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Last Night at the Harvard Club

17K views 148 replies 30 participants last post by  smackdaddy 
#1 ·
This "new thread" is actually sort of a phase II from S/V Triumph. You might want to review that thread in order to understand the background to this one.

My wife and I exchanged emails this morning, related to that "event" roughly 1000 miles between Boston and the Azore Islands this past July 27th, as we lost our vessel the Triumph:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boy, it is so rough to meet up with a group of sailors :( I expected the initial rehashing of the 'story', but I couldn't get anyone off of it. After going through the "what you should have done..." the group I was talking to quickly moved to the "thank god you're still alive..." Then, I tried to change the subject by asking about their boats. That garnered a quick "Cape Dory, etc." then back to survival stories. I started crying at one point when Donna kept recounting stories of people who had fallen overboard and were either lost at sea or drowned or had a heart attack in the Gulf Stream. This was embellished liberally with "it's a wonder Doug survived. Don't know how that happened..." Okay, so now I'm crying here at my desk. Do people honestly think this helps? Or are they just ghouls? Which is my conclusion. I know you were the one that was in the water the longest and faced death the closest, but, whether you believe it or not, I don't know how I could have gone on without you. You are my soulmate and the love of my life. Without you, everything is meaningless... And I wish to hell people would quit deliberating over how close I came to losing you... I hate them. Love you.
 
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#2 ·
Oh boy.... you are such a "woman". :)

I would rather look at the amazement that I somehow survived as a cause of great relief and happiness.
Whenever I allow myself to dwell on the shear terror and surety that I was lost, I come back out of that zone with the happiness that instead, I did "make it" to a life buoy, and back to my life with you.

And, from our experience, together we can learn from this. When I continually state: "this was the worst mistake of my life", that is not to heap blame or bad feeling upon either of us, it is to share something clearly learned from this.

That is not to never venture out again; it is to trust in our own abilities, resources, and the basic strength of our vessel before we ask for "assistance" ever again. Once I placed our lives in the hands of the Kim Jacob, as we have learned, we were in a much less secure position, with the associated much greater probability of total loss.

As I have also experienced with my "discussions" on the Sailnet blog, many / most people, are eager to rationalize how this couldn't or wouldn't happen to them because they would have done such and such, differently. I think this is a self serving protection and shield from their inner fear of what could happen, to regain their own security that it won't happen to them.

The majority of the people last night, as with any group of "sailors", all have those same inner fears. It is not natural nor healthy to stoke those fears, rather is is natural to resolve them, in as healthy a manner as possible; which is to both learn from others' mistakes, and to believe in oneself enough to still set sail again.

I made many mistakes on July 26th & the 27th, which destroyed our vessel, and placed both of us in harms way.
Even my first reaction was to ERRONEOUSLY blame you.... i.e., anyone / anything but me.
That is clearly wrong, and yet, we must learn from this if we ever plan to try again. Whether it be to cross an ocean, or even go out for the day, we have to do our best in preparedness, of the ship, all of her equipment, but most importantly, ourselves.

It takes a certain personal strength and drive to not give up the ship; and now we know the consequences of arriving at that decision too easily / carelessly.

The Triumph wore us down to the point that we therefore accepted the erroneous opportunity to push the "easy" button. Now we know it can be much worse to push that button, than to just suck it up and deal with the RELATIVELY minor issues. Relative to the consequences of pushing that button.

I did come closest to being killed, so perhaps it is appropriate that I see what is to be learned the clearest.

I truly thank God that I was not lost, and that the resulting weight and pain of that was not placed on your shoulders.
We avoided that bullet, though it did come very, very close to us. But, we avoided that bullet, after all the other equipement / resources available were either not properly used, or appllied, which is a testament to what did save us in the end. Ourselves. And from that we should learn to trust what we have learned is really the strongest part of everything we have, again, ourselves.

Everyone else who will ever hear our story, like the people last night, will likewise resolve within themselves what they need to in order for them to set sail again. I think this is all part of the funny little 2 legged creatures called human beings.

And all of that brings us to the point that we are shopping for another sailboat. WOW, we are funny creatures.

