014 Nautical Almanac, press Buy again, and again receive appropriate acknowledgements.

Step 7: Four days later I have received no follow-up notice from Landfall telling me my items have shipped, so (with some trepidation) I try calling them on the phone. Bingo! I’m talking to a human within seconds, and they don’t put me on hold. What a thrill that is.

What I learn is that three of my paper charts, the tide tables, and the almanac are not in stock and have been back-ordered. Hopefully they’ll be ready to ship in five days. Meanwhile, the chart card and five paper charts are good to go.

“Will I have everything within 3 weeks?” I ask, as this is when I plan to leave.

“You should,” comes the answer.

So here I am, keeping my fingers crossed.

The old Raymarine A65. I’m quite fond of mine actually, as the controls really are pretty intuitive, and I rarely need to consult the manual, which does actually exist. I have mine mounted below, simply because there really is no room for it in Lunacy’s cockpit. In the cockpit I just keep a paper chart handy and eyeball stuff with that, the old-fashioned way

An iPad nav display. It looks like a plotter, but isn’t. It comes with no instructions, and the software is often updated, so functions often change, which means sometimes you have to figure out how to use it all over again. And apparently you don’t have control of what’s on the screen; Apple does

During this arduous quest, I was of course asking myself, do I really need all this stuff? And I decided I do. I want it all–the paper charts, my chartplotter, and of course I’ll take the iPad and its charts. I might go without the plotter, if push came to shove and for some reason that card I bought doesn’t actually work, but I’d feel very uncomfortable going without paper charts.

As for poor John Berg, former owner of Seaquel, I should give you a little more background on him. He really does rely on electronics to navigate, as he is blind. Evidently all his electronics are rigged to talk to him. He did have one sighted crew member on board when he lost the boat, but apparently what happened was the two of them got lost in tunnel-vision trying to clear the iPad screen.

Mr. Berg, though blind, has been cruising his boat for 14 years and is highly experienced. To his credit, he takes complete responsibility for what happened to Seaquel

I should note, too, that Berg evidently wasn’t relying solely on his iPad. The story in Latitude 38 I linked to above says there was also a chartplotter onboard displaying NOAA charts, but these, for reasons not specified, “proved inadequate.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d sure like to know what that means.

PS: Berg isn’t the only one to have lost a boat due to iPad reliance. Please remember the story of the Swan 48 Wolfhound, which was abandoned (at least in part) due to a lack of iPad battery power.

PPS: The modern retail experience–and this is true of everything, not just charts–truly does suck. I could prove this by describing all I had to go through to purchase my current iPad, but that would be cruel and unusual punishment. I can only pray that this is only a phase we’re going through and that someday retailers will rediscover the concept of customer service.

PPPS: I nearly forgot to mention–I assume the trick to avoiding Berg’s fate iPad-wise is to turn on Airplane Mode while navigating so Apple can’t contact you. But would this also turn off the iPad’s GPS? Can anyone tell me that?

Having decided that part of this summer’s cruising program on Lunacy will involve a two-week jaunt over to Nova Scotia and back, it dawned on me that I needed to make sure I actually have charts for Nova Scotia. In the previous century, which really wasn’t that long ago, this would have been a simple process. I would consult my ever-growing stack of paper charts, discover I had no relevant charts, and then call the Armchair Sailor in Newport. These people were personally known to me, and I was known to them. I would say: “Hi! Howzit going? I’m sailing to Nova Scotia. I need coverage from Yarmouth to Halifax.” And two days later my charts would arrive in the mail.

No fuss, no muss. Alas, the Armchair Sailor is no longer, a victim of the Internet Revolution, and procuring charts is no longer so easy.

This is how the process runs now:

Step 1: Check the current inventory. Nope. No paper charts, and the chart card in my antique (read 7-year-old) Raymarine A65 chartplotter does not cover any part of Canada. But here! That Navionics chart app I purchased for my iPad does include Nova Scotia and indeed all of Canada.

Question: Is this all I need? Answer: Say what? I have never successfully navigated anywhere on my iPad, I can’t really read its screen in daylight, and its GPS receiver (if it has one; I’m still not really sure about that) can’t work belowdeck.

Yes, I know some people navigate exclusively on iPads now. But we know what happens to them! Take, for example, the sad story of John Berg, who lost his Nordic 40 Seaquel on the coast of Hawaii just last month. He was running an iPad with iNavX software, was approaching a waypoint outside a harbor, and… Whoa! All of a sudden the tablet screen was taken over by Apple, who wanted him to log into FaceTime and iCloud for some reason. No matter what he tried he couldn’t clear the screen, and next thing you know…

He’s up on the reef! Poor Seaquel in extremis

And they couldn’t get her off, so she was destroyed by earth-moving equipment and hauled off to the dump. Apparently, the boat was also partly looted by locals beforehand

No sir! I want paper charts, plus I want a Canadian chart card for my plotter, and maybe along the way I’ll practice with that iPad thing, which I have never understood, because there are no written instructions for it, and the only way to figure out how it works is through a long tedious process of trial and error.

Step 2: To figure out what paper charts I need I google “Canadian charts” and quickly find the webpage of the Canadian Hydrographic Service. Clicking on “Paper Charts” I am led in a few more mouse clicks to a PDF chart catalogue (see image up top, which actually represents only a tiny portion of the catalogue) that is very hard to read on a computer screen. After much zooming in and out and rotating this way and that, I at last extract the numbers for the eight paper charts I would like to have onboard for my cruise.

Step 3: Actually buying the charts at first looks easy. I press the How To Purchase button on the CHS paper-chart page and I’m led to a dealer-locator function that tells me the nearest dealer to me is the West Marine store in Seabrook, New Hampshire, just a few miles down the road from my home.

Brilliant! I call them up, read them my list of chart numbers, and am put on hold. Many long minutes later I am told the store has no Canadian charts of any description and that I should instead call this particular number at West Marine HQ and they will print out the charts for me and send them on post haste.

OK. That doesn’t sound so bad. So I call that magic number, again read out my list of chart numbers, and am again put on hold. Many long minutes later I am told West Marine doesn’t really sell Canadian charts, has no ability to print out charts of any description, and that what I really need to do is check out Bluewater Books & Charts in Ft. Lauderdale.

Step 4: I am familiar with Bluewater Books. They are the people who bought the Armchair Sailor in Newport and later closed it down. I have tried to buy charts from them before, with no success, so now I am getting wary. I check their website and see they do indeed purport to sell the charts in question, but that delivery for some of them may be delayed, which suggests an inventory problem.

Best then to call and see what the situation is. So I do that and, even before I get to read out my chart numbers, I am put on hold.

Many long minutes later I am still on hold, listening to elevator music. The people on the other end still have no idea why I’m calling. This, I remember, is what happened last time, and that I never got anyone to ever help me on the phone. So I press zero a few times, trying to get back to a live person.

That doesn’t work, so I figure I might as well load a shopping basket on the website while I wait. This turns out to be incredibly difficult. The system is very balky and cumbersome, there are many steps involved in locating and depositing each chart in my virtual basket, and in all it takes about 20 minutes to complete the job.

Meanwhile, I am still on hold on the phone. I hang up, dial the number again, and I am once again put on hold before I can explain that I have already been on hold for at least half an hour.

What the hell. Let’s just buy this stuff and see what happens. So I attempt to buy the eight charts I have placed in my basket, and at the end of the process I am stuck on a frozen page, with no acknowledgement that I have purchased anything. I know better than to press Buy again, so I wait about an hour to see if an e-mail confirmation comes through. Nothing comes, so I have to assume I have not purchased the charts.

