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The U.S. Coast Guard said Saturday morning on Twitter that rescuers were searching for Charlotte Kirby, Nathaniel Davis and Wilfredo Lombardo, who were aboard the 40-foot sailboat named Dove. The boat was last known to be about 20 miles south of Mount Desert Island, where the famed Acadia National Park and seaside hamlet town of Bar Harbor are located.
The Coast Guard said that dispatchers on the mainland received a 911 call at about 3 a.m. from passengers on the boat that warned they were in distress.
"They basically said 'help' and 'we're on a boat' before the call cut out," Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Nicole Groll told the Portland Press Herald.
"The search began when a woman dialed 911 to make a distress call early Saturday.
The Coast Guard determined the call came from a location 20 miles south of Mount Desert Island. Groll said the Coast Guard wants to interview the crew at its next port of call."
Damn right. Got to be more to this story. Lucky they had Locator device on board. Stupid that they had not renewed the subscription before the started the passage to Florida.
Much as I hate to speculate, it sounds like a classic case of something frightening an inexperienced passenger who panicked and made the call. Someone else snatched the cell phone and ended it. My best guess.
You get terrifying storms that rightly terrify even experiend sailors who then do terrifyingly stupid things that they think are correct.
Often people mention that an evacuated boat has popped out the other side of the storm. But I wonder the permanently altered minds of the people who remain on-board.
Sailing is easy. Passage making is much more difficult. Passage making in the wrong season is insane.
In my opinion, if the story is as it appears to be, this is a case where these people should be held accountable for the costs of this search. At the very least that the person who ended the call to 911 so abruptly should have called back and made it clear that there was no emergency. If not common courtesy, then put that under common sense! Time to make an example of these people and charge them for every penny spent searching for them!
The powers that be should make it expensive enough that folks think twice before calling out SAR on a whim and only use the system when life (not a boat) is at stake.
Only when there is an obvious hoax that is preplanned should their be " punitive renewmerable damages " to recover the costs.
I understand it puts assets in harms way potentially.
I understand there is a monetary cost .
I understand your intention is to prevent frivolous alarms, which I agree with wholeheartedly.
I however I have more faith and trust with the professionals of the CG to determine what actions need be taken. Not you sitting behind a computer or a civilian . I am sure they assessed the situation, with ALL the facts they knew at the time meaning they had more info than you and I though just reading the internet, and determined that a search was necessary.
Putting some predetermined deterrent with penalty of costs so people don't call does not make sense. It isn't done when you call the cops when you see something suspicious like a possible terrorist attempt. It isn't done when a neighborhood watch calls something in. More appropriate it ISNT done when someone files a missing persons report.
Again...I trust the professionals to evaluate the information and take what they deem are appropriate protocols in reacting to what they see. Any time wasted by restrictions or hesitations could have negative consequences
In the context of USCG rescues, I'd like to see more after-incident boards of inquiry with judicial authority. If the mariner was grossly negligent, he/she could be compelled to attend remedial training or in extreme cases, be judicially prohibited from operating a vessel in waters within the jurisdiction.
Very sticky wicket. Since last go round have thought some on this. Still, think below needs improvement and further thought.
1- statistically passage is safer than coastal. Believe that’s so because fewer %age of people do passages unprepared and on unsuitable vessels. However, there are a constant stream of folks who are the exceptions proving the rule.
2. It’s inappropriate to have people die when resources are standing idle which could save them.
3. It’s inappropriate to have people not take some level of personal responsibility for their actions.
Hence, if a mayday is judged to have been within some measure of appropriateness by a experienced jury no punitive action be taken. Be that conditions beyond skills of crew, mechanical failure, inter current illness, exhaustion or other state that a prudent person could judge placed life at risk. If the jury of mariners judged the mayday to have been frivolous then crew pay damages capped at the value of the vessel involved. Independent wrongful death torts could apply however. If repetitive frivolous maydays occur non monetary actions also occur. Depending upon specifics - unpaid labor at a coast guard station or other government facility, mandatory education and passing proscribed testing, incarceration or other actions as deemed appropriate.
Think there’s a general consensus that is bad news to place CG service people at risk to no good purpose but acknowledge one of their purposes is SAR and impeding SAR should not occur.
