As someone who is familiar with sailing, the photos were often misleading and rarely had anything to do with the actual boat, or anything like the same type of boat. And highlighting a knot to explain a breakdown of safety due to multiple causes with complex interactions just encourages people to seek simplistic solutions to every misadventure, which is a guarantee that almost nothing useful will be learned. I encourage people to find and download Maritime New Zealand's Final Report of 13 June 2016, entitled "Platino Accident", along with the many other highly informative reports from this (and from the UK's MAIB, and US's NTSB, also US Sailing) also the report by Sheldon Stuchell compiled by George Day on a similar incident aboard "Escape" in May 2022, which you can find with a simple Google search from multiple websites. Also the report from Captain Thierry Simon (posting on Cruisers Forum as Captain Orion) on the loss of s/v Sanctuary . The same forum has an account posted by "El Pinguino" of the loss of sailing vessel "Brilliance". There is an almost unlimited amount of info on-line, and in libraries with a Sailing section. Most of the deepest insights are rather timeless, so there is no need to adhere only to contemporary accounts.
@@seanmacmillan782 Training doesn't matter if people (students) don't consider it important. They will forget it immediately. In other words, this catastrophe was caused by lack of self preservation in these people. They could have been trained. But if they really didn't believe that something like this could happen to them, (they obviously didn't) then the training would have been some meaningless role playing to them. If they really believed they were in danger, the training would have been etched into their minds.
Having a skipper in name only is a very bad idea. On a side note, in-boom furling systems mean the boom is much heavier than a more typical in-mast furling or slab reefing system. This system requires an especially robust preventer system. In addition this was a very large yacht so the loads on the boom would have been enormous.
I hate heavy booms. No good sailing experience, but several large boom sized hole. My parents may have been yachtmasters, but they consistently forgot to shout.
Maritime New Zealand published the Platino accident analysis and report which is on their website, and is required reading for how to rig a preventer properly. It would have been good to link to it in your description. For those that are interested, you can also find an excellent discussion on, and the solution to, setting up a safe preventer system at Attainable Adventure Cruising.
The preventer would have failed anyway. The catastrophic loss of steering in strong wind is what doomed it. If the preventer was way stronger, other things most likely would have failed.
@mvd4436 Maybe. I have been on a boat that had a properly rigged preventer in similar conditions, and a strong following sea caused the boat to gybe under autopilot. It put an enormous load on the preventer, but the boat just rounded up and sat there essentially hove-to, backwinded, completely drama free. I have also seen what a swinging roller boom can do. It is terrifying. Point is that in strong downwind conditions, a preventer is a truly essential piece of safety gear and needs to be very very strong, as strong or stronger than the mainsheet. I've seen way to many people just use any spare piece of line clipped in with substandard hardware. Incidentally I find the title of this video misleading, althought the knot did fail, it wasnt the knot's fault. A bowline is a suitable knot for this purpose, but the line was rigged in an unsuitable geometry.
@@Toro_Da_CorsaI strongly disagree. An autopilot can always fail without warning, and the wind can suddenly shift to the same effect. There has to be a plan B for that event, and that's the preventer (or a boom brake, which probably would have been better in this situation).
As a professional master mariner with 40 years experience and several hundred thousand blue water miles ( stopped counting) I would like to state that I hold experience well above qualifications. When I started experience was what counted. The fervour for qualifications has been advanced by insurance companies and can be achieved with minimal sea time. Unless there is regular time at sea these ‘qualifications and acquired skills ‘ fall out of habit. Practise ( helps) make perfect
I have almost no sailing experience, but I know one thing for a fact, people lose those skills in a panic or stress situation. If you don’t train and refresh that training you’re simply lulling yourself or fooling yourself and then others end up paying the price.
To have all that gear, classes (for certifications), and ‘experience’, these sailors made every rookie mistake in their preparation and emergency event. --edited punctuation
It’s a story as old as time. Tons of money to buy all of the fanciest electronics and safety gear, but never once tested them or learned how to use them. I realize stress makes people think differently, but if you pressed the “man overboard” button and it didn’t work then wouldn’t the obvious next step be to try holding the button down?