Step 5: I resolve never again to buy anything from Bluewater Books for as long as I live and figure I might as well try Boxell’s Chandlery in Boston. Many moons ago I bought charts from them, and they were reliable, knowledgeable, and courteous. I find their website online, and though they do claim to have Canadian charts, and there is a mechanism for buying them online, I note the online shopping function looks positively neolithic and the site hasn’t been updated in seven years. So I dial their phone number to do a reality check. No answer. The phone rings forever, and there isn’t even voice-mail. I dial several more times over the course of the day. Same result.

Step 6: Having now spent a few hours on the problem without getting anywhere, I give up for the day. The next morning, however, I get a promotional e-mail from Landfall Navigation and am reminded by this that they too sell charts. I check their website and find a complete list of Canadian charts with no warnings about delivery delays.

I try loading a basket with my eight paper charts. It is a relatively easy process, and when I click Buy at the end I actually get an acknowledgement. Thirty seconds later another acknowledgement appears in my e-mail box.

Greatly heartened by this, I search their site to see if they have Canadian chart cards for my A65 plotter. Yes, they do! So I plop that in another shopping basket, along with a Canadian tide-table book and a copy of the 2014 Nautical Almanac, press Buy again, and again receive appropriate acknowledgements.

Step 7: Four days later I have received no follow-up notice from Landfall telling me my items have shipped, so (with some trepidation) I try calling them on the phone. Bingo! I’m talking to a human within seconds, and they don’t put me on hold. What a thrill that is.

What I learn is that three of my paper charts, the tide tables, and the almanac are not in stock and have been back-ordered. Hopefully they’ll be ready to ship in five days. Meanwhile, the chart card and five paper charts are good to go.

“Will I have everything within 3 weeks?” I ask, as this is when I plan to leave.

“You should,” comes the answer.

So here I am, keeping my fingers crossed.

The old Raymarine A65. I’m quite fond of mine actually, as the controls really are pretty intuitive, and I rarely need to consult the manual, which does actually exist. I have mine mounted below, simply because there really is no room for it in Lunacy’s cockpit. In the cockpit I just keep a paper chart handy and eyeball stuff with that, the old-fashioned way

An iPad nav display. It looks like a plotter, but isn’t. It comes with no instructions, and the software is often updated, so functions often change, which means sometimes you have to figure out how to use it all over again. And apparently you don’t have control of what’s on the screen; Apple does

During this arduous quest, I was of course asking myself, do I really need all this stuff? And I decided I do. I want it all–the paper charts, my chartplotter, and of course I’ll take the iPad and its charts. I might go without the plotter, if push came to shove and for some reason that card I bought doesn’t actually work, but I’d feel very uncomfortable going without paper charts.

As for poor John Berg, former owner of Seaquel, I should give you a little more background on him. He really does rely on electronics to navigate, as he is blind. Evidently all his electronics are rigged to talk to him. He did have one sighted crew member on board when he lost the boat, but apparently what happened was the two of them got lost in tunnel-vision trying to clear the iPad screen.

Mr. Berg, though blind, has been cruising his boat for 14 years and is highly experienced. To his credit, he takes complete responsibility for what happened to Seaquel

I should note, too, that Berg evidently wasn’t relying solely on his iPad. The story in Latitude 38 I linked to above says there was also a chartplotter onboard displaying NOAA charts, but these, for reasons not specified, “proved inadequate.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d sure like to know what that means.

PS: Berg isn’t the only one to have lost a boat due to iPad reliance. Please remember the story of the Swan 48 Wolfhound, which was abandoned (at least in part) due to a lack of iPad battery power.

PPS: The modern retail experience–and this is true of everything, not just charts–truly does suck. I could prove this by describing all I had to go through to purchase my current iPad, but that would be cruel and unusual punishment. I can only pray that this is only a phase we’re going through and that someday retailers will rediscover the concept of customer service.

PPPS: I nearly forgot to mention–I assume the trick to avoiding Berg’s fate iPad-wise is to turn on Airplane Mode while navigating so Apple can’t contact you. But would this also turn off the iPad’s GPS? Can anyone tell me that?

After a truly amazing public appeal by a number of British public officials, well-known sailors, and 200,000 random civilians who signed an online petition, the U.S. Coast Guard yesterday resumed its search for Cheeki Rafiki, a Beneteau First 40.7 that went missing on Friday while returning to the UK after racing at Antigua Sailing Week. Joining the search are elements of the World Cruising Club’s ongoing ARC Europe rally, led by the Outremer 64 catamaran Malisi (see photo up top). Yachting World’s technical editor Matthew Sheahan has also posted a detailed description of the search areas now involved and is urging any yachts transiting the area to join in the effort.

It makes perfect sense, of course, that people on yachts should help find the four missing crew from Cheeki Rafiki. But there is an element of risk involved–the overturned hull found by a container ship on Saturday, which presumably was Cheeki Rafiki, is certainly a hazard to other yachts. I would hate for anyone to find it by running into it.

If anyone does find it again, here’s another question: what exactly do you do with it? Is there any way to flip it over again? If not, how do you inspect the interior? Even for a well-equipped, well-trained diver, I imagine it would be a challenge.

Matt Sheahan in his post argues against the scenario I discussed in my last post, that what likely happened was that the boat suddenly flipped before the crew could deploy and board a liferaft. Sheahan urges the loss of the keel might have been gradual, giving the crew time to react. Others have argued that the fact that there were two personal rescue beacon hits from devices lit off in sequence, one after the other, proves that there must be survivors in a liferaft.

Again, the question in my mind is: under what circumstances do you have time to board a liferaft without bringing along the ship’s EPIRB? Two PLB hits in sequence does, of course, suggest there are two or more people cooperating on getting rescued, but they could just as easily be together in the water as in a raft while doing it.

I have read one report that states the ship’s EPIRB was ignited on Thursday, when the crew first reported they were taking on water, but no source is cited and I find no other reports confirming it. Given what we know, it seems unlikely. The crew reported Thursday they had a leak that was under control and that they were diverting to the Azores; given their experience, you wouldn’t think they’d also light off their EPIRB at this time. If they had, SAR resources would have immediately been focussed on recovering them.

One can only assume that the Coast Guard’s working assumption when they called off the initial search after just 53 hours was that any survivors had to have been in the water. I believe they made the right call resuming the search, given all the interest and unusual circumstances, but realistically I think the odds of finding survivors are slim.

Here’s yet another question I’m asking myself: if this had been a plain-vanilla cruising crew instead of a reasonably high-profile racing crew, would Robin Knox-Johnston, Sir Ben Ainslie, the British government, et al, have gone to such lengths lobbying the Coasties to keep on searching???

The fate of the four crew members aboard Cheeki Rafiki was confirmed on Friday when the U.S. Navy again found the overturned keel-less hull and inspected it closely enough to determine that its liferaft was still onboard. So with much drama and angst and effort we have at least confirmed what the U.S. Coast Guard initially surmised when it first suspended its search for survivors. I don’t think the effort was wasted or useless. Given the enormous interest in the fate of these four men, I think it was well worth it to achieve closure on that point.

I would hope some people who criticized the Coast Guard rather harshly for suspending the search might now express some regret (I noted, for example, that Brian Hancock, a well-known racing sailor, accused the Coasties of abandoning the search “without really trying”), but I’m not holding my breath on that. What’s more important is to focus on what we can take away from this tragedy to make sailing safer.