Good God. I live near Penobscot Bay, although at the moment I'm looking out the window at Jost Van Dyke across Pillsbury Sound. When I spoke with my wife the other day, it was 14 friggin' degrees F in Maine. She wasn't happy I was down here working, and I was happy I wasn't performing morning snow removal. Back up on Tuesday.
Mid November is an incredibly bad time to do a delivery south. But it sounds like someone dropped the ball. SAR USCG should have been immediately contacted and called off. Sorry, but I agree this was as close to a fraudulent "remunerable" call as you can get.
It is a matter of local policy, but for the most part, you can't "unmake" a 911 call. If you even dial the number, say nothing and hang up, they will use your phone's location to dispatch police to investigate. When a mistake is made, we owe it in good faith to call them back and explain, I agree, but don't count on them to accept your explanation and do nothing.
A mayday call on a VHF can be cancelled, of course, but not a 911 phone call. It would be interesting to know what USCG's policy is on a situation like this.
We don't know because the skipper didn't think to call them and straighten it out. It's also quite possible, even likely, he had no idea there was a SAR effort out looking for him.
No second guessing here. Just an absolutely DUMB ass time to head out of Somes Sound. Temps were in the single digits a few days ago, and "34F" when they headed out. Someone got some splanin' to do about the 3 AM phone 911 call that triggered all this. Even the old man says "I'm pissed, I want to know what the hell happened."
There seems to be two camps--one for charging them full freight for this debacle, and one for not charging them at all.
What about a fine? Punishes folks for stupid things but doesn't bankrupt them like a full rescue cost could. I recently bought a PLB, and I believe that the instructions/literature mentioned fines.
The PLB also doesn't need a paid subscription for emergency calls like inReach, so those on a budget don't have a monthly charge.
People are always going to afford what they want to afford though anyway.
I don't think that "obvious hoax" should be the criteria for forcing those triggering a very expensive search by calling 911 to take some responsibility for their misguided decision. If someone feels like they are in danger (even if it turns out to not be life threatening conditions) then they have acted in good faith when they call 911 and I wouldn't want to discourage that. But in this case someone apparently got scared and called 911 but then hung up or was forced to hang up by someone else aboard before they could explain that there was no emergency and no need for a search. It's not the initial calling of 911 (however unnecessary) that I have the biggest problem with, but rather it's the prematurely hanging up and apparently not making any effort to explain their actual situation so the search that the curtailed call predictably triggered could be curtailed or avoided altogether. Everybody knows you can't call 911, hang up and hope nobody notices. What they did wasn't a deliberate hoax but it was very irresponsible and cost a lot of money and effort on a lot of peoples part so all those aboard who had knowledge of this call and failed to contact the authorities to explain that there really was no emergency should be held responsible for the consequences their irresponsibility caused. I don't expect they can afford to pay for the whole rescue effort, but if it went down as the info we now have seems to indicate, they should be fined a very substantial amount of money.
Regarding earlier comments regarding Sartori, yes it's 20-20 hindsight to see what the lady or ladies did wrong, but that doesn't change that it's true and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. Their panicked action disrupted lots of peoples lives and cost a small fortune and had much wider consequences to lots of people than their "emergency" that wasn't an emergency deserved. I suppose it was ultimately the owner/skippers fault for taking on such inexperienced and undisciplined crew so in that sense he bears some responsibility for the temporary loss of his boat, but I'd say that about 90% of the blame goes to the panicked crewmember who called Mayday when the conditions didn't warrant it and when their captain had a plan in place and had experienced worse conditions on that same boat. It amounts to mutiny when a subordinate crewmember makes an irrevocable decision and takes action that effects the entire crew and the voyage. I'm not saying captains are always right but before a crewmember of any vessel decides to override the captains judgment and override his authority by doing something like calling Mayday unnecessarily, they better be very, very sure that they will be proven right or expect to never be asked to crew again. Part of signing up to go to sea as crew is implicitly agreeing to put your trust for your life in your captains hands and then reminding yourself of that whenever you have doubts. If you can't do that, don't sign on as crew under that captain. You can discuss your thoughts or worries or suggest alternate courses of action to your captain, but ultimately whatever he/she decides is the course of action you need to support to the very best of your ability. Apparently the ladies on Sartori didn't understand any of that and they should have.
