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another missing sailor

11K views 79 replies 35 participants last post by  Danny33 
#1 ·
#39 · (Edited by Moderator)
OMFG-

... I'm putting you on my ignore list. Buh-bye.
 
#41 ·
Teshannon-

Unfortunately... but that means I'm in good company, since Gui is a friend of mine. :)
 
#44 ·
The cases of Corona, Canned Food & Marlboro's ,Means you can rule out Dehydration, Starvation and Nicotine Fits. Since Dana to San Diego is only a one case of beer and one carton of cigarettes trip they also mean you cannot rule out a "judgement problem" on the part of the missing man.
 
#45 ·
Lots of beer

Wow, in the picture on the LL38 article I count eight 12 packs of Corona. That is 96 beers for a 60nm sail? Assuming 4 knot speed he was looking at a 15 hour sail or a bit more than a 6 pack every hour. That is enough beer for a week or two for most of us. Could he have been planning an extended stay in an desolate spot?

Always sorry to see a sailor in trouble but got to ask the questions.
 
#48 ·
SD, I say this with all due respect as I value your contributions to Sailnet, but OMFG has a valid point. Judging a persons sailing ability based in their relation with family and presence of beer amongst a live aboard's provisions is a huge stretch. I am all for post mortems for increasing all sailors knowledge about the best practices for sailing.

This sailor may have been very unprepared for this sail and it appears he paid for it with his life. Where there is no real information, it seems disrespectful to the deceased to automatically conclude the worst about an individual.
 
#49 ·
I don't know what happened. I don't have any reason to assume he was drunk...I carried 65lbs of coffee on my boat and many cases of beer before heading to the Bahamas since both were expensive there. If this had happened to me I would hope I wouldn't have been classified as a jumpy, twitchy drunk based on that evidence.
I DO know that for a real novice to attempt a 60 mile coastal run in a new boat singlehanded is ill advised. To do it without proper safety equipment is rather foolhardy. That is more than testing one's limits. Whatever the other circumstances...the decision to leave the dock unprepared is the proximate cause of his death. RIP.
 
#50 ·
A couple points about alcohol and boating from the BoatUS site:

As more states adopt strict operating-under-the-influence (OUI) laws that mirror stepped-up alcohol enforcement on the roads, boaters are coming under increasing scrutiny. Venturing out on the water after drinking, even after moderate social drinking, can be very hazardous.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, alcohol is a major factor in as much as 50% of all recreational boating fatalities.

The Coast Guard says a boat operator with a blood alcohol concentration above .10% - the legal threshold in 38 states - is 10 times more likely to be killed in a boating accident than a boater with zero BAC.

No matter what the activity, alcohol affects balance, vision, coordination and judgement. But in boating, stressors like wind, sun noise, motion, and vibration can magnify the effects of alcohol and even accelerate impairment.
From the same article, regarding the effects of just a single drink:

After one drink, the BAC of our subjects, all of different body types, ranged form .02% to .05%. Three of the four failed the eye exercise in the field sobriety test, indicating that some people show signs of impairment well before legal intoxication. All subjects performed adequately on the water although two maintained slightly erratic control over boat speed. And the same two hit the dock.
From the USCG boating safety website:

When a boater or passenger drinks, the following occur:

Cognitive abilities and judgment deteriorate, making it harder to process information, assess situations, and make good choices.

Physical performance is impaired - evidenced by balance problems, lack of coordination, and increased reaction time.

Vision is affected, including decreased peripheral vision, reduced depth perception, decreased night vision, poor focus, and difficulty in distinguishing colors (particularly red and green).

Inner ear disturbances can make it impossible for a person who falls into the water to distinguish up from down.

Alcohol creates a physical sensation of warmth - which may prevent a person in cold water from getting out before hypothermia sets in.
I'm not saying that Bunker was out and out blotto, falling down drunk. But, he didn't need to be in order for alcohol to have affected him adversely.

If the television caught fire as indicated by some reports, and Bunker had been drinking at all, even a single beer, his ability to react properly to the situation may have been compromised seriously. Say he got singed by the fire and went to the cockpit to cool off his injuries... with a single beer, he very well might have been impaired enough to fall overboard instead of just getting wet.

The photo posted on the Latitude site shows at least one of the packages of Corona was opened, and I seriously doubt that he wasn't drinking, if he had brought that much beer along for an overnight sail. It also shows the some singed items, like the red cloth in the bottom center of the photo.