All my love,
Doug
 
#3 ·
Doug, thanks for sharing those emails. I'm very glad to see you guys being drawn together through all this.

And it's good to see you back dude.

(PS - this really should be in the sailing section - not OT. It's definitely relevant.)
 
#6 ·
Doug
Thank you for posting. I agree totally that people do try to hide their own fears in discussions such as yours. Crossing oceans is a scary business and bad stuff can happen. I think Nietzsche certainly had it right and you will be (much) stronger for your experience.

Good luck with your boat search. Any particular reason why you are looking in California? I always had the impression the boats were more expensive on the west coast.
 
#8 ·
Well, our search has evolved from the Amels to the Taiwanese boats, i.e., the Formosas, Mikelsons, Hudsons, and even the Cheoy Lees. Going through the internet listings, the ones we're seeing of those, on the West Coast, appear to be in better condition, and there are more of them on that coast.

Though the logistics of bringing one from there to Boston, really sucks. So, though our first shopping trip is to Southern Cal., that will be followed by a trip to Texas, where we will see 1, and then drive to see a few more along the Gulf, eventually making it to the panhandle of Florida.

We really like the solid teak / mahogany interiors vs. the veneered interiors of so many others. The solid wood can be sanded and repaired so much better than bothering with the veneered wood. And, the pilot house cockpits provide some advantages which we like a lot, both pragmatically for line of sight steering, and the associated interior space that allows.

As far as the prices of these boats, actually, for the condition as we see from the pictures, the prices are lower on the West coast for these boats than slightly worse condition examples nearer to us.

There are a couple much nearer to us, which we've not been successful in even getting replies from the posted "agents" as to their availability! Which is very frustrating.
 
#10 ·
As an over view of our search for a replacement of the Triumph, this is a message I recently sent to someone which provides a pretty good view of what we're looking for, and why:

Actually, we placed a bid on a 2001 33.7 Beneteau a few weeks ago, which was a salvage sale. The mast was broken right where it meets the deck. Though we were only interested in her for re-sale given that she was so relatively new, and I could fix the mast fairly easily. Our bid of $18K was outbid, and we let it go at that.

While surveying that Beneteau, we were impressed with some of the basic design strengths, while not so impressed with the cabin wood work. It was all that sort of cheap wood work, which has become the "standard" of so many of todays' boats.

Wherein we are "liveaboards" we want our home to be as comfortable as possible, with the sailing speed taking a back seat to the quality of our life at the dock, living inside this vessel.

I can't write those words without a little embarrassment, especially amongst "sailors", and have taken a good amount of derision at our installation of granite counters in the Triumph; as you may have read. :)

So, with all of that in mind, that is why we are now focused on those Taiwanese boats. Their interior cabin space is quite spacious, the woodwork is high enough quality to warrant restoration, and the sweeping decks are something I would love.

The prices are right around $100K, plus or minus $20K, which is great too!

We also looked at the Bavaria sailboats. We found late model (2003 - 2005) 50 - 55 footers, in the price range of $135K, which was quite enticing. But, again, when we got to look at an interior, we were not very impressed with the wood work quality, and then understood why their prices had plummetted so much from their original costs of $450K +

There are so many good boats out there for reasonable prices, it is very hard to focus the shopping effort. And that is a real problem, if you want to buy a boat ASAP.

So, while occasionally veering off into looking at a Herreschoff, (sp?) or whatever, it helps us a lot in this process to first decide which brand to buy, and then be able to just focus on those.

Otherwise, we could easily be just "looking" for years.

I spent almost 10 years before finally pulling the trigger in 2000, and buying the Gulfstar 50 ketch I named the Triumph. We surely can't wait that long again.

Thank you very much for your input, and in case any of you happen to run across a boat for sale with the sort of interior quality I am talking about, in the $100K price range, I sure would love to hear about her!
-----------------------

Thank you!
Doug
 
#15 ·
Good to see you Doug.

You are the resident expert on certain things. The forum is better for you being here.

Regards,
Brad
 
#17 ·
Thank you Brad! If there is anything I can share, any specific highlights from my experience(s), which could be best used by others, they would be:

1. Really try to have your boat READY to do whatever long cruise you might be planning, such that you won't be worn down by daily / hourly "issues". Or else don't leave the dock until you really have addressed the various weak links in your systems.

