Cam,

That looks like a cutter rig. Why would they have both forward sails up in that wind?

 

the genoa could have come unraveled in the wind

 

Again, what were they thinking? Winter storm warning went up Thur night and they started out Friday morning.

 

Got to agree, what could they possibly have been thinking? I live south of Boston; we've known since at least last Wednesday that a winter storm was going to hit us around mid day Friday, and it did... was down at the harbor at 4 pm yesterday, 30 knot gusts and vis about 100 yards in blowing snow... we looked at the water and I said to my wife "sure am glad we're not out there now". What were they thinking? Bob S/V Restless

 

Got to agree, what could they possibly have been thinking? I live south of Boston; we've known since at least last Wednesday that a winter storm was going to hit us around mid day Friday, and it did... was down at the harbor at 4 pm yesterday, 30 knot gusts and vis about 100 yards in blowing snow... we looked at the water and I said to my wife "sure am glad we're not out there now". What were they thinking? Bob S/V Restless

I live in RI and they began posting storm warning signals on Route 95 on Wednesday. There's no way they didn't know.

 

The Lord generally protects fools and small children. I guess this also holds for foolish sailors. Wanna bet they had a schedule to meet?

The two most important lessons I have learned since I started cruising are:

1. Pay attention to the weather. If conditions don't look right, stay where you are until they look better.

2. Don't put yourself on a schedule. If you have to ask "why not", you shouldn't be cruising.

Another potential tragedy at sea that could have been avoided. Thank you USCG!

 

Hey, let's go sailing!

Hey Everyone,

Let's go sailing! Just because it's December in the North East, and the temperature is below freezing and the wind is in the 30's and there is a storm here and it's blowing snow and ice and freezing rain, it will be fun!

For the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would willingly leave the dock in this weather. Maybe if you were in a 100' powerboat with a full crew, the trip would be just uncomfortable, but leaving in a 45' sailboat is just pure stupidity.

I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I would really like to ask the skipper what he thought would happen when he left the dock.

Some people!

Barry

 

Hoo boy! Sounds like fun (Not)!
They are so lucky that the coasties were able to save their silly a$$es AND tow their sailboat back into Montauk with all that canvas flogging itself to death.
Perhaps they will try again in a month or so once the boat has new sails or perhaps they will hire a delivery captain.
I'm not sure why they did not come through the East River where they would have had at least a few places to hide if needs be. Most likely as others have suggested they wanted to make Bermuda by such and such. We will have to wait and see if more light can be shed on what they were thinking and why.
Thanks for the alert George.

 

Ya know - not that I'm keeping track or anything...but why do all these rescue stories keep coming from the Easties?

 

I think mainly because of the allure of the Caribbean...many more sail down south to the caribbean (in the East), than on the West coast to Mexico.

Just what I thought

 

After reading this story and having time to thinking about it, I wonder if I have made a bad decisions. This past July a friend of mine ( an accomplished sailor ) and I sailed from Cutty Hunk Island in Buzzards Bay west to Newport Rhode Island. We knew a tropical storm was coming, 20 to 25 kt winds with gust of 40 + coming from the south west. Seas 8 to 10 ft swells from the south, 10 to 14 second intervals. We had one blow down at the first squall, recovered quickly and the rest of the trip was uneventful. Made good time and got quite wet.
I thought it was just another day at sea, or did I push my luck?

 

That sounds like a normal day at sea for me too, maybe a bit exciting but nothing too crazy. I probably wouldn't try it in a blizzard though, too cold and the visibility would suck.

I wouldn't have made the trip these folks made. 35-45 knots of breeze, meh, not real fun but doable. That combined with snow and sub zero wind chill? Nope, too many factors to deal with. Ya add something unexpected to that mix and you're suddenly over your head.

 

...crews arrived at about 1 a.m., at the last position the EPIRB indicated, but because of the 30-40 knot winds, the sailboat was drifting out of position faster than the beacon could transmit. Visibility was less than one mile, and the seas were 8-12 feet.
The crew of the Moonshine shot off a flare, and the rescue crews located the disabled sailboat and determined no one was injured....

Didn't the rescue boats have radar?

 

Sailboats don't show up to well on radar, especially in a seaway.

 

Kid smart

I can imagine how that unraveled. Q ETOH "If we dress warm and sail south we can get out of this nasty winter weather, in few days it'l be warmer..."
I was speaking w my 10 yo grandson yesterday during a snowstorm. We were going to take a ride and see how the boat cover was holding up. I jokingly remarked about sailing south and he asked 'why anyone would ever go to sea while its snowing?'
When I use to deliver injured and imbibed patients to ER's I would point to a little 'Q ETOH' and that would alert the staff of likely complications. I would imagine either the crew of that sailboat were young and adventurous or Q ETOH, or both, I'll bet. Just my guess...