As for Cam's response, I seriously doubt that Corona beer is considerably more expensive in San Diego, than it was up in Dana Point. They're both in California, and not all that far apart geographically. Carrying 65 lbs. of coffee and many cases of beer on a cruise that is going to be weeks, if not months in duration, is a fairly different story from carrying cases of beer on an overnight sail to a destination that has the same beer at close to the same price.
 
#52 ·
I have a question, ( only a thought really ) but it's a 9.5 - 11 hr sail from DP to SD with Oceanside being a easy half day/midway waypoint, why would you then stock up on cases of beer and soda, cartons of cigs and lots of can goods to make basicly a one day sail.

Just seems kinda odd to me, which raises many question.
 
#53 · (Edited)
Well, he was planning to live-aboard once he got to San Diego, correct? Maybe he had a car while in Dana Point and did his shopping while it was convenient, while he had transportation and while he could do it at a place he was familiar with. That way he would be stocked up for a while so he could familiarize himself with San Diego.

There's no way he was planning on downing all 8 cases of Corona and two cases of Mountain Dew during his ~12 hour sail. I agree that there is certainly a possibility that the beer was involved in the tragedy, but it's not a certainty.

I can't believe we're filling up multiple forum pages debating this man's Corona.
 
#56 ·
How high is that horse?

SD, You have ranted on about alcohol on a number of threads here in Sailnet. You have given us the insight as to why you feel so strongly about this topic, but we can't change the past and you can't or shouldn't label anyone with alcohol aboard their boat as drunk or assume they are irresponsible.
 
#57 ·
I had the exact same thought that San Diego might never have been his destination. I have no idea if the wind and currents would eventually lead a boat to HI or not, but I did calculate the days run needed to get there in three months.

At ~2,500 miles and three months missing the boat would have to average ~27 miles a day. Even with a strong current and assuming the boat might have had sail up and was pointed the right way most of the time before being dismasted that seems like a lot of "drift".

Caution: Pure speculation warning! Does anyone know the Pacific wind and current tables well enough to know how probable it is that a boat could drift that distance and end up off the big island?
 
#61 · (Edited)
I had the exact same thought that San Diego might never have been his destination.
That was my thought also, Santa Catalina Channel is a very active channel, recreational sail & power boats, sportfishing, Commercial fishing and commercial shipping lane, not to mention USCG and private aircraft.

I find it odd a disabled ( demasted ) SV drifted through a highly active channel & past two Islands only to drift aimlessly to Kauai.

The current in the outter waters run SW, waters in the inner channel runs SSW and are slightly stronger. If you all remember a while back, a guy left Marina Del Ray headed NW toward the Channel Islands, he encountered very strong Santana winds, at some point he was knocked or fell overboard, his boat ended up on the rocks @ newport jetty, his body was found 7 days later off Catalina.

Bottom line IMO is,

a) If he was headed for SD, the boat would have ended up in SD with him or somewhere in the vacinity on the rocks without him, just due to the current and dominate onshore flow.

b) Had he manage to drift undetected throughout the channel to the outter waters, chances are he would have drifted WSW past the Island of Hawaii and not WNW against the current to Kauai, which is the Northern most Island.
 
#58 · (Edited)
This incident hits somewhat close to home because in April of 2007 I moved my new-to-me Catalina 30 from Oceanside to her current slip in Long Beach. A distance of 59 NM. The entire trip took me 11.5 hours of motor-sailing. No Santa Ana's that day thank you very much. However, I did get into my marina after dark, which was quite an experience since I had to transit the Long Beach outer harbor at night for the first time. I made this trip solo and yes I did wear a PFD the entire time and was teathered into the cockpit.

Navigate to the attached web site for pictures and a rough current map. According to the map it is possilble to transit from So Cal to Hawaii by current alone.

By the way I read that it was this guys dream to live aboard a sailboat and he had been doing that for some months at Danna Pt. while he was taking lessons from the PO. That might explain the well stocked boat.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1955884.php
 
#59 ·
The forum for the OC Register sure has some interesting theories. Check this gem:

"Couldn't finish paying for the boat, set it on fire, jumped off soon after leaving the shore, swam back, now working in an Arizona Wal-Mart."

Or this one:

"I'm surprised that all the conspiracy theorists that usually post didn't pick up on the fact that the missing guy still owed money to McArthur, and coincidentally a friend of a friend of McArthur found the boat in Hawaii, where McArthur used to live. Hmmm...interesting..."
 
