Passage planning

[Guest]

Don't know how you manage to infer so much.

 

In the past I have discovered trying to keep to a schedule for whatever reason (meeting friends, catching a flight, whatever) has always been a less than pleasant experience, and on occasion has led me to make bad decisions. I know people who have lost their boats and their lives as a result of such situations, I have managed to avoid that.

 

If I give someone a destination and an eta, and discover I am out of communication, I will try harder to make that appointment to forestall any worry or worse a search and rescue operation. And I might just be tempted to push on when the more seamanlike decision would be to heave to, turn and run, head to a different destination.

 

To offer the greatest safety to me and my crew I need the freedom to make the decisions as I see the need.

 

Ask Booboo why , when dismasted in the Southern Ocean , they chose to continue around the Horn rather than go to Chile. If I remember correctly it was to avoid troublesome bureaucracy. It turned out OK, but they had to accept an increased risk to do so. Similar situation here - I want to make decision A, but am pressed to decision B becauase I told someone I'd be there on the 20th. I'd rather remove that pressure.

 

Since you are of the opinion that Steve and I are more than just competent, perhaps you could consider the possibility that we are actually "correct".

[Steve Pope 243]

Just think of Lionheart, they were trying to meet a dead line, yes they had sick people on board, still, it would have been better to be sick a little longer than dead.

[grant 40]

and the above discussion says that you understand and have a plan and consider how your voyage may take shape, but do not use all parts of the process for thought out reasons based on your own experience,

 

which I think is quite reasonable and gives a better steer to those less experienced reading this than "don't do it and would advise against"

[Guest]

Correct or just lucky? It's a fine line sometimes. But you were right to a point.......... back in the day but knot today. Things change as do people, technologies and society.

 

If you have planned your voyage, assuming you can do that with some competence, you will have a rough idea of when you expect to arrive, plus or minus depending on the usual things. There is zero need to tell some one 'I will arrive at 1.07pm on the 21st'. So just open up the time window and say 'We expect to arrive somewhere between the 20th and the 24th depending on... {usually that's weather} but we are aiming to be there in time to meet you on the 22nd if nothing unforeseen happens'. To say 'fly in on the 22nd and we'll meet you at the airport' is just asking for trouble. That is what I mean by poor planning, you have to allow for large range of variables and in doing so means you'll end up with quite a large window of ETA. Don't tie yourself to a strict timetable, it doesn't always pan out that way, does it lads.

 

As you have seen yourself by the looks you suffered a case of 'Get there itis'. As we all know if you push hard sh*t can happen. A skippers responsibilities are to ensure sh*t is minimised, knot encouraged by pushing to make a deadline someone on land has. They are safe and worse case go home without getting to have a beer with you. But you are in the deep blue so if bad sh*t happens due to your case of 'Get There Itis', you and all abroad with you can easily die dead forever. In the meantime the person who you didn't make it for is still alive. That is the knot trusting yourself to make good calls as a skipper bit.

 

The very same thing applies to lots of things and 'get there itis' has killed many on and above land just as it has those on the water. That is exactly why we have billboards on the side of the road proclaiming 'Better to arrive late than arrive dead'. Maybe the exact same thing that happened to Lionheart, sure for good reasons as they usually are but a bad call was made and it cost too many too much sadly.

 

The last bit is if you tell your cat or Joe your farmer mate, whose only experience with boats is watching ETNZ on TV, "I'm off to Fiji and should be there by Wednesday", the chances will increase dramatically Joe will knot understand WTF you are telling him or the implications of it all. Come the following Thursday when you still aren't in Fiji Joe lights the fuse on a SAR. While that's happening you're still 100nm south due to a worse than expected headwind. Tell someone who knows what you are doing, they have the knowledge to apply 'things boat' to that info and adjust as required i.e. they see you aren't there on Thursday but also saw the weather had gone worse than expected, they then do knot light the fuse on SAR as they realise you will be taking longer than planned. That's the 'I'm expecting to make a poor decision before I leave' by telling the wrong people the wrong stuff.

 

The above is knot hard to do and when you consider it there is no reason if you do the above you don't have the capability (allowance??) to make safe sound calls when afloat.

 

Now add in technologies that are easily and cheaply available meaning communicating lateness shouldn't be a issue anyway. Ring your boatie mate and tell then your adjusted plan/timing and all will be fine.

 

Society. As we see more and more these days the world is chocker with busybodies, most with magnificent intentions some knot so. You leave without passing a plan to someone and you can bet that in a time frame one of the people who know your out there but haven't arrived will speak to an authority which will mean Orion's taking off, ships being diverted, people start putting their lives on the line and stuff like that. Only to find you ran into a boat load of hot chicks with low morals in Minerva reef so spent 2 days in one giant and somewhat tiring orgy. Hence the don't be selfish comment.