Before we left Boston, we had already burnt ourselves out addressing larger issues, for instance I rebuilt about 7 feet of the deck, by removing the soggy wood, replacing it, then re-fiberglassing / gel coating that whole area. And I only finished that about 1 day before we left.

Yes, we had spent years addressing zillions of other big and small issues, but there still were some things left - all of which reared their ugly heads while out to sea. And a small issue, at the dock, is a big issue out to sea.
The biggest "cost" is that addressing even the smallest of these things while out to sea, stresses the crew 10 X as much.

The ocean / weather will already provide plenty of surprises requiring actions and efforts to adjust to, you sure don't also need to be fixing something while a storm is bearing down on you.

2. Tune your rig. :) What I had no knowledge of was that it HAS to be "dynamically tuned". When we stepped our main mast about 10 months before we headed East, without having dynamically tuned it after that, in effect, I did a lot more damage to our boat than if I hadn't stepped it at all.

We had 2 completely different rigger "companies" providing our out and in needs, but neither one mentioned the need to dynamically tune the rig.
One rigger was from West Marine, and the other was the best one in Fort Lauderdale: Nance & Underwood. Both had / have decades of experience and seemed to know their stuff. Which I still don't question; but, perhaps I didn't ask the right question, or something, but now I know, and am therefore sharing the mantra: Dynamically tune your rig.

Now I seriously doubt any of this is really new or unique info to many of you sailors, but what might make me the "resident expert" here, is what happens when you don't do these things, and whatever else was discussed on the original S/V Triumph thread.

If nothing else, I am the luckiest bastard here, who did so many things wrong, and yet by a very slim last minute chance, ended up alive.
For that, I will accept the "resident expert" moniker. :)
 
#21 ·
Doug,

I'm glad to see that you are back, and that my offer to get you involved with the Pelagic sailing club has been followed up on! :)

RE your next boat: May I suggest a Shannon?
 
#32 ·
Thank you.

We went aboard a Shannon at a Fort Lauderdale Boat Show a couple years ago, and were very impressed with their quality.

But, from what we've found, they are rather expensive, and we didn't see any large enough to accomodate our liveaboard / chartering needs.

As much as many people can enjoy living aboard high 30 - mid 40 foot sailboats, after 11 years on a Gulfstar 50, we are really looking forward to a more spacious interior and deck space.

And, on the monetary issues, we want to be aboard a sailboat ASAP, instead of working for a couple of years to save up more hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we would rather not have a loan to pay.

So..... as much as we know there are better boats, we're sort of forced toward the Taiwanese boats, built in the 1980s, which at least offer the spaciousness we're looking forward to, and they generally have solid wood interiors which can be restored. As opposed to the veneered interiors which aren't worthy or able to be sanded and varnished to restore their interiors.

If on the other hand you know of a 50 + foot Shannon, for sale at a price well under $200K, (our upper limit is about $150K), we sure would be interested. Their interior quality clearly supports restoration, but, again, I haven't seen any 50 + footers. I am just not aware of that size Shannons existing....?

We are also focused on ketches! Are there any Shannons which are ketch rigged?

And, just to further complicate the issues, either a pilot house cockpit or center cockpit configuration is also high on our list of requirements, again, because these allow the interior space, (especially the aft cabin) to be "spacious", and they allow very good "from the cockpit" single handling of the rigging and line of sight steering, especially for a short guy like me....
:)

All of this keeps bringing us back to the 1980s Taiwanese boats; but we sure are "open" to another brand which meets these requirements.

1. Spacious interior / pilot house or center cockpit
2. Price $150K or less
3. High quality wood work
4. Ketch rigged
5. Sweeping deck would also be welcomed, vs. those (like the Gulfstar) whose cabin tops sticks out from the deck.

Of course, we value a lot of other items like good engines with low hours with 120 HP or more, bow thruster, full keel(?), furling main / mizzen, at least 2 heads / room for a washer & dryer, stall shower, B&G equipment, auto helm, radar.... then such extravagances as forward seeing sonar, granite / marble counters :) electric toilets, watermaker, generator, etc.