Time to wake up! This happens all the time

I’ve seen people discussing liferafts and such, but for me this big issue here is keels. The four crew on Cheeki died because the boat’s keel fell off, probably very suddenly, and this is not, as some have suggested, an unusual occurrence. It is frighteningly common. Modern fin keels fall off cutting-edge high-end race boats all the time (e.g., keel loss is a common reason for Vendee Globe withdrawals) and off less exotic race boats (e.g., I have one good friend who lost a keel off a TP52 while racing and know of many other similar incidents) and off common production boats, both while racing and cruising.

The underside of Cheeki Rafiki, showing the area where the keel ripped off. Note the large swath of damaged laminate below the keel’s footprint

On production boats like Cheeki, a Beneteau First 40.7, it is probably true that most keel failures are the result of damage sustained in groundings. This is a tricky business, as grounding damage can be very hard to assess accurately, and damage can be cumulative over several groundings. Even worse, with charter boats like Cheeki, there may be one or more groundings that take place and are never reported to the boat’s owner or those responsible for maintaining it.

For an excellent discussion of the damage sustained on Cheeki, I recommend you dive into this Sailing Anarchy thread here, from whence I pilfered these photos:

Enhanced out-take of the keel’s footprint from the image above. Questions raised: 1) are those bolt-heads and washers we see on the two forward keel bolts? Or are they broken off? 2) the aft bolt clearly seems to have been corroded, so is this where the trouble started? 3) the central bolts seem to have been the last to let go and took with them a big chunk of laminate, but was the laminate under the keel cored?

Another First 40.7, Barracuda, that lost its keel. Note the similarity in the damage to the underbody

Keel-bolt pattern on a stock First 40.7, as seen from inside. Note that the keel’s attachment points are not tied directly into the structural bilge grid. Also, this is an exceptionally shallow bilge!

Interestingly, on page 7 of the SA thread you’ll find one participant, ClubRacer.be, who claims to have been on two different supposedly undamaged never-grounded First 40.7s where the aft keel bolts started weeping when you honked down hard on the backstay. Another commenter, axobotl, claims to have been on a First 40.7 that grounded at hull speed without sustaining any detectable damage.

Thinking of that rusty aft bolt on Cheeki, I have to wonder if this is a weak spot on all First 40.7s that have been raced hard. (And there are a lot of them. They have an active one-design thing going on.) If you trap moisture against that bolt every time you crank down hard on the hydraulic backstay adjuster, corrosion seems inevitable.

In perusing the online commentary, I’ve seen that some people don’t believe it is possible to engineer a bolted-on fin keel that is not vulnerable. That this is a risk you have to take when sailing on boats like this.

Personally, I don’t accept this. I’m not an engineer, but I have to believe it is possible to design a keel attachment that spreads loads over a much wider area of the hull. After all, we never (or at least almost never) hear of wings shearing off of airplanes. Yes, I am sure “over-engineered” keel attachments would be heavier (and thus would decrease performance) and more expensive (thus less economically attractive), but they must be feasible. On page 6 of the SA thread, for example, you’ll find links to a patented Swedish system for attaching a fairly aggressive fin keel that looks incredibly strong.

As a starting point, I would say a “properly” engineered fin-keel attachment should spread loads over such a large area that you should need to effectively destroy the hull to remove the keel (like on a full-keel boat). Also, there should be some mechanism or “fuse” that lets you know when the assembly has been critically damaged.

I can only hope that all the energy that went into browbeating the Coast Guard to continue looking for Cheeki might now be channeled into this purpose. Then the crew of Cheeki would not have died in vain.

How do we create this new standard of construction in what is effectively an unregulated industry? It would help a lot, I think, if race organizers and rule mavens started the ball rolling. If the high-end race boats whose keels fail most often were forced to be safer in this regard, a lot would follow from that.

Charlotte and Eric Kaufman, who brought the Wrath of the Mass Media down on their heads when they evacuated their Hans Christian 36 Rebel Heart back in April, have filed suit in San Diego against Whenever Communications LLC (doing business as Satellite Phone Store), their Iridium satellite phone service provider. As they described in their radio interview with Ira Glass on This American Life in May, they were using their phone to seek medical advice for their sick 1-year-old daughter when their service was intentionally terminated by the provider. Believing their HF radio had been disabled by a deck leak and that they had no other means of seeking help for their daughter, they set off their EPIRB and so ignited the chain of events that has since made them notorious.

The Kaufmans announced they would file suit last week and did interviews with Good Morning America and KGTV ABC 10 News in San Diego. The KGTV interview can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube:

It’s well worth watching. The nut comes at 11:33, where the Kaufmans explain that the four California Air National Guard para-jumpers who jumped out of a plane 900 miles offshore to come help their sick child didn’t do anything once onboard that they couldn’t have done themselves had their sat-phone been working. That is: the PJs simply called a doctor for advice on their sat-phone and stabilized Lyra, the sick child, using only medication that the Kaufmans already had onboard.

This certainly makes it seem there is a strong argument that but for the termination of phone service the Kaufmans would not have had to abandon their boat.

Some of the reports last week on the nature of the lawsuit seemed a bit off-base to me, so I contacted the Kaufmans’ attorney, Dan Gilleon, and he provided me with a copy of the complaint, which he filed yesterday. He also answered some questions I had:

WaveTrain: News stories about the suit are reporting either a) the Kaufmans are seeking to compel the defendant to recompense the rescue agencies; or b) the Kaufmans intend to use part of any award recovered to recompense the rescue agencies themselves. Reading the complaint, these interpretations seem inaccurate. The complaint on its face has the Kaufmans seeking a declaratory judgment that they are not liable to recompense the rescue agencies, and the agencies are welcome to join the action if they would like to seek recompense from the defendant.

a) Are the news stories in fact inaccurate? Have the Kaufmans indicated to you they would use money recovered in the suit to pay the rescue agencies?

b) Is my interpretation correct?

Attorney Gilleon: I was more than disappointed with Good Morning America. I almost did not let the interview go forward. The comment about using money recovered in the lawsuit to repay the taxpayers is simply wrong. I spent at least 20 minutes with that reporter explaining what we were doing. We never said that. Instead, I explained that seeking reimbursement for the tax payers is easier said than done when we have no political support for the notion. There’s lots of people out there griping about how the US rescue forces are used by, for example, Carnival Cruises, but are never repaid when rescues occur.

The US will not go after the Kaufmans due to a policy of not seeking reimbursement as against the people who are rescued, as doing so may discourage people from calling for help. This does not, however, legally prohibit the US from seeking reimbursement should the Kaufman’s attain financial compensation from the satellite phone company. We have offered to assist the US obtain compensation of their own through this action, but our means of seeking that cooperation is somewhat limited until an attorney is assigned to the case. I reached out to Rep. Duncan Hunter’s office, for example, but have gotten nowhere.

If the US government does not want to cooperate with us through this lawsuit to obtain reimbursement for the rescue expenses, then we want the court to terminate their claim against the Kaufmans. They should not be allowed to wait around and see if money comes, and then take that money. If they want to assign their damages to us, we can seek recovery of those damages through this lawsuit. Until then, all we can seek is compensation for the loss of the boat and the associated damages.

WaveTrain: Why is Eric named as a nominal defendant? The complaint isn’t quite clear about that, as he is not referenced in any cause of action.

Attorney Gilleon: Eric is named as a nominal defendant because he signed a contract that changed the venue to Florida. Charlotte didn’t sign that contract. However, even though we don’t need him as a plaintiff in the case, he needs formally to be part of the action due to community property issues with the boat. Even though Eric is named as a “defendant” just like the United States and California, in reality they’re just “indispensable parties” and naming them as “defendants” is the only way to bring them within the jurisdiction of the court to make a judgment final and certain.