 

Back in the day things weren't so predictable, technologies aren't as good or cost freaking moonbeams, PC we must save you from yourself whether you like it or knot didn't exist and other things along those lines. They do today, times change and as much as most of us don't like all aspects of it, we do have to live with it.

 

As for Booboo, that incident wasn't planned for and like all things like that, they will happen no matter what you do. But in the number of trips taken to the number that end like Boos's is huge so that was an unforeseeable (you'd bloody hope it was) event. If I remember correctly Boo's incident was also a racing incident and racing is very different than cruising. No way can every situation be taken into account and no one would reasonably expect you to take every unforeseeable event into account in your planning, that would be unrealistic. No matter how many precautions you take, plans you make or safety plans you have, sh*t will still happen. When it does we can only make the best of what we have and if that means someone spends a week alone on a beach in Fiji rather than on your boat, so be it, it's just how life works.

 

So that's the program I run these days along why I think it's smarter and safer than yours.

 

It's a damn good discussion though, as long as we aren't playing with banaaris head too much, hopefully knot

 

[edit] and 'you' is being used generically by the way.

[Guest]

So what's the advantage of a passage plan?

[Guest]

You have to have some sort of a plan like where, when, what to miss, what you need to do at any specific time, an idea of what you'll do if XX happens or that YY weather does come in faster than forcast, when to do XX to any boat gear i.e change filters, swap put lines for chafe and all that sort of stuff. Some are rough and some are probably itemise to the 10th degree depending on who's doing it. If it covers a passage it's a passage plan.

 

Everyone has one to some degree. Mine are usually rather basic, they are more flexible that way

 

Leave on XX, miss that lump and hang a right at the other one. Arrive sometime later. Park and tidy boat, get a feed of Chinese style stir fried veggies, drink to excess, fall over, wake up wondering WTF am I? Oh that's right I'm in QQ, find lots of coffee.

[Guest]

In other words nothing?

[idlerboat 116]

From "Jannalis" point of view, passage planning perhaps means something differant to some long term , legalistic point .

We always do passage planning......

that is we know where we are roughly heading.

We know how far the "destination" and alternate ones are.

We know what the weather and its window is before we leave.

We know how much fuel and water we have.

We try and scope out as many of the hazzards that we may encouter on the way, as well as the possible benifits (like temporary roadsted anchorages, and possible fuel and water).

___________________________________________

 

We make full use of both friends, public and private radio connections to pass on our basic intentions.

Particulaly with family and friends we always say that this is just a general idea.

We use radio logging of our lons and lats when ever we can.

This to us is important.

It is simply a very acurate location of our "last position".

It constantly tests our HF and helps to keep our success with propagation real.

 

___________________________________________

 

We do not belive in time frame bassed cruising.

It is dangerous.

It is the very reason why we dont do offshore racing, where time pressures create unreasonable risk. We fully understand those that do, but the fact is that most offshore races have very strict logging procedures anyway.

(we just dont have the money or sponsorship to fix a worn out boat).

__________________________________________

 

Passage planning should be kept on the boat, with the absolute right (and common sense) of the skipper to CHANGE at any time.

 

General intentions and logging with whoever is just another valuable safety net.

 

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It seems that the model for passage planning is to in someway "prove" the vessels good management.

This is crap. Its easy to write a good story...but much harder to make difficult decisions on the run.

Especialy if you have already commited to paper with a pressure to stick to it.

 

__________________________________________

 

As a final point.....I reserve the right to change my mind !!! I am not in controlled airspace. I do not by my movements present a danger to others. There is no benifit to my safety,(compared to lon and lat logging) and if I needed to prove my abilities to "the authorities" .....I thought I already have by getting a licsense in the first place.

[Guest]

In every trip you would have had a plan, just like everyone else. Surely you didn't just walk up to the boat and untie the lines having zero idea of what you were going to do or why.

 

The more you do it the less complex and detailed the plans will become as more will just become second nature meaning don't require planning or integration in one. With the miles you've done I'd expect your plans to be very simple and clean as what many newer to the game will have to think of will be all 'been there done that' to you. A lot of offshore stuff will be like taking a good pooh for you so like when you go to the dunny you drop your strides purely out of habit rather than forward planning.... or at least I'd like to hope you do

[idlerboat 116]

OK....

I came into abiittoffbiffoagain......

 

passage planning for your own vessel....not a bad idea unless you want to die.....

 

written passage plan to be submitted to legal authorities.....bad....

