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Sailboat perishes off Hatteras, USCG rescues crew

31K views 159 replies 54 participants last post by  chef2sail 
#1 ·
Here is a more detailed article about the rescue of Andante II off Hatteras, during the Nor'easter in early March. Two experienced delivery captains ended up calling for a USCG rescue after rebuffed attempts to reach Pamlico Sound through Ocracoke, Hatteras, and Oregon Inlet.

Sailboat knocked down, lost diesel engine power, amidst 30 foot waves and gale conditions. Anyone know what kind of boat this is?

Survivors of March 6 shipwreck say they stand by the choices they made. - Page 3 - baltimoresun.com
 
#82 ·
Here's a question that I'm sure I'll get abuse for.

If I am engaged in a potentially dangerous, commercial venture, should I, or my insurance be expected to foot the rescue bill if it all goes wrong?

As an aside, If the carcass of the boat is now coughed up on an eastern seaboard shore, who foots the bill for the recovery/cleanup/disposal? The delivery captain who abandoned her, or the the owner?
 
#84 · (Edited)
Here's a question that I'm sure I'll get abuse for.

If I am engaged in a potentially dangerous, commercial venture, should I, or my insurance be expected to foot the rescue bill if it all goes wrong?
Yes, that's why you have insurance as a commercial operator to begin with (assuming you're insured in the first place).

As an aside, If the carcass of the boat is now coughed up on an eastern seaboard shore, who foots the bill for the recovery/cleanup/disposal? The delivery captain who abandoned her, or the the owner?
I would assume that the insurer would pay for that, and that the insurance rates for that particular commercial venture takes such things into account.

Nevermind, I see you specifically said rescue bill, which is another matter. I'm not so sure on where I stand on that.
 
#83 ·
Allio,

There are plenty of private and commercial enterprises that receive assistance from 1st responders: Fire Fighters, EMT's, Police, etc. without receiving an invoice for their services. The Coast Guard has a long history of assisting mariners ( 1830's). I suppose you could consider state, local or federal taxes as the bill, if you wanted.

I'm just guessing that an insurance claim has been filed and it's now a salvage job. I don't know all the ins and outs of that. I suppose the ins. could hire a salver to retrieve the vessel if they chose. I believe if someone gets their 1st, it's their claim.
 
#86 ·
Exemptions could always be built in for acts of god. Striking a whale that rips off your keel for example. But weather is, by and large now, a quantifiable and predictable thing. And therefore the fact that your government has placed at your free disposal, access to this knowledge, makes you even more liable if you ignore such services.

As regards emt's/police etc etc, All of these services now implement a bill for services rendered if fault is found in the US I believe. If you have a car crash, and require emergency transport to the hospital, does your insurance not get a bill? Someone pays for the treatment you receive at the hospital. And this is why we have investigations after the fact, to determine if someone was at fault. And should therefore be liable.

Either way, I'm just playing a bit of devils advocate here.....
 
#87 ·
Wow, you guys are tough. If you have never experienced those conditions you can't believe how hard it is on your body and how mentally taxing it is. I don't think the delivery captain exhibited good judgement but I don't fault him for making the call to get rescued.

I was in a similar situation in conditions a little worse 8 years ago. Delivery from St. Thomas to the Chesapeake- all off shore in the first week of April. Brutal gale for 3 days. The boat was fine but we got pretty beat up even though we had a pilothouse on boat with a 10-1/2 foot keel. Trying making a sandwich in those conditions. Forget about sleeping. Taking a crap is strenuous exercise. I went air born more than once including crashing through the mid ship head door.

Doing it in an IP semi-trawler is quite another thing. I'd be scared that the boat would trip on the occasional rogue wave for starters. The motion must be rolly as all hell. Anything in the tank would get sucked into the filters without a doubt. We had 4 tanks, a tank mender, pumps etc so that we could switch fuel sources and filter systems on the fly.

Bottom line is that these guys made some wrong calls due to inexperience and/or fatigue. It might be a while before they would even consider another delivery job on a similar route.
 
#89 ·
Wthout knowning the interactions of the parties involved I believe I am not in a position to be judgmental beyond noting from what information is available the owner hired these guys to deliever his boat and his boat was lost. I don't think it is appropriate to question their judgement if they felt their lives were at risk. You can replace a material object but not lives. I am interested in how the judgement was made to leave on that day, by that route, in that boat at that level of preparation. I'm am interested in what factors were in play. I'm also interested beyond google search and references what an owner should and can do to protect such a major asset.
 