 

This boat left our dock in East Greenwich, RI. mid day on Friday. I never met them, they appeared on our dock a month or so ago, hailing port is Brooklyn Maine. The young crew have been preparing this boat for a month or longer here. I never noticed a radar reflector, but just last week was fitted with a new dodger, and headsails and main appeared newly installed too, but the boat is old and tired looking. I'd question the standing rigging, but I do not know any details. The dock talk a month ago was that they were planning a trip to Bermuda shortly, we thought they were nuts! When I saw them Friday morning making last minute preparations ahead of the storm, and leaving shortly after noon, I thought they were incredibly stupid! I thought they had maybe enough time only to get as far as Dutch Island which is nestled between connanicut Island, and into it's lee, and wait it out there for a few days, of course this doesn't make any sense either, but they actually continued on and into the dark, into a storm....maybe they were on drugs, or suicidal?

 

but the boat is old and tired looking. I'd question the standing rigging, but I do not know any details.

I purchased a boat that was docked just down the way from this boat, so I walked past it several times in October. There was something about it that was more than "old and tired" to me. Design wise it almost looked like a one-off design by an amateur. One of the oddest looking boats I've seen in quite a while. Doesn't mean it isn't seaworthy, but it certainly was strange looking.

 

Q Etoh ??

 

something along the lines of, using alcohol

 

Also, there are many more people in the NE than in the NW. I'd guess more in NYC than in Washington and Oregon states combined. There are probably more people on LI than in Oregon. While SoCal has a large population, they don't have to go south for the winter, they're already there. I also think the North Atlantic in winter is very dangerous.

 

Here's the vessel info now that we have a hailing port:

Vessel Name:	MOONSHINE		USCG Doc. No.:	959615
Vessel Service:	RECREATIONAL	IMO Number:	*
Trade Indicator:	Recreational	Call Sign:	*
Hull Material:	FRP (FIBERGLASS)	Hull Number:	SJK003121188
Ship Builder:	STARRATT YACHT COMPANY	Year Built:	1989
		Length (ft.):	45
Hailing Port:	BROOKLIN ME	Hull Depth (ft.):	10
Owner:	JACOB FREEDMAN 352 HARRIMAN POINT RD BROOKLIN, ME 04616	Hull Breadth (ft.):	11
Gross Tonnage:	18
Net Tonnage:	16
Documentation Issuance Date:	November 06, 2008	Documentation Expiration Date:	November 30, 2009

 

These four sailors should have earned themselves a Darwin award. Given the winter storm warning and the storm that we had on Friday, the unseasonably cold temperatures and all, they were very lucky to have been rescued.

Never mind that they did leave on a Friday, which is traditionally a really bad idea.

BTW, I've sailed when it was snowing, but it was light flurries, and I was sailing in relatively protected waters. The storm we had on Friday was not light flurries... and anyone of average intelligence or better should have known better. It isn't as if this storm hadn't been talked about for at least the four or five previous days...

 

hope this isn't a repeat post, I was drafting one and hit enter and it disappeared.
Anyway, my post wanted to address how the EPIRB has seemed to abdicate self sufficiency and personal responsibility.
I don't want to judge this crew b/c I don't know all the circumstances, but unless the crew was injured or the boat completely disabled it seems incredible to me that if you have half a clue about what you are doing there would be no reason to waste tens of thousands of dollars for this "rescue".
The article indicated that the boats propulsion system was diabled. They were not out all too long from East Greenwich, did they lose all of their sails? Did their engine die or did they wrap the prop? What efforts were made by the crew to get moving again?
It seems to me (doing my best to imitate Andy Rooney) that the CG should have some mechanism in place to charge sailors for rescues where they themselves have created or placed themselves in peril. My .02 but quite frankly I am getting tired of reading about these captains who, again without knowing all the facts, are being "rescued" either b/c they make stupid decisons to leave facing storm conditons or are not capable of handling situations that you should be expected to deal with if you take your boat offshore. Sorry in advance for the rant.

 

But what is the solution? Do you need to get permission to leave port?

 

I hope that is not the solution. Sailing might be the last frontier as far as being able to go out on an adventure and being self sufficient. It just seems to me (Andy Rooney, again) that more and more people who have little experience are going off shore and cruising. One only need to read the sailing mags and see that complete novices go offshore and get into trouble b/c they have so little experience. I was shocked to see one of the largest sailing schools running an ad last year showing a young family that was going on a circumnavigation. Their total experience was a one week "offshore" sailing course. I don't know about you but that is one boat I would rather not be on. Experience doesn't mean you are immune from doing dumb things. I was on a delivery last month and almost got my hand chewed up by a winch, b/c i was too lazy to bring the boat off the wind before releasing a sheet that was under enormous load. My point I guess is one of responsibility. We can't nor should we regulate stupidity but we should be sure that people who put themselves at risk be repsonsible for their actions and the costs that go along with it.