[Guest]

Essential part of any plan - make sure everyone has a good poo every day. Some people get hung up about doing it at sea and don't tell the skipper till they really are ill/badly constipated.

 

Yes, sometimes I'll wander down to the boat not knowing where I might go or whether I'll leave the mooring at all.

[Guest]

I guess I never think of any of that as passage planning, it's just going sailing.

[idlerboat 116]

I guess I never think of any of that as passage planning, it's just going sailing.

 

YEP....but a lot dont !

as for new crew crappin....

a vet told me years ago......dont worry....they will....

##

with both humans and animals, how long they hold off is not a measure of their modesty, but more a measure of how well they get along with others.

It can be a huge (not kidding) change in some lives.

 

I am perhaps a little brutal to the sensibilities of some, but I have seen the full horror of the dunny dramas....and I know who ends up doing the dirty work.

Bucket n chucket....

...and if you are an adult...I will remind you that I changed nappies...

[Guest]

Essential part of any plan - make sure everyone has a good poo every day. Some people get hung up about doing it at sea and don't tell the skipper till they really are ill/badly constipated.

Exactly and interestingly I also make sure my crew get a pooh out sooner rather than later for the exact same reason. That's an interesting thing that happens really and I've wondered if it's the seas movement, lack of fluid intake, just nervous/anxiety related or what causes it. Any Docs in the house??

 

That's part of your plan, as it is mine, even if neither of us put it in writing.

[banaari 27]

Now THAT isn't something that had occurred to me... but it damned well should have.

As would, now I think about it, a fully blown briefing, demo and worked exercises on how to operate the heads.

 

A tale: I signed up some years ago for what was supposed to be a diving trip around Stewart Island on Breaksea Girl, out of Bluff.

Turned out the majority of the other passengers were birdwatchers, mostly female and mostly elderly... and mostly out of their depth when it came to the intricacies of marine plumbing. Whatever it was they were doing with or to the communal heads, they weren't communicating it at the time... net result, by the time _I_ came to use the thing it was already blocked.

 

One trip to find the skipper (and the magical probe kept in the engine room for such occurences) was bad enough.

The _second_ such occurrence was downright mortifying...

[Guest]

Now THAT isn't something that had occurred to me... but it damned well should have.

As would, now I think about it, a fully blown briefing, demo and worked exercises on how to operate the heads.

Don't be too harsh on yourself, I learnt that by doing a delivery to the Pac Islands and having one crew who didn't pooh for 6 days. He then went in for a triple pumper and in doing so emptied the boat for over an hour with what appeared to be dry ice fog flowing out from under the dunny door. It was a shocker but since then I've been more aware of it. But until then it never crossed my mind.

 

Yes damn good idea planning dunny demos. Had a trip 2 years ago where one of the crew used the forward dunny and somehow managed to pump the bowl contents up the shower drain and then splatter it everywhere due to gawd knows what he did. It wasn't pleasant.

 

And all that due to one post from Ogre on pooh. We may have to start calling him Yoda soon

[Grinna 2]

"Poo ... or poo not ..... there is no 'try'". - Yoda

[Steve Pope 243]

KM of course everyone plans, you have to to go offshore, Cat 1 compliance for a start, food, crew, charts of the area you intend to visit, forward notification of the Customs at your desired destination, up to 96 hours is mandatory, depending on which country you plan to go to. the 96 hours of course can extend out from there, being dependant on weather, perhaps change of destination port, damage etc. There are so many variables that can have a bearing on your arrival.

Where I tend to differ is in the expectation of others, who often tend to show increasing concern with every day after an expected arrival date is made available to them. This is a reasonably recent development with the cell/smart phone/im/sms revolution. My family don't suffer from it, thank goodness! My last crews family didn't either.

It is must be a sign of my age that I don't have a need or desire for instant communication. In my youthful travels the main means of familial communication was the fantastic aerogramme on which you could write all the important happenings on the front and back post and forget. Roughly one sent either way every 3 months or so. Nobody would ever consider showing any concern if contact extended outside of 6 months or so.

Life is a risk, sailing no more or less so, only different. The numbers of folk who disappear in normal everyday life for whatever reason must be in the 10's of thousands for every yachty that drowns/disappears at sea, The Yachty/s only gets in the news because it is actually such rare occurrence in the overall scheme of things, and as such gets lots of media coverage.

[Guest]

Where I tend to differ is in the expectation of others, who often tend to show increasing concern with every day after an expected arrival date is made available to them. This is a reasonably recent development with the cell/smart phone/im/sms revolution. My family don't suffer from it, thank goodness! My last crews family didn't either.

To true as that directly relates to 'get there itis'.

 

Yes times are changing and in doing so means we have to be even more careful in what we tell who about any voyages.