WaveTrain: The complaint states that “Eric could not continue the voyage alone.” Why not? He had previously sailed the boat singlehanded from California to Mexico. The boat was leaking, but the leak was manageable. In their press conference, I believe one member of the rescue team stated pretty explicitly that Eric made a choice between staying with the boat or staying with his family.

Attorney Gilleon: There are several differences with Eric singlehanding in Baja versus continuing the Pacific crossing alone. He would crewless, without an EPIRB, and without a satellite phone. Combined it presents a threat that is clearly too high for multiple additional weeks of transoceanic passage making.

WaveTrain: Prior to setting out across the Pacific, Eric, posting as Rebel Heart, actively participated in online sailing forums and on at least two occasions described to forum members several problems he had with the defendant, his sat-phone provider:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f13/ham-radio-vs-marine-ssb-121982-6.html#post1493195

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f13/iridium-service-plans-114895.html#post1384452

These included billing disputes and sudden phone deactivations for no apparent reason. Given this, it seems the Kaufmans in fact had fair warning their sat-phone service was unreliable. Doesn’t this prejudice their claim against the defendant?

Attorney Gilleon: He had the phone for nearly two years and in that time he can remember once where it simply did not work, the other time the issue cleared itself. In the first case a phone call to them resolved it and he walked away with the feeling that it was an isolated incident. If he thought the device was unreliable he wouldn’t have continued using the service. During the other nearly two years he used the phone constantly both for data and voice.

SatellitePhoneStore.com’s billing habits always seemed a bit off kilter but he chalked that up to the types of clients they’re dealing with (global, hard to reach). Also, they told him they were doing a big change to their billing system so long term there would be improvements.

WaveTrain: Have you developed any information that Iridium, as opposed to the named defendant, is also at fault? If so, can you share that information? Do you anticipate including Iridium as a defendant?

Attorney Gilleon: We have no evidence that Iridium was at fault in any way and furthermore would like to thank Iridium for being as forthcoming as possible in helping us to understand what happened to Eric’s account as it was handled by Whenever LLC.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to this exchange, but to me Gilleon’s answers seem reasonable. The issue of whether Eric could have saved the boat by finishing the voyage on his own was the one I was wondering about most. To me it seemed this might have been a real possibility (as I mentioned in a previous post), but I had not considered the lack of communications. He had at least two more weeks of ocean sailing in front of him, in a boat taking on 60 gallons of water a day, or more, and doing so alone without even an EPIRB aboard would be enough to give anyone pause.

Reactions on the cruising forums have not been so generous. It seems independent-minded cruisers (and wanna-be cruisers) have a strong aversion to the concept of filing any sort of lawsuit related to things going wrong on a boat offshore. You can check the mostly negative reactions on the Cruisers Forum here and the Cruising Sailors Bulletin Board here. I note that Jon Eisberg, who gave me some grief after my own adventure in January, is leading the charge on the latter. He seems to have nothing positive to say about anyone who abandons a boat, whatever the circumstances, and I can only pray for his own sake he never has to abandon one himself someday.

At least one critic on the Cruiser’s Forum has charged that Eric has been deleting and revising past posts he made, seemingly in preparation for litigation. I asked attorney Gilleon in a follow-up question if he had any comment on this and so far have not heard back from him.

For myself, as a former attorney and as a bluewater sailor who carries a sat-phone, I have absolutely no problem with the Kaufmans filing suit against Whenever. Given the facts as we know them, they have a perfectly legitimate claim. I note in particular that Eric in the interview up top there (at about 20:38) claims to talked to his service provider just a week before heading out on passage and apparently received no notice as to any issue with new SIM cards. He may well have also mentioned the upcoming trip to them. In the complaint, too, there is an allegation that the company tapped the Kaufmans’ credit card for a monthly payment on the very same day they intentionally deactivated their SIM card.

I’ve noticed too on the forums that some people are now painting the Kaufmans as narcissistic media whores, which also seems unfair. I am sure they’ve turned down many more interview requests than they’ve received, and my take on what we’ve seen from them so far is that they’ve pretty much done the minimum they need to do to protect their own rights and reputations.

The Kardashians they are not.

Having said that, I should note Eric is scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in August for the That Others May Live Foundation, which provides non-profit support for Air Force rescue personnel.

Some may call that narcissism, but to me it seems an act of gratitude.

As many of you know, I served as crew on Be Good Too, the Alpha 42 catamaran that was abandoned approximately 300 miles east of Chesapeake Bay in January. I published an account of the episode here on WaveTrain (which was also syndicated on SAILfeed) and also wrote a feature story for SAIL Magazine. In May I also published, without comment, a response from Gregor Tarjan, president of Aeroyacht, builder of the Alpha catamaran. (Gregor’s statement was also published on SAILfeed.) Hank Schmitt (see photo up top), the paid skipper aboard Be Good Too, contacted me from Bermuda as soon as he read Gregor’s statement and asked if I would publish a response from him. Hank’s delivery schedule has now simmered down a bit and he found time this week to draft the following statement:

STATEMENT OF HANK SCHMITT, SKIPPER OF BE GOOD TOO

I have been very quiet over the last few months. Losing a new boat is never easy for anyone involved. Losing Hull # 1 of a promising new line of boats can be devastating to the owner of the boat, but even more so to the builder, whose reputation and livelihood could be at stake. However, the builder’s response on your blog, quoting me from an internal report to the insurance company, has eroded my well intentioned resolve to remain quiet, breaking the unspoken code of “Do no harm.”

If a delivery skipper ever has to leave a boat he can be thankful if the owner of the boat is aboard, and even more thankful if he has an experienced first mate, a skipper in his own right, who also happens to host a professional blog site. I was thus saved having to explain to the owner why we left his boat out at sea. I also did not have to repeat the story over and over to the many people who wanted to know what happened. The entire episode was chronicled on the Sailfeed.com blog detailing the cascading list of problems that resulted in the final decision to abandon the boat. For posterity there is a Coast Guard YouTube video that shows us being reeled us out of the ocean like dead fish. My post-abandonment week was simple. All I had to do was write up a report for the insurance company. As a final goodwill gesture I did meet with the builders at the factory. Charlie and I also wrote a “punch list” of concerns to address for future boats.

My two employers, the boat owner, and indirectly, the insurance company, were both satisfied and moved on. The owner bought a used catamaran in the Med and has plans to sail her to the Caribbean. I was content to ignore the “armchair sailors” and let them rant if it makes them feel like better sailors. However, when the owner of Aeroyacht decided he needed a scapegoat, he made a foolish move in writing without consulting the person who best knew what went wrong. He either forgets, or does not care to remember, that we had the services of a weather router that gave us the OK to depart. We had a Spot tracker recording our route. The insurance company paid off because of the rogue wave that bent the rudders. The USGC found no fault with the crew’s decisions. That should have been enough said, but since the builder felt his entire future hinged on the loss of hull # 1, he had to find someone to blame.

This was not my first delivery south. In fact it was my third trip of this past 2013/2014 season. In November I made my 14th annual passage south in the NARC Rally (North American Rally to the Caribbean), skippering a Swan 46. In December I replaced a skipper with a sick pet who declined to deliver an Outbound 52 to St. Thomas.

This was also not my first delivery south in the winter. Three of the past four years I have departed with a boat after Christmas. It is called making a living. Delivery skippers are hired to move a boat when the owner does not want to. Two years ago I departed December 27th on a Jeanneau 40 from Oyster Bay NY to the Panama Canal. That year we did sail offshore to Norfolk, inside the ICW for three days, then offshore to Miami, and then next stop Panama. The year before, it was another Swan 46 out of the Chesapeake. We had to clear the snow and the ice off the deck to get down the Chesapeake, but after that it was an easy passage. So two of these trips were offshore passages, and one was inside Cape Hatteras, since we were not going to the Leeward Islands, but rather to Panama in the Western Caribbean. It is a fact that many delivery crews find better weather in December and January than in November since things by then have settled down some.