#90 ·
I have delivered many boats since the mid-70s. I always make sure that the owner or owners understand that different routes may be taken for valid reasons such as weather or shallow water and currents. This holds true for both sailboats and power vessels. It is the captains duty to use more than one means of predicting weather for different routes as well as the depth of the water,and navigation waypoints. The first question that is always asked is how long will it take, as I always have charged by the day. That is the time to make it perfectly clear that it depends on many factors, as well as possible breakdowns. I will give them they estimated time of arrival, in reality that is all anyone can do.

As far as judging whether or not to abandon ship the rule of thum usually is, (was human life in intimate danger? Were there any injuries to any of the crew or Capt., was the vessel in seaworthy condition such as maybe changing course to mitigate the circumstances. Am I able to anchor the vessel to also mitigate the circumstances? In history there have been many decisions Made under a panic or extreme pressure that may not turn out to be the correct decision. Only the captain and the crew can make that decision, whether to abandon ship or not. I myself cannot make any judgment because I wasn't there, and I definitely don't have all the information. CaptG
 
#94 ·
Phenomena is called ascertainment bias when doing epidemiology. In medicine when you have a technology that improves ability to Dx. a particular illness both incidence and prevalence of that illness seems to sky rocket when often nothing has changed. Same thing occurs with accidents and untoward events in our "tuned in" world.
 
#95 ·
A little late to the party here, but imagine my surprise to see one of the guys in the article, and he looks incredibly familiar. Sure enough, we crossed paths in Annapolis this summer. I was singlehanding up from NC, doing a little Chesapeake tour, and he was the water taxi captain the day I sailed in. Nice guy, the first mate. I remember his commentary about being able to see the remnants of the old name of my vessel (I renamed her). He asked if I was superstitious -I'm not- but he did warn me about that. Well I just didn't want to grind a bunch of gelcoat off to make it disappear, and nor did/will I. The sun is handling it at a snails pace.

I'm in awe of their decisions. Running down the ICW there is gravy, more direct, and going south to boot. I think they just did not really understand the situation along this stretch of coastline. Is it possible that people can have lots of sailing experience but just not understand the stakes of this stretch of ocean and it's multiple taciturn inlets? Or was it just bad judgement, being a little cavalier about the horror that the Cape can be in even more moderate conditions, coupled with some mis-placed confidence in a heavy displacement cruiser? I'm not judging them, none of my business, but I simply can't fathom why they did it, unless they just really needed an adventure? A book deal?

I'm glad they did not try to get through some of those inlets. A grounding could have been tragic, with some hard ground under the washing machine that Oregon Inlet could have been. Too bad they did not have propulsion to get them to Cape Lookout. Cape Lookout is a great place to tuck behind there if winds were NE.

These aren't bad guys, but they most certainly lack(ed) respect for this stretch of water. While it is hard to understand, I hope newer sailors understand that there can be a lot of nuance to coastal sailing; information that is not printed on charts or programmed into your chartplotters. While a sound vessel with a skilled captain and crew can handle these situations, heaving to, running, sea anchors, etc, the stakes are incredibly high. If one thing goes wrong - like fuel pickup issue they had - your options are limited. What these guys did was dumb, I don't see how anyone could say otherwise, but we all do dumb stuff from time to time, just not enough to get in the newspaper for all to read about, and publicly comment on your judgement.
 
#96 ·
I found Andante 2 in the North Atlantic on June 10, 2013. I was on the way to New Brunswick, Canada from Montserrat and sighted her 230 miles north-northeast of Bermuda. She is dismasted but is riding high with her entire bootstrap showing. Both the full height aft door and the closed cockpit hatch were open yet she has not taken on water and even appeared dry within. Cushions are still in the shallow seating area just aft the mast.

Her broken mast took out most of the tubular rail on the starboard side with the trailing wires. She also had a missing davit on the port side. Other than that she was in fine condition and looked good.

I was solo in an angry sea that day so did not want to risk boarding her although I regret the loss of obvious salvage. I circled her and took photos then carried on in foul weather.
 
#98 · (Edited)
Yup, there's all sorts of stuff floating around out there these days...

But, definitely NOT representative of any trend... (grin)

this is a strange one, for sure... Seems to have all the signs of an abandonment, we can only hope the crew is safe somewhere, and their rescue simply didn't make it onto our radar screen...

Celebrity Summit finds derelict sailboat in Atlantic - CNN iReport

 
#100 ·
That's quite a mystery Jon. Dated mid-June, I wonder what became of the crew. Who investigates for evidence of foul play in cases such as this? Some sort of crime has got to be high on the list of possibilities. People don't just leave boats like that floating in the Atlantic for no reason.
 
#102 ·
yeah, this one seems VERY strange... most indications seem to point to a deliberate abandonment, to me...