So, "shopping" for this, within our budget is challenging.
 
#33 ·
I'm putting together a Power Point presentation, with lots of pictures! I hope / trust that my "story" will be entertaining and perhaps might even offer some valuable things to think about when making a long passage for "pleasure" amongst a family setting.

I will look forward to meeting you too!
 
#23 ·
Good luck with the boat search -- hope it's fun. I think people mean well and just don't know what to say and that it's time to move on... and they may have met people who had a big experience and didn't move on. Is Sea Hag on this board to talk about her Leaky Teaky?
 
#24 ·
Well good luck Doug, and I wish you the best of luck in your search and I hope it all works out for you as you desire - hopefully the old thread and past conflicts can be left back in 2011, and we can all start fresh for the new year 2012 with a clean slate.

Again, best of luck! :)
 
#25 ·
Those 3 boats are all dogs. A 50 footer for 100K? There goes a few more years addressing a zillion small and big things. Best you get a smaller boat that actually sails so you can address those issues while sailing locally, and not waiting to be offshore to find them out.
 
#29 ·
Still working it. I've gotten some great input from some big hitters, have written an article that I'm shopping for publishing right now, and have also taken a pass at presentation content for a Safety at Sea seminar session.

It looks like I'll attend the SAS seminar in March at the New York Yacht Club to run everything by Trossbach and Jobson. We'll see what they say.

I'll let you know when I know more.
 
#30 ·
Welcome back Doug. :)


I'm not surprised that all the yachties wanted to talk with y'all about was the disaster. I've only ever met one person who has swum from a lifeboat to a freighter (you belong to a small fraternity my friend). He was a doctor that I worked briefly with. What did I do when he told me that he sunk his boat offshore and was rescued by a tanker? I asked him when and where I could meet him for the story and what the price was. It happened to be 4AM in the ER (and the price was coffee) as he was getting off shift, so I got up at 3AM to hear the story.

Why did I do that, when most other yachtie's stories I could take or leave? Because I'm obsessed with the possibility of things going wrong. We all are.

How many threads on sailnet are about safety gear, the best boat for offshore storms, storm tactics, drogues vs para-anchors etc etc etc.... Few threads on sailnet are about the perfect margarita recipe. Why? Because we're all obsessed with the big, scary, looming "What IF?"

Well "What IF" rarely happens, so we are left to obsess about it in the absence of first hand knowledge. "What IF" actually did happen to you, so everybody wants to hear all about it, and get first hand answers about their own personal fears from the oracle himself.

It's a pity that we're all so disaster obsessed, but we are. I think it's a cultural thing of our time. Too much TV and sensational news I supect. We're so much more obsessed and scared of the remotely possible events, like airplane crashes, terrorism, or rare plagues (but never real risk like high cholesterol or heavy car traffic) that it impedes our ability to enjoy life I fear.

In any case, to a sailor, you are like a 9/11 twin towers survivor is to an office drone. Everybody will want to hear your story, and everybody will want YOU to address THEIR version of what they fear most. Unless you want to keep the fact that you did have that experience quiet, you're going to run into the Harvard Club experience a lot.

I wish you well in your boat search. I hope that even though you lost your beloved Triumph, you can still enjoy the thrill and possibility of searching for, and falling in love with another boat again.

MedSailor
 
#34 ·
Welcome back Doug. :)

I'm not surprised that all the yachties wanted to talk with y'all about was the disaster. I've only ever met one person who has swum from a lifeboat to a freighter (you belong to a small fraternity my friend). He was a doctor that I worked briefly with. What did I do when he told me that he sunk his boat offshore and was rescued by a tanker? I asked him when and where I could meet him for the story and what the price was. It happened to be 4AM in the ER (and the price was coffee) as he was getting off shift, so I got up at 3AM to hear the story.

Why did I do that, when most other yachtie's stories I could take or leave? Because I'm obsessed with the possibility of things going wrong. We all are.

How many threads on sailnet are about safety gear, the best boat for offshore storms, storm tactics, drogues vs para-anchors etc etc etc.... Few threads on sailnet are about the perfect margarita recipe. Why? Because we're all obsessed with the big, scary, looming "What IF?"