I have over 200,000 miles at sea. I have sailed a 39-foot catamaran from South Africa to Grenada and did a solo-Transat to Europe in 1992. I have also spent many months working offshore in the North Atlantic. I saw my first 50-foot winter wave in 1979 when I was working aboard one of five oil rigs drilling south of Long Island, NY. I also commercial fished out of Montauk, NY between October and April each winter for three years from 1990 to 1994. We would go out three-handed on an 81-foot longliner for 10 days. In November and early December we would wait for a winter gale to go by, steam out to the sea-mounts South or East of Montauk, and fish for three days before the next gale. When winds got over 30 knots with 12- to 15-foot seas, we would lay ahull and catch up on sleep and watch videos or read until it calmed down enough to fish for three more days. Then we would try and get into port before the next gale and last call at the Liar’s Saloon. So when the builder and armchair sailors say we did not know what we were doing at this time of year, I can only reply that I have spent many more months at sea in the North Atlantic than most sailors.

Track of Be Good Too

When one departs from Chesapeake Bay in winter heading to the Caribbean, there is a well-known phrase that says “go East until the butter melts and then head South.” With my previous delivery in December and with the Swan 46 fours years ago out of the Chesapeake, I did just that and sailed East for three or four days to a waypoint just Southwest of Bermuda. Then one heads south to look for the Easterly tradewinds that take you to the Caribbean on a beam reach. I take the time to explain this, because it was suggested that we should not have turned East once we were abeam of Chesapeake Bay. We had made decent progress down the Jersey Coast and were pretty far offshore, with a Southerly breeze forecast to hold. It was a good time to scoot across the Gulf Steam quickly on a reach. We would continue East for two or three days until the butter at least thawed. Anyone suggesting a course down the coast in winter and then trying to get to the Caribbean from points south of Cape Hatteras has never made the trip at this time of year.

Now is also a good time to explain a little about the boat delivery business. In this business it is normal to step aboard a new boat to deliver her as the builder is stepping off. Twice I have moved aboard a boat the same day the factory crew moved off.

Many people get a captain’s license, which is easy to do in the United States, and make some extra money doing deliveries. Anyone can deliver a boat when the weather is right and the boat is in good working order. Where we earn our money is by moving boats at the wrong time of year and when the boat has issues. There is a short migration window when boats get moved, followed by long periods when it is either hurricane season or when no one wants the boat moved because it is the middle of the winter or the middle of the summer when boats stay put.

In our case, the builder in his statement kept mentioning that the crew was on a tight schedule. The only deadline I had to cope with was a self-imposed deadline to meet a flight I booked for 12 days after we departed. I often buy my return plane ticket before I depart because I have found that you can save the owner some money by buying a ticket in advance rather than buying a ticket a day or two before your flight and that owners appreciate when you treat their money like your own. Neither Charlie nor the owner had a deadline. Losing a $250 plane ticket does not dictate a tight schedule.

1) TESTING

The boat was months past its original delivery date. The owner had flown out twice to take possession of the boat and had to stay in a hotel and then fly back home to reschedule again. The builder may like to remember that he took the boat out on many sea trials, but every time I saw the boat in December she was covered in snow and was still being built. This is normal with new boats and especially new designs. The three times I have flown to Europe or South Africa to pick up new boats they were always at least a week late. There is not much one can do.

While it is easier to stay “casual” while still at home (which was the case for me here, since I live in Long Island), the owner was not near his home. I have found even when you are in another country and the boat is not ready, it is best to stay “casual,” not get upset, and stay out of the way so the builder can complete the boat. Jumping up and down and getting “non-casual” does not work and only delays the workers since they want to show you who is boss.

The builder’s description of his big sea trial makes it sound like they went all the way around Long Island, but they in fact went around less than half the island, from Moriches Inlet to Port Jefferson around Montauk. A three-day sea trial. Here is what Gregor said about the test sail:

“Alpha Yachts tested the boat for weeks before handover. On the final test I, personally, sailed the boat under very harsh conditions by sailing it shorthanded, counterclockwise around Long Island in blizzard conditions. Outside temp’s averaged -20 Fahrenheit (-28 Celsius) winds were up to 40 knots and (short) seas about 10′ high. My plan was to test to the breaking point. A constant sheet of inch-thick ice covered the deck and at one point the boat was buried under 30″ of snow. The generator, engines and all the systems ran, non-stop, for 14 days to avoid freezing and becoming inoperable. Every system worked flawlessly.”

From this paragraph one would believe that the builder sailed the boat for a couple of weeks rather than two or three days on this first passage for the boat outside of Great South Bay. I have no doubt it felt like 20 degrees below zero as they sailed around Montauk between Christmas and New Year. But to then add the boat performed flawlessly, coupled with this description of the temperatures and the seas, is, to put it mildly, incredulous. No hull number one, five to nine months behind on delivery, on her first winter passage, performs flawlessly. In fact, he then states:

“There were issues: minor leaks (not dribbles) appeared through the seals of the saloon windows, emergency hatch seals, forward deck hatch seals and forward starboard to crossbeam attachment.”

Flawless, to him, does not mean she was not leaking in a number of places, by his own admission. How he thinks these leaks were dealt with in Port Jefferson in freezing conditions with a few tubes of caulk is questionable.

And if the boat was flawless why would he add:

“Subsequently boats to be delivered this year by the builder have been altered to eliminate these shortcomings. When I short-stopped in Port Jefferson, NY, all these issues were attended to so that I felt secure to continue the test and hand over the boat to the new owners in New Jersey”.

Since we know that caulk does not set in freezing temperatures, we must conclude that the boat still had leaks from all the above mentioned by the builder. The last thing that was installed by the builder was a manual bilge pump in the center of the boat with a 30-foot hose to reach any compartment in the boat. This pump got a lot of use on our trip south after the bilge pumps did not work correctly and would not shut off. Instead we had to use the manual pump for all four holds, the two engine compartments and the two main hulls.

The builder ends his post by stating that he thinks the boat will become a home to a Portuguese fisherman on the other side of the Atlantic. Charlie and I were sure that there was no need to scuttle the boat as a hazard to navigation since she would sink on her own if we were not there to bail. I am sure she would be home for fish well before she would have a chance of making it across the Atlantic to be a home for a fisherman. The insurance company did fly a plane out to look for the boat shortly after we left it. Even though they had our Spot tracking positions, which were less than 24 hours old, they were not able to find the boat. In addition to the leaks, there was ingress from bilge-pump outlets that had no vented loop or rise in the hose to stop water from coming in. Many multihulls drain water above the waterline without a shut-off valve. Water splashes in and once the hull sits down even a few inches the water comes in faster with each wave. Sink a little lower and water will flood right in.

While on the subject of EPIRBs and Spot trackers, the builder looks to some sort of conspiracy as to why we did not leave the EBIRB or Spot tracker onboard. Before we left the boat we asked the Coast Guard about leaving the EPIRB in the on position, but they told us to take it with us. When you have a captain’s license and the Coast Guard tells you to not leave the EBIRB on the boat, that is an order and you do as you are told. As for the Spot tracker, Gregor is not familiar with how they work. If you are not there to punch a button once every 24 hours they stop working, so leaving the Spot on board would not have done any good. If Gregor had simply asked us about the EBIRB and Spot tracker, we could have told him why they were not left aboard instead of him thinking there was some sinister plot to sink his boat. Also, we were not sure what the insurance company would have to say if we had scuttled the boat and they wanted to try and retrieve it. As it turned out, they did try.