She was obviously not abandoned while under sail, every thing is furled... A plausible explanation could be a singlehander gone overboard while under power, but then where is the dinghy? There are davits on the stern, so one would presume he was using a substantial tender, and not a roll-up that might be stored below deck, as roll-ups and davits don't match up very well... No visible sign of an empty liferaft cradle, either...

Weird... Again, I can only hope this was a deliberate abandonment in conjunction with a rescue by another vessel, using the tender to shuttle between the two, an occurrence that never made the news, or we've simply never heard about...

It's not been a good summer for yachts named RUNNING FREE... A Freedom 40 with the same name had to abandon their voyage to Ireland, and return to Newfoundland after suffering some damage in heavy weather 1/3 of the way across... This one is a Pearson 36, the only reference I can find to her is an Abaco regatta report from SOUTHWINDS back in '07, her owner at that time was a gentleman named Bill Powell... Anyone know anything more about the boat or her owner?

Based upon fullcastle's report on the IP, it would appear that since the cushions were still sitting in place in that jacuzzi cockpit forward, the lives of that crew might not have been in quite the amount of jeopardy they apparently felt at the time... (grin)
 
#101 · (Edited)
wow..i remember this thread from March...Now is that cruise ship pic Jon posted the same IP abandoned off Hatteras...or is it the BTB...(Bermuda Triangle boat) reported by the single-hander 230 miles from Bermuda? It doesnt appear to be the IP abandoned off Hatteras...that had some funky hot-tub looking cockpit-well forward of the dodger...
 
#103 ·
The boat is listed as a documented vessel. I hope someone was tasked with tracking him down to see if either he or whomever was using the boat is missing. I'm surprised media has not followed up on this. Another possibility is that the boat was used to traffic drugs and then abandoned.
 
#104 ·
It was indeed "Andante 2" out of Virginia Beach, Virginia and was an "SP Cruiser" based on the tags on either side of her closed in cockpit that were quite visible as I circled the boat.

I tried attaching a few photos for your enjoyment but have an issue with a missing security token. The photo files are too large to send and exceed the Sailnet limitation even when I try to reduce their resolution. If any are interested drop a note here with an email address and I will send them off.

She was at position (N36 05.977 W63 40.122) on June 10 at 1358 hours (UTC -4) if anyone is willing to calculate her new drift position and go look for her.

Good luck
 
#106 ·
It was indeed "Andante 2" out of Virginia Beach, Virginia and was an "SP Cruiser" based on the tags on either side of her closed in cockpit that were quite visible as I circled the boat.

I tried attaching a few photos for your enjoyment but have an issue with a missing security token. The photo files are too large to send and exceed the Sailnet limitation even when I try to reduce their resolution. If any are interested drop a note here with an email address and I will send them off.

She was at position (N36 05.977 W63 40.122) on June 10 at 1358 hours (UTC -4) if anyone is willing to calculate her new drift position and go look for her.

Good luck
Full - send them to >smackdaddy at bfsshop dt com< and I'll get them posted.
 
#107 ·
Is there an AMVER report.?
I am hospitalized and using my smartphone. Hard for me to look up.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2
 
#109 ·
Hi smacky.

A joint in the small toe of my left foot became infected and was removed. Sailing will have to wait. I have powerboat course at the end of August.

Any AMVER reports for the vessel?

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2
 
#111 ·
Hmmm, another 'cautionary tale' to add to the list...

Too bad the Tao apparently never mentions anything regarding the value of a Shakedown Cruise...

TPEP: Beginning of the End | Zen's Sekai II - By Sea

I am not a sailor, l guess that is one lesson from this. I can sail, I can handle the boat well and blend with the element, however the moments of pleasure have been slight. There was a few moments when the flow was there, the sequencing , the harmony of movement, with water, wind and self was balanced, beauty. However a real sailor would live for this adventure. I have been measurable since we left. I guess I am just a weekend sailor. I do not want to do this passage stuff again. I would love to fly someplace, rent a boat and explore, then fly home. That would be excellent. Sail around the inland sea, exploring, yup I want that. Weeks at sea, wet, drifting, sleepless, tired, with a broken boat sucks.
 
#113 ·
Well, look where the mystery vessel RUNNING FREE finally fetched up...

Stranded Yacht Resists Removal Efforts in Edgartown - Around Town - Martha's Vineyard, MA Patch

The article appears to be filled with inaccuracies, however... It links to a blog of another RUNNING FREE, the 40' Freedom I referred to earlier, that is now on its way back to Lake Superior on a truck...

