Solo sailor, 16, missing as beacons activated

[Guest]

Missing teen sailor alive and well

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/ar ... d=10651282

 

why there in June?? had to try and beat the record -insanity, having said that, hope she is rescued with no probs

[Guest]

True, but the risk is less than the sailors of the past had to endure.

 

I'm knot to sure that is actually the case. I'd say the risk is all still there just how it is managed or handled has changed. Along with that change has been a decrease of risk in some areas but a big increase in others.

 

These days how many times have you seen cock-up reports that say 'trusted the GPS', where back in the day they had to use a to more smarts.

 

Shipping now travelling a LOT faster and in larger numbers, that's newish. See more and more incidents with yachts verse ships.

 

Marketing. According to many yacht builders all their craft are capable of doing offshore. That's proving to be a some what optimistic call in more than a few cases. These days people do believe marketing more than back in the day when boats were build like brick dunnies.

 

Yachts are faster now so when it goes bad it often happens a lot faster.

 

There has been some hugely good gains but equally there has been/is risks now that weren't there before.

 

 

ok , on the plus side with GPS we have a darnsighted more accurate picture of where you are compared with sight reduction from a sun gun, does tend you to clip closer to things you'd have given a wide berth running on DR , communications are a strange mix of x marks the spot I am at over "I know there are risks where I am going and I am happy to take them", in doing so you're dragging a lot of lives with you. Shipping witout a doubt has got speedier, try doing a night watch in the Moluccas and you'll fair crap yourself( even though they are in lanes) one thing that is never mentioned and has claimed more than one or 2 is whale strike......really think you'll see these numbers increase in the not too distant future

[Fish 0]

"We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard." - John F Kennnedy.

 

I don't have a problem with teenagers setting off to sail solo around the world as long as they and everyone else understand that its not the safest endeavour in the world. With proper preparation and the right equipment and attitudes it can be done relatively safely, however, it must be remembered that you're taking on the ocean. Some very experienced and well prepared people have come to grief on the ocean. There is an element of luck involved.

 

As you so eloquently put it Squid, of 10 that set out we should not expect to be welcoming all 10 back to safe harbour. But as long as they take on the challenge with the knowledge that they may not return, then I'm OK with that.

 

What we don't need is a bunch of hand-wringing, pansy ass, safety nazis who go and change the regulations for everybody just because Johnny Pimplebum wiped himself out in the Sthn Ocean during his attempt to be the youngest blindfolded transgender conjoined twin to sail solo around the world in a plantpot.

 

In life reward is usually proportional the risk involved, and satisfaction is proportional to the effort required. Ask any Contractor about reward V risk and any Mountaineer about satisfaction to effort.

 

We've had plenty of guys in history chase reward at huge risk. Ed Hilary pulled it off. Robert Falcon Scott didn't - but he's got a cool statue in Christchurch now. No-one stopped either from having a go. There was a general acceptance that death was a high probabilty. That was acceptable.

 

Society seems to have a different take when its a 16 year old girl out on a risky adventure.

 

For these record attempts to continue the people involved need to stand up and say publicly "We are prepared for the worst case scenario if we sanction this adventure" i.e. we are prepared to accept the death of a 16yr old girl in the Southern Ocean for the reward of being the youngest to win X record.

 

Society might have an issue if its stated like that. Do you think?

 

I don't agree with these kids trying but I'm not going to stop anyone.

[Guest]

..... a 16 year old girl is probably safer on a yacht without a mast than on a fishing boat loaded with fishermen that have been in the middle of the indian ocean for god only knows how long !

[Fish 0]

Wouldn't mind knowing why they've sent a QANTAS Airbus instead of an Air Force Orion. I'm assuming at 2,000nm an Orian doesn't have the range?

 

Still Airbus's aren't that good at flying low and slow, which are both prerequisites for visual search of a yacht. Guessing if they've got a GPS EPIRB they can get into VHF range fairly quickly and confirm she's OK but lost the rig...