2) SCHEDULE

I have already talked about Scheduling. We had a weather window from a well-known weather router. No one was disputing this as we left the builder and team at the dock in New Jersey. Too often people wait for the perfect weather window, which means that you are motoring for the first two or three days and then are low on fuel.

Catamarans do not have two things: gimbaled stoves and big fuel tanks. Although we did carry 4 extra fuel jugs, we did not have enough fuel to run both engines for more than two days at full throttle. Since the boat only had 30 HP engines, we had to run the engines at a full 3000 rpms to get us near cruising speed. Of course, when making long ocean passages on a cat it is customary to run one engine at slower rpms to try and extend your range and to have charging capability for your batteries for the entire passage. This was the main reason we were a little behind the weather router’s projected plot, since we were doing closer to 5 knots under power than the assumed 7 knots.

3) PREPARATION

Gregor states that he knew the inventory of the boat, and this was true. The owner had been to the boat more than once to take possession of it. Since she was so far behind schedule they could not load the boat, since it was still being built and the owner’s gear would be in the way. So when they were finally getting near delivery, Gregor decided to make the test run on the trip to deliver the boat to the owner outside of NY waters. This meant that Gregor had no choice but to load the owner’s gear from his sheds and office onto the boat.

Many new boats are delivered from factories to charter companies and new owners many miles from where they are built. Often the delivery skipper will only have the tools that he brings and little else, as the boat manufacturer does not sell boats with spares and tools. If the skipper is flying to the boat, he will have even fewer tools, unless the owner has authorized him to buy tools, which in many cases is not practical or affordable. Unless you are going to be doing major engine repair, there are not a lot of tools you need.

In this case, if I had foresight, I would have thanked Gregor for recommending that we take a battery-operated saws-all with spare batteries and a 12-pound sledge hammer. That is what we needed to cut away and jettison the bent and useless rudders so we might be able to get some control over the boat. Criticizing the crew for not have enough tools on a new boat is like blaming smokejumpers for arriving on scene with just a shovel and an axe. I did buy a bosun’s chair and a few other items for the owner before we left, unknown to Gregor, but then again he did not ask before writing his rebuttal.

3) JIB LEAD

Two things should look very funny here. The builder admits the boat was already five months late. On his test sail, two days before delivery, he discovered that the single Jib Sheet Block had a bad lead and would not last in a blow. So picture this: we are at Liberty Landing Marina in January and the owner has flown in for a third time. Gregor now says we should wait another week for a single Jib Sheet Lead from Selden. The owner can A) Fly back home for a week or more and wait for the block while paying transient dock fees. Or B) Stay in a hotel while they finish the boat and pay transient dock fees.

I am a rigger by trade and any sailor with any idea of Jib sheets and leads and how they control a boat can rig a new set when a single block fails. As seen in the picture on the Sailfeed Blog, we rigged a system superior to what was provided. What we needed was a set of barber haulers to have full control of the jib clew position to help us steer the boat. We needed to be able to backwind the jib well beyond the allowance of the short self-tacking track. So not only was this block not needed, but we had a better jury rig to try and get steerage.

The jury-rigged jib-sheet system with barber-haulers

The second thing that should jump out at you is that the builder contends that we were sailing too slow and should have been sailing faster, as he writes:

“Theoretically, because of the jury rig of the jib, the boat could not sail efficiently under the main alone. Had the boat been sailed with a proper jib lead and double reefed main, she could have been sailed with more speed up the wave face. Since she was slow (the skipper estimates 4-6 KNOTS) although I guess much slower, the boat was easily shoved backwards by the large rogue wave that hit them squarely. The disastrous effect was purely a matter of seamanship”

Here Gregor is making the mistake of believing his own marketing ideas. He suggests that if we were sailing faster into the waves then his “wave piercing” bows would have pushed us through the wave and we would not have been pushed backwards. If you ask me, a boxer stepping into a left hook is much worse off than one stepping away from that same left hook. Why he disparages the seamanship of the crew and suggests we should have had more sail up and been going faster is something I do not understand. Most experienced sailors would want to slow the boat down in bad weather, not sail faster upwind into the waves. It is his belief we should have been going faster so we would have walked into that left hook of a rogue wave.

We have all experienced rogue waves. You might have been sailing along on a near beam reach and suddenly get slapped square by a wave two feet higher than the rest. The wave slaps the hull at a different angle, and a small deluge of water wets the crew sitting in the cockpit. Everyone looks at each other and says: “Where did that come from?” Well imagine a wave also bigger than the rest and just out of sync enough in direction to lift up the bows of this 42-foot cat, exposing the bottom square-footage to the wave as the bow climbs and the wave washes over the boat and punches her backwards. A hit big enough to blow out a thick teak seat at deck level having climbed up the steps of the transom. This was not a teak step down at the bottom of the steps, but a strong thick teak seat at deck level.

Missing teak seat/step after the wave hit

In Charlie’s article in SAIL magazine Charlie says:

“There was a horrendous explosion and water fired-hosed into the cabin all around the edges of the window frames. A large piece of trim was blown right off a central vertical frame, but the windows, thankfully, held up. The enormous impact stopped the boat, which had been moving forward at 4 or 5 knots, dead in its tracks and even seemed to back us up a bit. A counter-wave surged up our stern and (as we later noticed) blew a large teak step right off its mounting posts.”

Why Gregor wanted us to have more jib up and to be moving faster into this wave is something I cannot answer. Past experience would dictate to most sailors to slow down. Some armchair sailors suggested deploying a drogue or sea anchor to help slow us down or stop the boat. Proper seamanship would be to slow down in bigger seas and not go faster as Gregor admonished us to do. (The use of drogues and sea anchors are a whole other chapter into themselves. Most new boats do not carry them and most delivery skippers never deploy them as they want to be more proactive and do not want to stop.)

4) RUDDER CONSTRUCTION

The builder spends a lot of time on the rudders. After all, they are the reason that we could only sail (or motor) in circles. The loss of the rudders was the problem. Everything else we could deal with. We spent two days after “the wave” making progress when the conditions were optimum to move. We could make progress when the wind was blowing over 25 knots sailing on a close reach only. At any other time we could not make progress. Since we could not steer an accurate course towards Bermuda, a very small target in the Atlantic with no ocean-towing services, we ruled that out. The next option was to recross the Gulf Steam, heading north to Long Island at 280 miles away, or heading West 300 miles to Cape Hatteras. Since we could only sail at less than two knots on a close reach, we would not have been able to make enough speed to get across the Gulf Steam. We also knew we could not count on the perfect wind direction for any length of time to get us across the Stream and to land. With no steerage and a southerly breeze blowing us north, we only had another day before we would be blown back into the Gulf Stream, which would then take us on a quick ride towards Europe.

Gregor writes in his statement:

“Edson suggested two types: one with two locking bolts which affixed the rudder stock to the tiller arm, the other with a single smaller bolt and a key as is traditionally seen. The builder opted for the twin bolt set-up.”

and

“The rudder post is locked to the tiller arm by the use of two 3/8″ threaded bolts (not set screws, as they were identified in the article) with a 3/4″ bury that act as a lock, but also serve as a safety mechanism in case the boat is pushed backwards, so they could theoretically shear and leave the rudder undamaged.”