 

Googled Starratt Yacht Company and came up with a few on yachtworld. It's an "offspring of Morris Yachts" whatever that's worth. Another ad describes the boat as a "heavily built offshore cruiser"
Mike

 

Well there it is, "heavily built offshore cruiser" The Moonshine skipper probably read the same thing, believing his boat could endure any seas!

 

Agree that too many inexperienced people are on the water. How does USCG decide who to bill? That's a dilemma that, in the USA, would have to be solved case by case by attorneys. USCG would spend more to defend that to rescue. At the risk of having my keyboard taken away I would guess that this is why other countries are implementing various forms of licencing/resistration for pleasure yacht skippers.

 

In today's Providence Journal:

Storm leaves sails, voyage to Puerto Rico in tatters

09:36 AM EST on Tuesday, December 23, 2008


By Lisa Vernon-Sparks

Journal Staff Writer

Little is left of the headsail of the 45-foot sloop Moonshine, docked at the Coast Guard station in Montauk, N.Y., on Saturday.

> U.S. Coast Guard photo

The wind howled at nearly 40 knots, and snow fell on the waters off Narragansett Friday evening. In the fury, a distress call came in to the Coast Guard from south of Block Island. A sailboat was in trouble.
At 7:45 p.m., the Coast Guard's command center in Boston launched a crew from Point Judith.
"We knew with the conditions, it would be challenging," Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Timothy J. Burns recalled yesterday from the Coast Guard station at Point Judith.
Burns and three other Guardsmen suited up and headed south in their 47-foot motor vessel. For hours the crew searched the waters, each time reaching a place where the sailboat's emergency radio said it should have been, but it wasn't there.
"Each time we got to a signal, it was further south and further west," Burns said.
A helicopter from the Coast Guard's Air Station on Cape Cod thwacked above. At about 1 a.m. Saturday, its crew spotted a flare, then another.
"They proceeded toward the flares and we tried to follow them," Burns recalled.
Underneath the helicopter, the 45-foot sloop Moonshine rocked in the turbulent 42-degree water. Its sails had been shredded and the auxiliary engine had shut down.
Jacob A. Freedman, 27, of East Greenwich, the owner, was the skipper. Also on board were his dad, Michael Freedman, 57, and two others. The group had set sail for Puerto Rico from a marina in East Greenwich Friday morning.
Jacob had planned the trip months ago, his mother, Linda Freedman, said yesterday. She said her son is an archaeologist and supervises digs for Gray & Pape, cultural resource consultants, which has offices in Providence. He wanted to take the trip after hurricane season, which formally ended Nov. 30.
But the crew ran into an offshore storm and into trouble, according to a Coast Guard report released yesterday. The storm's 30-to-40-knot winds and 12-foot waves were an overwhelming opponent.
The sailboat's emergency radio beacon let the Coast Guard know what kind of vessel it was and to whom it was registered. Jacob Freedman, had listed Brooklin, Maine, where his mother lives, as its home port.
The Coast Guard called Linda Freedman, in Brooklin, at about 8 p.m. Friday.
"The Coast Guard said they couldn't find them," Linda Freedman said. "They were drifting away at a high speed."
As the search crews combed the waters around Block Island and family members in Maine and Connecticut traded telephone calls, Jacob and Michael Freedman repeatedly called 911 on their cell phones, Linda Freedman said.
At about 11 p.m., a 911 call was received at the East Hampton Village Police Department, on New York's Long Island.
The voice of the caller, using a cell phone, sounded broken up. All anyone at the Police Department understood was "Coast Guard," according to a police report.
The call may have been garbled, but as far as Linda Freedman was concerned, it was the stroke of luck that helped pinpoint the location of her son's sailboat. When the police did not get an answer back on the cell phone, the department traced the number back to Linda Freedman. She told the police that her son and his father were on a boat.
"Luckily their cell phones really pulled through at the top of the wave," Linda Freedman said. "They were getting a signal out and the police heard their voices. It was recorded at the station. They each got 911 calls off their cell phones."
Freedman also launched flares from his boat. The Coast Guard spotted the Moonshine about seven miles south of Block Island. Burns' rescue crew towed the Moonshine for nearly seven hours until it was near Montauk, N.Y., at the eastern tip of Long Island, where another crew brought it to the harbor.
Linda Freedman said yesterday that her son, who has been sailing since he was 15, told her that the boat was never at risk. She said he told her that his father and their two sailing companions, a college friend and older friend of his friend, had gotten seasick.
"It was so rough, they didn't have the strength to help him," Linda Freedman said.
Yesterday, she said, the men were still in Montauk.
"They are making plans to haul (the boat) out of the water Wednesday" she said. "It's not seaworthy."

