Messing About In Sailboats

Blog of SV Lynn Rival

Like many sailors I was distressed to hear about the British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler who were kidnapped by Somali pirates this week. They were on passage from the Seychelles to Tanzania. News of their kidnapping broke after their EPIRB was activated and they posted a brief message on their blog.

I visited the blog in the hope that I could leave a message of support but unfortunately this is not enabled. It's worth visiting the blog to understand the route they took. They were clearly as careful as they could be. They came through the Red Sea and along the Southern Arabian Coast in a rally and kept going East to India. After working their way down the Indian coast they left Goa and headed Southwest for the Seychelles. After the Seychelles they were kidnapped in transit to Tanzania.

The thing that shocked me was how far from Somalia they were. I assumed that the hijackings were closer to the Somali shore. From what I can calculate they were hijacked 500-800 miles from Somalia and well South of Somalia. The range of these pirates is frightening.

I understand that Rachel and Paul have been taken inland in Somalia. We're all thinking of you and wish for your safety and swift return.

Big Oceans in the Big Apple?

A while ago I blogged about a young Australia guy, Nick living in Holland. With little sailing experience Nick decided that the only way he wanted to get home was to sail back to Melbourne, single-handed.  He has been blogging about this for nearly two years. After several months learning to sail offshore, raising money, Nick set off in his 26' Constellation, in September 2007. Currently Nick is in the Caribbean.

This week I got this email from blogger David Traver Adolphus:

In July of 2006, Australian Nick Jaffe was stuck in Europe, and decided to he liked sailboats. An artist and software developer, he'd always liked messing about in boats, but had exactly zero experience in bluewater sailing. Over the next year, he developed the notion that the best way for him to get home to Australia would be to sail there, and he set about making that dream a reality.

In September of 2007, he left Holland aboard his 26-foot Contessa, Constellation. On April 29th of this year, he completed a singlehanded crossing from the Canaries to Barbados.

I have no stake in the voyage of the Constellation beyond being captured by Nick's spirit. I've been following his progress on his www.bigoceans.com website for over a year, and in the progress struck up a conversation with him. Nick's plans for the rest of his voyage are equally audacious, but between now and Australia he'll be stopping in New York. I'm only an armchair sailor, but I understand the scale of what he's accomplished so far, and of what he's proposing from here.

If you have any interest in helping out, or know someone who might be, please let me know. His needs aren't great—I'd like to find him slips between New York and Maine, and he'll be looking for things like cordage, spreaders, paint… you real sailors will have a better idea than me, frankly.

I'd also like to welcome him to the USA in style, so I'm also hoping to arrange a party for him; I know he has many friends and supporters on the East Coast who'd love to be a part of it. Maybe someone can donate a banquet room at one of the NYC-area yacht clubs? Please contact me and I'll start putting things together. I also think this is an outstanding sponsorship opportunity, but that's between you and Nick.

Nick's story is an inspiring and heartwarming one, and two years later it's not even half over. Join his voyage—you won't be sorry.

So all you sailing bloggers out there on the East Coast, how can we entice Nick to the Big Apple? How can we help him? I am up for helping David organize things in NY. Clearly he is going to need help at other points on the Eastern seaboard.

Groupama 3 Rescue Video

You can see a couple of great videos of Groupama 3 after the capsize here. The first one is the actual rescue by the NZ Coastguard and the second is earlier as they were preparing to be rescued. The thing that's amazing is the calm and good humor these guys are in.

It takes a a hell of a team spirit to laugh through the adversity that these guys are going through. OK, they are relieved that they are all safe and that it's a daytime rescue in moderately light conditions (well moderate compared to the 40kts they were being slammed with the night before). Nevertheless, they know their race is over and who knows what next. You can see it sink in as they crowd together on the helicopter. The look of relief turn to personal sadness.

Great post about the capsize and recue on Sailjuice.

What do you get the man who has everything?

Great article in today's NY Times about the Monaco Megayacht boat show.

Firstly size mattesr - 300 feet is the new 100 feet. Roman Abramovich, multi-kajillionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club is bored with his 3 other megayachts and is building a 520+ feet yacht with two, yes two helicopter pads just in case he needs to land his two choppers at once. His current megayacht has its own sub and is rumored to have its own missile defense system.

You want fries with that? The options are amazing. You want a sub? No not a bloody sandwich. A real submarine that can dive to a 160 feet. What color would you like that in?

Environmentally-conscious? You can have a yacht with a special fiber-glass that looks like wood, sparing the rain forests (isn't that nice!), has special water recuperators and filters over the engine exhausts. Now if only you could do something about that annoying carbon foot print of the Lear Jet you need to get to your megayacht.

Thirsty? How about a wine cellar to rival a small restaurant?

Enough with the boat porn. Give me my Cape Dory Typhoon any day.