I got pretty intimate with the separated tiller arm and rudder post spending several hours in the steering flat wrestling with an allen wrench, rubber mallet and spinning rudderpost articulating to scissor off fingers or worse. Be Good Too did have one 3/8″ bolt on the back of the tiller arm to tighten and compress the tiller arm to the rudder post, but this does not go through the rudder post. The ¾” bury that he is talking about was a small set screw sunk two threads into a hole drilled into the rudder stock. It was neither a ¾ set screw, nor buried ¾ of an inch. There are two pictures on Charlie’s blog that show the starboard rudderpost connection that has the one 3/8″ bolt on the back of the tiller arm. The repaired allen wrench photo shows that we had a good fixed solid ferrous piece through the hole connecting the tiller arm to the rudder post, but not before.

Damaged port-side rudderstock/tiller-arm connection before repairs

And after repairs

When we finally got the tiller arm and rudder post to line up, we thought we were good to go. After one last circle under sail, we realized that the rudder must be permanently bent and we were out of options. The missing picture that Charlie chose not to print shows the small set screw broken off at two threads that was all that was holding the tiller arm to the post other than the 3/8 bolt on the back of the arm, which pinches the metal around the rudder stock, but does not go through the rudder stock. A picture is worth a thousand words, so if Charlie wishes to print the picture he has showing me holding the broken set screw, we can say case closed on this issue. If Charlie wished to save builder further embarrassment by not printing the picture I can also understand that.

5) SAIL TRIM AND STEERING A BOAT

Almost anyone who sailed as a child spent time steering a boat without a rudder. In 1977 in the SORC when the boat I was on broke its steering cables rounding the mark north of Bimini in the dark and was drifting towards the reefs, I advised against taking the sails down. As the rest of the crew worked to get the emergency steering arm in place with the binnacle in the way, I was able to turn the boat back on course using the sails until we got sorted out. In 28 years of delivering boats I have had steering failures 7 times and on one delivery spent 5 days under emergency steering. Another time it was 8 days on emergency steering, on a center cockpit boat no less. Boat owners much prefer if you can get the boat home rather than leave her in a foreign port to get expensive repairs while paying dockage fees. It also saves the owner paying travel time for another crew.

I have also been dismasted twice (never on a client’s boat, both times on my own) more than 400 miles from land. In all cases, with seven steering problems and two dismastings, I got the boat to shore without assistance. I have been delivering boats long before there was GPS, long before autopilots were ubiquitous, long before charterplotters, long before SeaTow. There is not a lot you can tell me about getting a boat to its destination on her own that I don’t know. However, having severely bent rudders that will not let a boat steer under power or sail, when cutting the rudders away is the only option, is another story. To deliver a boat you need to keep the water out, keep the sails up and working, and have steerage. You do not need a motor, you only need enough water and food to survive, but if you cannot stay afloat, move or steer, the jig is up.

In the SAIL magazine article Charlie states: “I had sailed with Hank many times, but this was the first time I’d ever seen him rattled.” And yes, I was rattled, because I was the one at the wheel of the boat as we tried to regain control after the wave hit. After the first crash jibe I had her hard over to port, yet we turned around once more to starboard. Remember, this is a catamaran with two hulls. Common sense would dictate if you put full throttle on the starboard engine and turn to port then you will turn to port. I was rattled because we had lost control of the boat even with the starboard engine fully engaged and the wheel turned to help stay on course. When logic defies reason, you think voodoo, mysticism, and are rattled as in: “This does not compute.” I thus ran forward to get the main down before another crash jibe. We were to spend the next two days trying to find a solution to our steering issues

Also, this was a delivery in January. Not the perfect time of year, but it’s done a lot more than people realize. Do you think boats come off the assembly lines in South Africa or France or South Carolina and sit and wait for seasons to change before moving to the charter fleets? No, boats get finished every month of the year. Like new boats, trade-ins or recently sold boats have very little gear aboard, the old owner having taken it for their next boat or because they simply don’t want to give everything away. The new owner wants to work on the boat and outfit it in his own harbor and have his own team of workers. Often delivery skippers move newly purchased boats with little gear and used boats with long work lists that will be completed after the delivery to the new owner.

There are many reasons why a delivery skipper gets paid to move a boat, and most of the sailing public would not understand that we do not work in a perfect world and don’t have the luxury of charging an owner hundreds of dollars a day while waiting for a missing part and then waiting a week for another weather window. Armchair sailors are allowed their opinions and do their forensic work after the fact. Remarks should be tempered until facts are in from all sources, not just from a builder who is trying to protect his reputation. Also when something you read does not make sense, think about it and apply your own sailing knowledge and experience to a situation and follow your gut to not believe what does not seem right.

After we made landfall, courtesy of the USCG Helicopter ride, they asked permission to do a taped interview. We all agreed but were so boring that none of it even made the US Coast Guards video of the incident. In fact I was very surprised that the USCG sent a helicopter to get us. We had been told and were expecting a ship to be diverted to pick us up. Charlie and the owner were amused when I asked the Coast Guard for a ship heading West to the United States rather than take a long ride to Europe, and the Coast Guard was accommodating. However, at some point during the night they decided they wanted to send a helicopter and rescue swimmer to get us. Some people questioned why taxpayers should spend money to get sailors who went to sea in January. My response is that we were ready and willing to get off on a ship and not cost the US taxpayer anything.

Hank after getting pulled up into the helicopter

However, the Coast Guard likes to practice in real situations and the crew of the helicopter and the rescue swimmer were game on and very happy to be doing something. The PR guy at the base in North Carolina stated that their commander is very PR savvy and that is why they had footage of the rescue that many saw online. Like all Government agencies, the more they do the more funding they get the next year. So we can only surmise that they came by helicopter for the practice and for the PR. They did a great job and I respect the high skill level of everyone involved. One fact also missing in any media is that the owner and his wife had a party back in Germany after their rescue and they and their friends raised $10.000 and donated it to the Coast Guard Fund in NC. How often have you heard of that?

In closing, I wish Gregor and his company well. I live on Long Island and was proud to hear that we had boat building back on Long Island. I got involved because a surveyor friend was hired to oversee the building of the boat. I made several trips to see the boat and meet Gunther and tried to work with Gregor to do our usual professional job for his customer. Part of that is being there to answer questions and to help, but also to stay out of the way when you see they are still struggling to get the boat ready. The Alpha catamaran is a very strongly built boat. We were never in any danger at any time before or after the steering failure. I feel confident that Gregor will take the pages of recommendations that we gave him to heart. In my visit and debrief afterwards you could tell that Gregor was anxious to make the necessary changes to make sure their next boat and all boats afterwards are good boats. I wish them well.

If anyone wants to speak with me they are welcome to contact me. My number is 631-423-4988 and my e-mail address is offshorepassage@sprintmail.com.

Editor’s Note: As Hank notes, at the time of the incident I was sure Be Good Too would sink after we left her. Subsequently, I reviewed the boat’s construction specs and on seeing how much foam core is in the hull I thought she might well stay swamped on the surface. If so, I expected there was a good chance we’d hear of a sighting once yachts started moving from the Caribbean to Europe, but so far there have been no such reports.

Charlotte and Eric Kaufman, who brought the Wrath of the Mass Media down on their heads when they evacuated their Hans Christian 36 Rebel Heart back in April, have filed suit in San Diego against Whenever Communications LLC (doing business as Satellite Phone Store), their Iridium satellite phone service provider. As they described in their radio interview with Ira Glass on This American Life in May, they were using their phone to seek medical advice for their sick 1-year-old daughter when their service was intentionally terminated by the provider. Believing their HF radio had been disabled by a deck leak and that they had no other means of seeking help for their daughter, they set off their EPIRB and so ignited the chain of events that has since made them notorious.