Regarding earlier comments regarding Sartori, yes it's 20-20 hindsight to see what the lady or ladies did wrong, but that doesn't change that it's true and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. ..... I'd say that about 90% of the blame goes to the panicked crewmember who called Mayday when the conditions didn't warrant it and when their captain had a plan in place and had experienced worse conditions on that same boat. It amounts to mutiny when a subordinate crewmember makes an irrevocable decision and takes action that effects the entire crew and the voyage. I'm not saying captains are always right but before a crewmember of any vessel decides to override the captains judgment and override his authority by doing something like calling Mayday unnecessarily, they better be very, very sure that they will be proven right or expect to never be asked to crew again. Part of signing up to go to sea as crew is implicitly agreeing to put your trust for your life in your captains hands and then reminding yourself of that whenever you have doubts.
Unfortunately, the age old maritime laws of the British Navy don't exactly apply to a non-commercial pleasure craft, taking friends along on a pleasure cruise. It's not clear if their agreement was that they would serve as active crew, or if they were just invited along for the ride. For some people who are not experienced sailors, it may seem like the equivalent of saying, "I'm not comfortable with your driving. Pull to the side of the highway and let me out."
Not at all a reach or overreaction to call what the crew of Sartori did to their skipper mutiny. The reference to mutiny was in the second paragraph where I was addressing what the two women did to the owner/circumnavigator/ skipper of Sartori, nothing to do with Dove. Their panicked overreaction to conditions the captain had experienced many times before at sea cost him, against his will, to be removed from his perfectly seaworthy vessel. That sounds a lot like mutiny to me. They substituted their own (limited) judgment for his and overthrew his authority and it was only luck that he ever got his sailboat back.
I don't think this Dove incident amounted to anything close to that and that's why I didn't say what you seem to be suggesting I said in reference to it, but rather was a case of one panicky crew member starting to call for help but then reconsidering or another crewmember intervening, but whatever happened here, whoever aboard knew about the aborted 911 call should have made it a top priority to notify SAR forces that they were indeed OK so nobody would be wasting their time out searching unnecessarily. Considering all the assets expended and people inconvenienced, those who caused it should have to bear some responsibility.
But both of these cases involved subordinate crewmembers panicking to the point of using their own judgment to at least momentarily override the captains. Crew members need to understand that the captain is the captain because he is the ONE who is entrusted to make all the big decisions aboard his boat. It's not a committee and it's not like in a car where you can ask to be let out on the side of the road at any time if you don't like what the driver is doing. Crew members need to understand and accept that, or not go to sea as crew.
I read the statement from the CG which states that the original cell phone call To them from the Dove cut out and that no one asked for help specifically.....do you have and further information we haven’t seen ?
These guys abandoned ship the other day and were picked up by a freighter, dismasted. There is an article in the Bangor Daily News, but I refuse to pay to have advertising flashing in my face. You can actually read the articles on your phone, but not on your computer (after something like "4 free peeks"). Rescued on Nov. 19th by cargo ship Jaguar Max the day after the USCG tracked them down off Long Island. No further comment from me on this one.
By Bill Trotter, BDN Staff • December 4, 2019 5:32 pm
Updated: December 5, 2019 10:12 am
"The 911 call that prompted a two-day search last month for a sailboat off Mount Desert Island came from a boat passenger who said she was "cold and uncomfortable" and "was not sure she was going to get warm again," a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said Wednesday."
NORFOLK, Va. - "The three boaters who were feared lost off Mount Desert Island last month were pulled from their 40-foot sailboat near Norfolk, Virginia Nov. 19 according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
A Coast Guard official said that a cargo ship, the Jaguar Max, rescued the trio off the coast of Virginia. The ship's crew reported that the sailboat had lost its mast and its occupants were donning lifejackets.
At the request of the Coast Guard, the 750-foot ship had diverted course toward the sailboat and subsequently made visual contact with the boaters. But it had to hold off on picking them up until the next day because of high winds and seas."
Context matters here. Mt Desert Island is at 44N & we are in December.
Look at Vagabonde's track - they stayed well South until they got close to their destination & then went North. If there was no weather window, the Vagabonde people would have waited for one before going North.
The Vagabonde people are seasoned sailors who know what they are doing. Not sure about the skipper of the Dove.
This is too weird.... first a false alarm and then several weeks later the real deal and the crew is picked up by a freighter? Can't make this sh*t up!
"Feel like"... The great legal level of proof required to hang a man.
:devil
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