 

I find at least two curious things in that report, and one overriding sad thing.

I find it curious that there's no mention of the No. 1 safety device for communications when near the coast: the ship's VHF radio. Several of the crew were apparently able to make contact via cellphones. The VHF, if they had one properly installed with an antenna atop the mast, would be expected to have a much longer range than the cellphones. Further, with Coast Guard helos and the 47-footer in the vicinity, both of these rescue vessels could have homed on the VHF signal.

I find it curious also that both the genoa and the staysail were shredded. If conditions were so bad, why were both sails up? Why not just one, presumably the staysail?

And were the conditions really horrible? While 30-40 knot winds offshore and 12' seas are no picnic, IMO any well-found offshore vessel should be able to withstand these conditions rather handily.

The auxiliary engine probably quit because of dirty fuel. This often happens to vessels which have done mostly/only inshore sailing. When they go offshore, the gunk in the tank gets stirred up, sucked into the filters, and the engine quits...usually at an inopportune time.

Finally, as others have commented, I find it sad that we read so often of vessels getting into difficulty offshore in conditions which are not at all unusual, and for which their crews should have foreseen and been better prepared. Particularly where there were early warning signs which apparently were ignored, misunderstood, or....in the curious words of our outgoing President..."misunderestimated".

Someone always pays in such situations. The Coast Guard, the Navy, a merchant ship which must divert/delay, etc. They sometimes put their own vessels and lives at risk trying to help the unfortunate vessel.

And, of course, the cost in dollars is usually borne by the taxpayer, with no adequate provision to recoop the costs.

Guess that's just the way it is, but I find it a very sad commentary on the current art of ocean voyaging.

Bill

 

I find at least two curious things in that report, and one overriding sad thing.

I find it curious that there's no mention of the No. 1 safety device for communications when near the coast: the ship's VHF radio. Several of the crew were apparently able to make contact via cellphones. The VHF, if they had one properly installed with an antenna atop the mast, would be expected to have a much longer range than the cellphones. Further, with Coast Guard helos and the 47-footer in the vicinity, both of these rescue vessels could have homed on the VHF signal.

I find it curious also that both the genoa and the staysail were shredded. If conditions were so bad, why were both sails up? Why not just one, presumably the staysail?
......

Bill

Ditto on the comms issue. There was no mention of VHF at all . They had the good sense to get an EPIRB, but no VHF. This is confusing. Chalk another one up for EPIRBs and Coasties, without that these guys asses were grass.

As far as the sails go, maybe they blew out the staysail, then decided to pull a little genny out and ended up blowing that too. Just from looking at the pics, it looks like the genny was partially furled.

Maybe they just didn't have much of a clue and they had everything up? Who knows.

 

What I also really resent is the state of basic journalism in this country. She makes them sound like GOOD sailors caught out in circumstances beyond their control by an act of God.
The reality is that they are BAD sailors caught out by circumstances of their own making by a well predicted and forecast act of God in a place no sane sailors would be at this time of year.
Way to dig hard for that story ms. vernon-sparks.

 

Cam,
These supposid sailors screwed up.That is a given.

Can you say you have never done the same?Maybe not to the point of pushing the MOMEY switch but..... You honestly have not sailed just to test yourself and your boat?

As to the way it was covered i agree..There are few news men left!!!!Just 3 minutes on ALL THE NEWS 24 HOURS..........

As to the billing.I seriously think that the GUARD should bill like the LEGAL system apoints lawers.All should get a bill depending on what they can afford for someone saving there{edited because that has sexual con}.......I further think that said ass savers should get a portion of it!!!!

My Thoughts
Mark

 

So, USCG rescues crew off boat in storm.

Boat is now abandoned, and USCG can claim salvage.

USCG finds in a court that the owner was negligent by endangering the safety of his crew.

USCG auctions off vessel to recoup cost of rescue.

That should teach them to call SeaTow next time

 

I posted this in another forum............It does not surprise me that the boat is "not seaworthy" as it was reported that the transmission did not appear to function properly leaving the dock on Friday nearly wiping out their solar panels when things got out of control as a result. Seasoned, or not, they left port not ahead of the storm, but into the storm and if they are experienced sailors, they used extremely poor judgement here, everyone here at the marina questioned their sanity before they departed the marina on Friday, but what are you going to say to them? I'd be willing to bet that the fuel filters clogged, the reason for lost power, and I would also bet that the integrity of the rest of this boat is questionable.... in my opinion..