Well "What IF" rarely happens, so we are left to obsess about it in the absence of first hand knowledge. "What IF" actually did happen to you, so everybody wants to hear all about it, and get first hand answers about their own personal fears from the oracle himself.

It's a pity that we're all so disaster obsessed, but we are. I think it's a cultural thing of our time. Too much TV and sensational news I supect. We're so much more obsessed and scared of the remotely possible events, like airplane crashes, terrorism, or rare plagues (but never real risk like high cholesterol or heavy car traffic) that it impedes our ability to enjoy life I fear.

In any case, to a sailor, you are like a 9/11 twin towers survivor is to an office drone. Everybody will want to hear your story, and everybody will want YOU to address THEIR version of what they fear most. Unless you want to keep the fact that you did have that experience quiet, you're going to run into the Harvard Club experience a lot.

I wish you well in your boat search. I hope that even though you lost your beloved Triumph, you can still enjoy the thrill and possibility of searching for, and falling in love with another boat again.

MedSailor
Lets' start with Thank You for that thoughtful comment! I do appreciate the consideration which inspired your words. And, I surely can't argue that what you said is absolutely acurate.

What I want to result from this is not to hide or keep this all to myself. Evelyn is more along those lines than I have ever been, but time should resolve that, theoretically.

I do want to be useful toward any improvement(s) which might be possible of deep sea rescues. The pure entertainment aspect of our story is not my goal. Though I well understand, as you also outlined, the lure of this to the majority of people. Even people without any marine experience are drawn to the stories of near death experiences. And that's just how it is.

In order to effect any improvements, I strongly suspect, I somewhat have to parlay the entertainment lure, toward the issues which could be improved.

You said at the beginning of your comment that a Dr. swam from a lifeboat to a freighter: "I've only ever met one person who has swum from a lifeboat to a freighter...."
Well, I'm not sure what you might have meant to specifically describe there, because I doubt he actually swam FROM a LIFEBOAT...?

But, the inclusion of a lifeboat into the rescue process would have been greatly appreciated by me.

Because I did not swim from a lifeboat to a tanker, or from the water to a lifeboat.
I swam from a trashed Gulfstar to a tanker; and in the last possible second, after over 3 hours of sinking below the waves, and miraculously rising into the air, again and again and again, I managed to make it to a life bouy, thrown from that tanker, and was pulled up to their deck from that.

The lifeboat(s) never left the deck.
 
#35 ·
Good to hear from you again Doug. Unfortunately, voyages like yours grabs everybody’s attention whereas my (uneventful) crossing from Las Palmas to Grenada last December sparked just passing interest. When you go to your next talk, just put on your chain mail shark suit on and enjoy the feeding frenzy. I’m assuming that you are going to Southern California for your boat search. If you find should yourself up in the San Francisco area, let me know as I’d love to buy you a drink at the bar. One of my friends has a Taswell 49 which he loves and is absolutely gorgeous, but he will be the first to admit, is not the fastest boat in the marina.
 
#36 ·
Good to hear from you again Doug. Unfortunately, voyages like yours grabs everybody's attention whereas my (uneventful) crossing from Las Palmas to Grenada last December sparked just passing interest. When you go to your next talk, just put on your chain mail shark suit on and enjoy the feeding frenzy. I'm assuming that you are going to Southern California for your boat search. If you find should yourself up in the San Francisco area, let me know as I'd love to buy you a drink at the bar. One of my friends has a Taswell 49 which he loves and is absolutely gorgeous, but he will be the first to admit, is not the fastest boat in the marina.
Thank you George! I'll take an "uneventful" cruise any day over the one we had. :)

Yes, we're landing at Long Beach, then visiting a few S. Cal., marinas.
Sadly, we won't be making it up to SF. Though I lived in that area throughout the 1980s! First Alameda, then up in Marin County.

I used to love to sail in that Bay! Quite challenging, always.

Considering we were in a Gulfstar 50 for 11 years, and now we're looking at the Taiwanese 50s, speed is surely not very high in our criteria.
We are liveaboards, so comfort is much higher, with high quality wood to keep me busy restoring, a sweeping deck, a center or pilot house cockpit, a large aft cabin a spacious main salon, with a good engine and rigg....
Oh, not to mention a stall shower, washer & dryer and granite counters. :)

That last "requirement" is really an homage to a lot of comments in the S/V Triumph thread.
 
