Very sad. From the read of the Capt's last email in the post #66 news link, he was attempting to squeeze between the storm and land and make a run for it. That synches with the boat's track. He was not trying to get East of the storm and I've seen an article that fully understood the conditions of the impending hurricane on the day it departed CT.
It will be a learning experience to understand why they made such a decision. Was their schedule demanding? Were they building complacency from past heavy weather? And what caused the boat to take on water. Was it battered by heavy seas or did old faulty timber just fail? We may never know. With at least one fatality, the legal exposure to the organization and it's officers may be severe and keep details off the radar.
My deepest sympathy to the families of the lost crew.
Where she went down, she will have lots of company. I can't think of too many captains that would be complacent about sailing off the North Carolina Banks! They have a well-earned reputation (especially for that type of ship.)
Some more information about stability on tall ship safety that show how crazy were those heeling degrees on this movie:
In fact I was right in assuming 60º has a desperate angle, in fact it is even less for most tall ships (between 50 and 60º) and that corresponds to the downloading angle, that in modern sailing boats is normally near or over AVS (non return point). On this big animals water starts to enter the ship much sooner compromising stability.
There were made some serious studies about tall ships stability and the conclusions were that the heeling sailing safe heel angle is as little as 24º of heel and over 30º is really dangerous and can lead quickly to a downloading condition.
As I have said before the knowledge to sail one of these ships is a very particular one and a sailor used to modern boats, even a professional one will not understand the risks and procedures to take on bad weather with one of these boats.
Yes , they can take bad weather and the conditions that were described that lead to the sinking of the Bounty does not seem that severe (there was cases of tall ships surviving 75k winds) but that implies a very sound boat with a professional knowledgeable crew adapting proper very limited storm strategies.
It is worth to point out that most of those tall ships are steel boats made and designed in the last years of the XIX century, first years of the XX century and are not boats designed according with XVIII centuries designs.
To aggravate the situation it seems that on this boat only the Captain had knowledge of this type of boat. The crew was paid but almost all recruited t recently on Nova Scotia and I doubt they were specialized sailors.
So guys, take care in what tall ship you put your kids sailing: Bigger on this case does not mean necessarily safer.
As a volunteer crew member on different boats, I make it a point to learn on each trip. My last trip in September was aboard s/v Windward. It's captain made the decision to turn around, and find a safe place to anchor. Though the boat could have weathered the storm, we found shelter. What a great lesson learned.
Nice post Paulo. Once the bilge is full of sloshing water, moving the center of effort around uncontrollably, these hulls must become terribly unstable and go over rapidly with little warning.
A good read for anyone who has not yet, "Voyage of the Destroyer" by Joshua Slocum.
The story gives very real insight into what it takes to keep a ship afloat that does not want to be.
Regardless of the condition of the boat, it's suitability for the conditions, etc., the initial decision to put to sea on Thursday, when the track, breadth and strength of the storm was well known, was the biggest mistake.
Putting to sea during a hurricane is sometimes yadda yadda yadda, but saving the boat doesn't appear to have been the motivating factor in this case.
So why in the world would they have set out to sea in the face of a hurricane, something none of us with any common sense would even consider? Maybe a false sense of invincibility, coerced to keep a schedule, incompetence, a plan to collect insurance gone awfully awry? What a sad, sad, needless, and tragic story.
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