The Kaufmans announced they would file suit last week and did interviews with Good Morning America and KGTV ABC 10 News in San Diego. The KGTV interview can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube:

It’s well worth watching. The nut comes at 11:33, where the Kaufmans explain that the four California Air National Guard para-jumpers who jumped out of a plane 900 miles offshore to come help their sick child didn’t do anything once onboard that they couldn’t have done themselves had their sat-phone been working. That is: the PJs simply called a doctor for advice on their sat-phone and stabilized Lyra, the sick child, using only medication that the Kaufmans already had onboard.

This certainly makes it seem there is a strong argument that but for the termination of phone service the Kaufmans would not have had to abandon their boat.

Some of the reports last week on the nature of the lawsuit seemed a bit off-base to me, so I contacted the Kaufmans’ attorney, Dan Gilleon, and he provided me with a copy of the complaint, which he filed yesterday. He also answered some questions I had:

WaveTrain: News stories about the suit are reporting either a) the Kaufmans are seeking to compel the defendant to recompense the rescue agencies; or b) the Kaufmans intend to use part of any award recovered to recompense the rescue agencies themselves. Reading the complaint, these interpretations seem inaccurate. The complaint on its face has the Kaufmans seeking a declaratory judgment that they are not liable to recompense the rescue agencies, and the agencies are welcome to join the action if they would like to seek recompense from the defendant.

a) Are the news stories in fact inaccurate? Have the Kaufmans indicated to you they would use money recovered in the suit to pay the rescue agencies?

b) Is my interpretation correct?

Attorney Gilleon: I was more than disappointed with Good Morning America. I almost did not let the interview go forward. The comment about using money recovered in the lawsuit to repay the taxpayers is simply wrong. I spent at least 20 minutes with that reporter explaining what we were doing. We never said that. Instead, I explained that seeking reimbursement for the tax payers is easier said than done when we have no political support for the notion. There’s lots of people out there griping about how the US rescue forces are used by, for example, Carnival Cruises, but are never repaid when rescues occur.

The US will not go after the Kaufmans due to a policy of not seeking reimbursement as against the people who are rescued, as doing so may discourage people from calling for help. This does not, however, legally prohibit the US from seeking reimbursement should the Kaufman’s attain financial compensation from the satellite phone company. We have offered to assist the US obtain compensation of their own through this action, but our means of seeking that cooperation is somewhat limited until an attorney is assigned to the case. I reached out to Rep. Duncan Hunter’s office, for example, but have gotten nowhere.

If the US government does not want to cooperate with us through this lawsuit to obtain reimbursement for the rescue expenses, then we want the court to terminate their claim against the Kaufmans. They should not be allowed to wait around and see if money comes, and then take that money. If they want to assign their damages to us, we can seek recovery of those damages through this lawsuit. Until then, all we can seek is compensation for the loss of the boat and the associated damages.

WaveTrain: Why is Eric named as a nominal defendant? The complaint isn’t quite clear about that, as he is not referenced in any cause of action.

Attorney Gilleon: Eric is named as a nominal defendant because he signed a contract that changed the venue to Florida. Charlotte didn’t sign that contract. However, even though we don’t need him as a plaintiff in the case, he needs formally to be part of the action due to community property issues with the boat. Even though Eric is named as a “defendant” just like the United States and California, in reality they’re just “indispensable parties” and naming them as “defendants” is the only way to bring them within the jurisdiction of the court to make a judgment final and certain.

WaveTrain: The complaint states that “Eric could not continue the voyage alone.” Why not? He had previously sailed the boat singlehanded from California to Mexico. The boat was leaking, but the leak was manageable. In their press conference, I believe one member of the rescue team stated pretty explicitly that Eric made a choice between staying with the boat or staying with his family.

Attorney Gilleon: There are several differences with Eric singlehanding in Baja versus continuing the Pacific crossing alone. He would crewless, without an EPIRB, and without a satellite phone. Combined it presents a threat that is clearly too high for multiple additional weeks of transoceanic passage making.

WaveTrain: Prior to setting out across the Pacific, Eric, posting as Rebel Heart, actively participated in online sailing forums and on at least two occasions described to forum members several problems he had with the defendant, his sat-phone provider:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f13/ham-radio-vs-marine-ssb-121982-6.html#post1493195

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f13/iridium-service-plans-114895.html#post1384452

These included billing disputes and sudden phone deactivations for no apparent reason. Given this, it seems the Kaufmans in fact had fair warning their sat-phone service was unreliable. Doesn’t this prejudice their claim against the defendant?

Attorney Gilleon: He had the phone for nearly two years and in that time he can remember once where it simply did not work, the other time the issue cleared itself. In the first case a phone call to them resolved it and he walked away with the feeling that it was an isolated incident. If he thought the device was unreliable he wouldn’t have continued using the service. During the other nearly two years he used the phone constantly both for data and voice.

SatellitePhoneStore.com’s billing habits always seemed a bit off kilter but he chalked that up to the types of clients they’re dealing with (global, hard to reach). Also, they told him they were doing a big change to their billing system so long term there would be improvements.

WaveTrain: Have you developed any information that Iridium, as opposed to the named defendant, is also at fault? If so, can you share that information? Do you anticipate including Iridium as a defendant?

Attorney Gilleon: We have no evidence that Iridium was at fault in any way and furthermore would like to thank Iridium for being as forthcoming as possible in helping us to understand what happened to Eric’s account as it was handled by Whenever LLC.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to this exchange, but to me Gilleon’s answers seem reasonable. The issue of whether Eric could have saved the boat by finishing the voyage on his own was the one I was wondering about most. To me it seemed this might have been a real possibility (as I mentioned in a previous post), but I had not considered the lack of communications. He had at least two more weeks of ocean sailing in front of him, in a boat taking on 60 gallons of water a day, or more, and doing so alone without even an EPIRB aboard would be enough to give anyone pause.

Reactions on the cruising forums have not been so generous. It seems independent-minded cruisers (and wanna-be cruisers) have a strong aversion to the concept of filing any sort of lawsuit related to things going wrong on a boat offshore. You can check the mostly negative reactions on the Cruisers Forum here and the Cruising Sailors Bulletin Board here. I note that Jon Eisberg, who gave me some grief after my own adventure in January, is leading the charge on the latter. He seems to have nothing positive to say about anyone who abandons a boat, whatever the circumstances, and I can only pray for his own sake he never has to abandon one himself someday.

At least one critic on the Cruiser’s Forum has charged that Eric has been deleting and revising past posts he made, seemingly in preparation for litigation. I asked attorney Gilleon in a follow-up question if he had any comment on this and so far have not heard back from him.

For myself, as a former attorney and as a bluewater sailor who carries a sat-phone, I have absolutely no problem with the Kaufmans filing suit against Whenever. Given the facts as we know them, they have a perfectly legitimate claim. I note in particular that Eric in the interview up top there (at about 20:38) claims to talked to his service provider just a week before heading out on passage and apparently received no notice as to any issue with new SIM cards. He may well have also mentioned the upcoming trip to them. In the complaint, too, there is an allegation that the company tapped the Kaufmans’ credit card for a monthly payment on the very same day they intentionally deactivated their SIM card.

I’ve noticed too on the forums that some people are now painting the Kaufmans as narcissistic media whores, which also seems unfair. I am sure they’ve turned down many more interview requests than they’ve received, and my take on what we’ve seen from them so far is that they’ve pretty much done the minimum they need to do to protect their own rights and reputations.

The Kardashians they are not.

Having said that, I should note Eric is scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in August for the That Others May Live Foundation, which provides non-profit support for Air Force rescue personnel.

Some may call that narcissism, but to me it seems an act of gratitude.