Is this wise?

Far be it for me to judge someone with great intentions and big ambitions but this report in today's New York Times raised an eyebrow.

Dominique Gorlitz, a German former school teacher is about to cross the North Atlantic in a 41 foot boat made entirely of reeds. He has no significant sailing experience and the historical theory behind this venture is based on fairly thin:

It should be quite an adventure. Somehow, 12 people — he has 9 and is still recruiting — will cram themselves onto the 41-foot-long vessel. It will be outfitted with a single A-shaped mast and 14 keelboards for steering. At the helm will be Mr. Görlitz, a 40-year-old former schoolteacher from Chemnitz, Germany, who has neither a sailing license nor any formal training in archaeology. Along for the ride will be the vessel’s construction engineer from Bolivia, who cannot swim.

OK, Thor Heyerdal did it but he did it with the current, the prevailing winds and took a Southern route. The bit for me that convinced me that this guy needs help was the final bit of his interview:

His lack of a sailing license, he says, is of no concern. “It’s like kung fu,” Mr. Görlitz said. “The less you know, the better.”

Sailing is like Kung Fu. Riiiiight! $5 says he doest make it East of Long Island

A total tragedy - Cutty Sark on Fire

This is an absolute tragedy. The Cutty Sark, the 138 year old Tea Clipper has been seriously damaged by a fire that looks like it was deliberately caused.

Just a week ago, I flew over it coming into land at Heathrow. It was under covers for a massive restoration project. Just one week later, this happens.

As a kid I used to love visiting it in Greenwich. It is a huge vessel - 64 metres long with 46 metre high masts. You could spend hours crawling all over it, getting a real feel for what life was like on a working sailing ship.

Bloggers rescue Haitian refugees

A couple of days ago there was  tragic news that a boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of DR. Here is an excerpt:

A boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of the Dominican Republic, leaving at least eight passengers dead and 44 missing, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.

The boat was traveling from the northern Haitian town of Cap-Haitien to the Turks and Caicos islands when it caught fire about 25 miles north of the Dominican Republic, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Barry Bena said Thursday.

Two migrants were pulled alive from the water Wednesday and brought to a hospital in Montecristi on the Dominican Republic's north coast. The two adults, a man and a woman, were being treated for burns and dehydration, Dr. Maria Belliard said.

It appeared the migrants had been in the water for at least a day when they were spotted by a U.S. yacht cruising from Panama, said Capt. Jose Antonio Carrero, commander of the Dominican Navy's northern operations.

"They found just the two people, not the boat, not anything," Carrero said.

The rescuers in this story were Bruce and Jan Smith who I blogged about last week. Their rescue account is incredible. Serioulsy, this is one of the most gripping things I have ever read on a blog. They pulled this poor couple out of the water. They were the soul survivors and hard been clinging to the wreckage for 3 days.

The following summed up Bruce and Jan's dilemma.  Their story is very moving.

One night some time ago, in the cockpit of a friend’s boat, the after-dinner conversation was around the question, “If you came across a small fishing boat miles offshore and they needed water, would you give it to them?” Human compassion stood on one side, pitted against personal safety and the threat of piracy. Someone knew a cruising boat that had faced the question head-on. Debating it was food for thought for all of us who venture offshore.

 

An unusual recue in the Antartic

Link: BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Whaling truce in high seas rescue.

A Japanese whaling ship joined in the search for two anti-whaling activists who went missing during a confrontation in icy seas off Antarctica.

P&O man charged over Ouzo deaths

Link: BBC NEWS | England | P&O man charged over Ouzo deaths.

Back in the summer, I heard this sad news about the disappearance of the three Londoners in the Channel. At the time it wasn't clear what happened to them. As it turns out, they were run over by a ferry heading for Spain.

I have sailed the Solent, close to where they were run down a number of times and it's a very crowded waterway. Sailing at night or in fog is scary stuff. It's like hopping across a busy freeway.

The Search for James Gray

Link: Silicon Valley’s High-Tech Hunt for Colleague - New York Times.

A couple of days ago, Zephyr blogged the news that James Gray a computer scientist for Microsoft and expert sailor went missing off the coast of California in his red 40' C&C. Gray, a  winner of the Turing Award,  was a giant in the computer science community. It's amazing how the tech community has mobilized to try to find him.

One of his colleagues sent out a mass email to help in finding him and the tech industry responded. Sergei Brin the founder of Google got his Google Earth team poring over satellite imgaes. Amazon and Microsoft and NASA all joined together with Google to hep the Coast Guard scour the ocean for Dr Gray.

Although the Coast Guard have called off the search, his friends are continuing their satellite search.

The weather was calm and there is no trace of a sinking. He was carrying his mother's ashes to spread them to the winds at sea so there is a lot of speculation about what might have happened.