It also apparently confuses RUNNING FREE with the abandonment/rescue of the 4 sailors off Charleston during TS Andrea a month ago... Unless, there was another rescue of 4 sailors during that time, that we never heard about...

strange one, indeed... Perhaps this mystery is a bit closer to being solved, however...
 
#116 ·
Weeks at sea, wet, drifting, sleepless, tired, with a broken boat sucks.
That should be a cautionary statement to anyone looking to do passages. I know it is to me. At this point in my life, I have no desire to cross oceans.
Yup, bluewater passagemaking certainly ain't for everybody, and yet many wannabees seem strangely steadfast in their refusal to acknowledge that simple reality... (grin)

His one comment pretty much says it all:

"When does the Magazine Fun begin?"
 
#115 ·
Well she's got some of the facts WRONG - way wrong, typical media screw up. I guess the writer thinks there can be only "one" vessel named "Running Free".

>Until they lost their engine during rough weather associated with tropical storm Andrea June 7, the owners of Running Free had enjoyed more than four years of cruising the U.S. and nearby islands from Newfoundland to the Bahamas, as chronicled on the website runningfree.us.<<

My friends that own "Running Free" on the website, they and their boat are doing fine back home in Minnesota! I guess the writer isn't much of a sailor and can't tell the difference between a ketch and wishboned rigged free standing rig.
 
#118 ·
Thanks, I'd missed that part...

Sounds like they had an extraordinarily tame trip down the coast, a motor job virtually the entire way, harbor-hopping in company with other boats, featuring only one overnight passage...

Not many people get a view of Point Conception in conditions this placid...

 
#119 · (Edited)
Ahhh, mystery solved... it involves The Bermuda Triangle, naturally...

Hmmm, wonder how many other sailboats have been abandoned offshore by "novice sailors" recently, that we never heard about? Yup, "the facts & statistics" clearly indicate this sort of thing is on the decline, alright... (grin, bigtime)

Seriously, however, one really has to wonder whether anyone is really keeping track of all these abandoned vessels? Presumably, when that Carnival cruise ship encountered RUNNING FREE at sea a couple of weeks ago and stopped to investigate, they would have contacted the USCG, don't you think? And, that maybe, just maybe, the CG might have informed them she had been abandoned weeks before, and that there would have been nobody aboard, and hence no need to stop and deploy a boarding party?

Abandoned Sailboat Washes Ashore at Norton Point

Mark Alan Lovewell
Updated
Monday, July 8, 2013 - 4:22pm

Salvage plans are under way for an abandoned 36-and-a-half-foot sailboat that washed up at Norton Point beach on Friday night.

No one was aboard the Running Free, which was abandoned in the Bermuda Triangle on Mother's Day.

An earlier report by the Gazette that the sailboat had been the subject of a Coast Guard rescue near Charleston, S.C. was inaccurate.

The sailboat's owner, Bill Heldenbrand of St. Joseph, Mo., told the Gazette Monday he was sailing alone from Green Cove Springs, Fla. in early May with the ultimate goal of crossing the Atlantic Ocean. His trip didn't go as planned. Instead, after seven days at sea, the novice sailor encountered high winds and huge seas three-quarters of the way to Bermuda.

Mr. Heldenbrand was rescued by a passing oil tanker and forced to abandon the sailboat. The tanker took him to Quebec City. The Running Free drifted to places unknown - until Friday, when Mr. Heldenbrand received a phone call from Nancy and Bruce Hulme, who spotted the sailboat coming ashore.

"We were sitting on the beach when it approached the shore and we contacted the Coast Guard when it was clear no one was aboard," Mr. and Mrs. Hulme said in an email to the Gazette. The couple looked up the owner of the boat online and reached out to him via Facebook.

Mr. Heldenbrand said that he is driving from Georgia to Cape Cod to retrieve the sailboat, which he has arranged to have towed to Falmouth.

That move may be completed as early as Monday evening, he said, though a previous attempt on Sunday to free the sailboat from its sandy berth proved unsuccessful.

"It was a surprise that it beached itself on Martha's Vineyard," Mr. Heldenbrand said. "I am hoping to get it off the beach and get some repairs."

A previous version of this story mistakenly identified the sailboat as one that was abandoned near South Carolina last month. -

See more at: Abandoned Sailboat Washes Ashore at Norton Point | The Vineyard Gazette - Martha's Vineyard News

 
#120 ·
I think I need to set up a chair on the Jersey shore beaches and watch the abandoned sailboats come rolling in since its now deterrmined by 6 published incidences its now on the increase.:):):)
 
#122 ·
Could part of this equation be that there SEEM to be more boats manned by the nouveau riche, with often less experienced crews? Those with big bucks have little incentive to risk staying aboard when it gets a bit uncomfortable.
 
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