[Panic 0]

Wouldn't mind knowing why they've sent a QANTAS Airbus instead of an Air Force Orion. I'm assuming at 2,000nm an Orian doesn't have the range?

 

Still Airbus's aren't that good at flying low and slow, which are both prerequisites for visual search of a yacht. Guessing if they've got a GPS EPIRB they can get into VHF range fairly quickly and confirm she's OK but lost the rig...

 

 

if airbuses aren't good at flying low and slow, then how do they land? High altitude and high speed?

I suspect the reason they used an airbus was one was available and it could go that far. Orions are also getting very old and are probabally getting fixed again.

[Fish 0]

They don't normally land flying around all day in a grib pattern do they?

 

The main thing is fuel consumption, they aren't efficient at 500 ft compared with 30,000, but I'm guessing the fuel thing was fine as it has all worked out. An airbus would certainly get to the search area good and quick.

 

As for Orions being old, we're talking the Australian Air force, not the New Zealand one...

[wheels 543]

They didn't actually "send" a commercial airliner out there. It was a regular scheduled flight and they took a little more of a route south listening for the locator becon and hoping to get within VHF range.

I don't think an Orion has that kind of distance does it?? She is 3000 miles from Africa and 3000 miles from Oz. Right smack in the middle of furtherest point from all land, the worst possible place to ever have a problem like that. She is very fortunate that a large fishing vessel is not far away at only 40hrs from her. It would take days for anything else to get to her if it had to come from land. And 3000Nm is out of range of any chopper, let alone 3000Nm back again.

She was having engine trouble and was below talking to her Dad when she was hit by a freak wave and it is thought that the boat went 360. Maybe done below with the eninge was a good place for her to be. Of course, who would ever know. But I would not like to be up in the cockpit if I was turned over 360.

[Guest]

So

if your 16 yo daughter came to you and said "I'd like to sail around the world single handed" what answer would you give?

 

Here's mine:

 

Sure honey, first get a laser and race it for a year so you know how to sail. The next year get a position crewing on someone else's boat and do as many passage races as you can, try and end that year with a long offshore passage, maybe back from Fiji or similar.

Then get your own boat and start doing some solo sailing, day trips first, then a few overnighters. After a year of that try a trip around the Kermadecs. If that goes OK, sail across to Sydney, down to Tassie then home around the bottom of NZ.

Then you can go, as soon as you can pay for it.

(Oh by now you are 21 so I couldn't stop you anyway).

[Guest]

And so it begins

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =127775304

[wheels 543]

if your 16 yo daughter came to you and said "I'd like to sail around the world single handed" what answer would you give?

Do remember that some, maybe not all, but several have come from sailing liveaboard families that these kids have sopent all of their short life at sea and have taken responsilibilites of crewing and helming their Home equally as they have grown older and gained responsability in their family. Which does tend to be a younger age that these Kids mature than Kids we all know on dry land. Heck, my wife has difficulty calling me responsible at 48.

 

I really don't know what the answer to what Squid has linked us to there. I can see arguments on both sides. Especially if you are a crusing family. Solo yeah, or with one partner, perhaps you can have that Kamakazi attitude of, if we die we die. But what about a cruising Family. How do you leave Kids way out there if they need help. If I was way out there, I would want help.

If I had to pay for that help, then I like many of us here could not dream of ever going anywhere. This is the real danger I see happening. In fact if User pay came in for rescues, no one could afford to even go for a fish any more. And you wouldn't be able to ensure, as the cost would be astronomical. Not to mention that then the insurance company would want us all to meet a minimum requirement for Boat saftey and equipment and crew qualification and experience. And if you all think Cat 1 is hard now, you wait till an Insurance company got into dictating requirments. Plus poart of the boating experience I enjoy is the freedom of just going anywhere in this country. It woudl be the end of boating for me if i had to meet some qualification, pay some rediculous amount in Insurance, or have a user pays threat that could cost from hundreds of thousands to millions, over me each time I take the boat out.