#43 ·
Well, so far, in our boat shopping mission, we have travelled to Long Beach, Sab Diego, Kemah TX, and New Orleans. We have seen many Formosa 51s, Hudsons, and the other Taiwanese ketches on our radar. We even looked at the S/V Wanderer which was used in the sailing scenes of the Captain Ron movie. But, what we have learned is that even in this "economy", you still only get what you pay for. Which applies here in that these boats were asking anywhere from $75K to $125K, and all were absolutely beat.

Not to mention that most of these happened to not have the actual pilot house cockpit which we wanted in order to have the spacious aft cabin we wanted even more.

So, we regrouped, and upped our budget to $200K, and have found THE perfect boat for us. The Ta Chiao CT 54 ketch.

Now, from what we have learned, these vary substantially from boat to boat, depending upon how much involvement there was during the original build process by the initial owner / customer.

Some people have tried to draw a line in the sand and say that pre 1981 TC 54s are "Leeky Teekys", but some further detective work leads back to the amount of owner involvement with the build process being the real delineator between a well built, and a not so well built TC 54.

We have found about a half a dozen of these boats for sale; and they are scattered from the VIs to Europe. And all of them are roughly in the $250K asking price range.
So, apparently we have to go look at all of them to pick one, then we can focus on that one to try to negotiate as far down as possible.

IF, by any chance, any of you people happen to know of a Ta Chiao CT 54 ketch for sale, even if she has a blown engine, I would REALLY APPRECIATE the reference!

THANK YOU!
Doug
 
#45 ·
That IS an excellent example of a CT 54! Thank you LandLocked.

While looking for those, I happened upon this:

2012 53' Pavel Shaposhnikov Schooner (Google on them!)

Apparently, this Ukrainian boat yard will build a 53 foot schooner for you for $145K!?

Has any body heard about these people? When you read up on them, they will build many different boat designs for you.

So we're very intrigued! A 2012 bran new 53 footer for under $150K.... and did you see the pictures? This is not a stripped hull. Well, I'll have to contact them and see what the deal really is......
 
#47 ·
Land locked:

Well, the concept of the Ukrainian boat yard was a momentary voyage down a tributary; but, back on the proper course, we are focused on the Ta Chiao CT 54 or 56 boats.

Here is a CT 56, in Florida, which we are especially interested in:

1986 Ta Chiao CT-56 World cruiser Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

I wonder what I would ask Mr. Perry which would be of value to this search?
 
#48 ·
Not totally sure, but he is a respected designer that works with a bunch of yards. Maybe you could build through him and arrive at an american built boat built to your specs. Wouldn't hurt asking, more information is never a bad thing.

I like the Captain Ron thing that you are going for!
 
#49 ·
Landlocked,

I recently read Perrys' book; great reading! But, to pay for a new build, with Perry designing her, would clearly cost well over our $200K budget!
Though there might be the possibility of having that Ukranian yard build her at their greatly lowered prices.... so that is an interesting concept.
I would still be very surprised if the total cost would be below $200K, and have all the required equipment, and quailty of wood we want.

The CT 56, in St. Augustine (see link previously posted), is not the Captain Ron boat. That was a Formosa 51, named the "Wanderer", and she is in Kemah, Texas. Though the CT 56 is another Taiwanese built boat, and likewise designed by Perry.

I just spoke with the broker, and he said she has the "original" standing and running rigging, deck, and sails. So, original from 1986, means: beat.

So.... with all those negatives, there is clearly enough to negotiate the price down with, toward our top budget amount of $200K.

Now I need to look at her to learn how much else is beat; and whether or not we really want this particular one, or not.
 
#51 ·
It would be interesting to see how much custom boat you could get with $200k - my guess would be about 26'.
 
#52 ·
Well, I can only assume the standing rigging would cost around $35K, give or take. But, however much it might cost, would be used as a negotiating point. We need the price to move from $295K down to below $200K, which is about 1/3 of the whole. That is a long way down..... :)
 
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