#62 ·
PDP-

You're assuming that it was dismasted prior to leaving the California coastal zone... It very well could have been dismasted somewhere between California and Hawaii.
 
#73 ·
PDP-

You're assuming that it was dismasted prior to leaving the California coastal zone...
That I am SD, just trying to figure out how someone intending to sail to SD could end up off Kauai

If he intended to sail to the Islands and not SD, then I could understand, maybe; but if he was headed to San Diego and something happened, I would think the sailboat would have made land somewhere between La Jolla and Ensanada.

But that's just me thinking
 
#63 ·
Its amazing that the Bug Trap survived the 2600 odd mile drift to Kauai without
any water entering the cabin...all of the the hatches must have been closed.
Note from the USCG pictures that his radio faceplate and mike were melted and burned as well as surrounding items. Apparently there were two gas cans in the cabin, one with the cap off. Maybe he was doing something with the gas can while smoking a cigarette (a no no of course :rolleyes: )......splashed the gas
and boom, his clothes and the cabin on fire, ran out closing the door and jumped overboard ?? fire burns all the oxygen in the cabin, goes out ??
See, ocregister dot com /ocregister/news/local/danapoint/article_1956725.php
 
#65 ·
Given the video in the OC news video clip, it is pretty obvious why Bunker didn't call a PAN-PAN or MAYDAY, his radio was behind the fire. The radio looks a bit melted.

Something is a bit fishy though. If the fire was intense enough to melt the radio face and damage the microphone cord—why didn't boat just burn to the waterline and sink.... most fires on boats are not anywhere close to self-extinguishing. Most boats have dry chemical fire extinguishers... since CO2 foam ones are really marine approved IIRC. Yet, I don't see any of the powder you'd expect to see if one had been discharged in the cabin.
 
#71 · (Edited)
Given the video in the OC news video clip, it is pretty obvious why Bunker didn't call a PAN-PAN or MAYDAY, his radio was behind the fire. The radio looks a bit melted.

Something is a bit fishy though. If the fire was intense enough to melt the radio face and damage the microphone cord-why didn't boat just burn to the waterline and sink.... most fires on boats are not anywhere close to self-extinguishing. Most boats have dry chemical fire extinguishers... since CO2 foam ones are really marine approved IIRC. Yet, I don't see any of the powder you'd expect to see if one had been discharged in the cabin.
It certainly is a plausible answer to the mystery of the lack of distress call. I agree about the strangeness of the fire putting itself out. The only fire (and hopefully the last fire) I have ever had on a boat did put itself out, but it was only because it was a small, smoldering fire in the electrical panel. Nothing else caught on fire, but I was two seconds away from pulling the trigger on the extinguisher. The only reason I hesitated was the thought of having to clean up the mess. LOL, probably not the smartest reason for hesitating to put out a fire on the boat. Fortunately I can live and learn from my experience, unlike this guy Bunker.

M
 
#67 ·
There is another forum that has much of the same questions and answers without the crap.
Nothing personal here.........just the way things are.

...and there is ANOTHER community that has the same information and WAY more crap. Everyone has lots of choices...just the way things are.

As to "small community"...there are 20,800 members on SA, Cruisers Forum has 9000, SSCA has 2400, Lats & Atts has 1725

We have 113,000 active members. 700 on line in the last 24 hours and about 10x that many lurkers. Small in relation to what?
 
#68 ·
There is another forum that has much of the same questions and answers without the crap.
Nothing personal here.........just the way things are.

...and there is ANOTHER community that has the same information and WAY more crap. Everyone has lots of choices...just the way things are.
I thought you might take it personally.
That is why I qualified my statement.
Sorry.
I don't bother with the ones with WAY more crap at all.
Just not worth it.
 
#69 · (Edited)
Actually, on the bright side, the boat made pretty good time to Hawaii. I wish there was more detail, but if he left on the 3rd a Wednesday, then the boat was found on a Sunday, the 7th, he made (well he didn't but the boat did) in almost record time.

If that's the case, I'd like to know the make of the boat and the PHRF.

OK, OK, I saw it, it was a couple months? San Diego to Dana Pt. is 66 mi on a rhumb line course. Santa Ana (Santana) winds blow from there from the E to N E., and generally extend several miles out to sea or til the wind cools down over colder ocean water.

The locals (catalina and channel Islands) have a term for what happened: "Darwinism". All in all, shouldn't have left the boat.
 
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