Personally I like to think some of my Tax dollars are going into Search and rescue just as equally as it goes into Search of illegal fishing vessels and certainly far more for any of those two than it going into fighting some war in Afganistan we have nothing to do with. And most certainly when I see so much of the waste that these flamin MPs and other parts of Gvt are clocking up. Besides Search and rescue is as much about training as it is training is for Search and rescue. If they are going to spend money to train anyway, then you can not exactly say it is costing as much as what ever it does per hr to do the actual rescue. And another annoying point for me is that not all those costs are spent or saved just because they are in the air. What I mean buy that is, you can not take wages into account for instance. Because whether the guys are on the ground, in the air, sitting in front of the TV on their days off, they are still being paid a Salary which means the aircraft cost X amount just sitting on that tarmac.

[Fish 0]

They didn't actually "send" a commercial airliner out there. It was a regular scheduled flight and they took a little more of a route south listening for the locator becon and hoping to get within VHF range.

I don't think an Orion has that kind of distance does it?? She is 3000 miles from Africa and 3000 miles from Oz. Right smack in the middle of furtherest point from all land, the worst possible place to ever have a problem like that. She is very fortunate that a large fishing vessel is not far away at only 40hrs from her. It would take days for anything else to get to her if it had to come from land. And 3000Nm is out of range of any chopper, let alone 3000Nm back again.

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/3 ... land-found

 

No - it was a chartered Airbus with a QANTAS Flight crew, 11 trained observers and two maritime police. No "passengers". I can't find the original story on stuff but the link above states it was a chartered QANTAS plane.

 

At first I thought you'd need an Orion with all the sub hunting gear & RADAR's etc for a full SAR operation. Considering they had a GPS EPIRB they wouldn't need all that - just fly to the target and have a yarn on VHF. An Airbus would get there faster and has the range where as there aren't many options at all just for the range down there.

 

This is possibly the first time commerial assets have been chartered for SAR in favour of military assets, interesting and effective. I wonder if it was cheaper?

[wheels 543]

Blimey. surely that would have been far more expensive than and Ozy C-130 or similar.

[Atom Ant 0]

Rod_Boy, I think you said what I said - perhaps a little less delicately though! Thinking about experienced people - how many times has Tony Bullimore been rescued?

[Guest]

This is possibly the first time commerial assets have been chartered for SAR in favour of military assets, interesting and effective. I wonder if it was cheaper?

 

I heard the family fronted with coin, or some, as the A320 was a lot faster than other options and one was sitting all ready to go. I did see something that may have suggested a insurance company was in on it as well. The Aussie Govt just said they will pay a lot of the cost.

 

I'd think a commercial probably wouldn't cost much more, if any, than Military. Military don't tweak their machines for economy and trim all costs like commercial, probably less crew on a commercial as well, observers excluded. Commercial aircraft get called into SAR a lot, even in NZ, but usually knot stinking big jets. Here usually just Helos and a range of smaller fixed wing.

[rigger 47]

There was one report (sorry lost the link) that had it that the flight wa a commercial job that was going to be on a run anyway and they planned ahead to over fly then carry on, but that report could wrong, there seems to be a lot said that is perhaps wrong that is - reported badly by the media

[wheels 543]

Glad you said that Rigger, because that is what i had thought I had read. And that it was an A330. I couldn't find the info again, so thought maybe I just dreamt it. Hey, your not sharing my dreams I hope

[Guest]

Probably was a A330. I think Qantas only have 330's and 380's, the rest are Boeing's.

 

I doubt it was a commercial flight as they loaded enough full to stay on station at the last known position for 2.5 hours. I wouldn't expect paying passengers to be that happy going in circles for that long.

 

Doesn't really matter, they found her so that's all that counts.

[Murky 1]

Off her boat and on the fishing boat:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/3 ... dian-Ocean

 

And as much explanation on what happened as is being offered at the moment:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/3 ... ays-adrift

[Guest]

now we wait for the 14yr old setting off in september..