Sorry, but this was not the knot that killed these two sailors: The holes in the swiss cheese started to line up before they ever left the dock: -- * four seasoned sailors - each one assuming that another would know how to .. rig a preventer .. switch on an epirb ..etc. * no briefing before the trip - PBED - Prepare, Brief, Execute, Debrief. if one of them had been a new sailor, perhaps the Skipper would have covered the safety features on the boat. * no check on liquids - engine oil, fuel, hydraulic oil * no man overboard drill - it is done EVERY time with a dummy person and a real (see wet) recovery whenever a Clipper Racer (Clipper Round the World) leaves on their next leg. * Not even discussion of the MOB possibilty -- were they wearing their life jackets - in the picture those life preservers had no crotch strap. * no emergency tiller - was there even one on board? How to rig it in the event of failure? * no understanding of how to rig a preventer - that angle from the boom did NOTHING except to overload the line and fittings. Sailing downwind is DANGEROUS.
This is all correct, also each sailor should have been familiarized with each system and control on the boat, through a drill. Leslie she was under rigged as this major refit should have ensured reinforced fiberglass and extra-long back in place so the traveler and stay with not rip out.
All of the points you make seem valid to me, but I find it peculiar that on a yacht as expensive and modern as Platino a system as crucial as steering can fail catastrophically without any warning and go into a condition which the crew can do nothing about. If the hydraulic power steering on a car runs out of fluid, steering becomes much more difficult, but the front wheels do not snap to the full-lock right or left position and stay there.
Not to mention sounds like they had no storm sailing tactics … 35-45 knots on a cruiser- 3rd reef and storm jib. Also, no way to quick drop the main or even an attempt … “experience does not mean competency”
Steve's daughter, Grace, told me that this was Steve's 16th voyage to Fiji on a yacht. She had asked him not to go. Being the kind community man that he was, he went anyway, wanting to help and give a hand to locals. It certainly appears that this feeling was not reciprocated, when the remaining people on deck saw him at least twice as they passed him, as he floated there in the swells with his hands raised. I cry to this day. How could they have not, at least, thrown a life support item overboard and toward him? A truly good man was lost at sea. Ironically, at his memorial, we were told of how his grandfather (or perhaps great?) had also been lost at sea. I cannot imagine a more hopeless and lonely way to die. Especially in a place that you have loved and embraced. RIP Steve There are many who miss you, especially in Devonport ❤
You obviously didn't pay attention, they were fighting for their lives on an out of control sailboat. Just, wow. You probably think mountain climbers who don't help stranded climbers above 8000 meters are selfish too. One must save themself before saving anyone else. He shouldn't have gone on the trip, he was a big boy, nobody held a gun to his head. You make it sound as if his daughter or friends had an inordinate amount of control over him. If he was doing what he loved, why point fingers?
I really love how thorough you are with information and details about everything you cover and creating a real sense of mystery about what, exactly, has gone wrong. I’ve learned a great deal from your videos and I appreciate that you are in no way salacious in your retellings of these often tragic mishaps. Your videos are genuinely educational, thoughtful, and gripping without sounding judgmental: Mishaps, accidents, and even mistakes are rarely made by anyone with genuine malice or genuine stupidity and I feel that your accounts implicitly acknowledge this. I really commend you for your thoroughness and sensitivity and I thank you for these stories.
@@waterlinestories - Your account of the Deepwater Horizon incident allowed me to really synthesize an event that before I only knew the parts of and I believe that is where your work truly shines. In this video, the granular detail about how this boat was rigged, the relationships between the people aboard, and the diffusion of authority is so important. As you say, everyone online has an opinion about “what (the proverbial) they should have done is…” and I think it’s human nature to look for a villain. But so often the “villain” is just normalized bad practices that haven’t been tested to failure, as it were, or someone being in a rush, unsure what’s happening, or unsure what to do. It’s hard for some to conceive of a world where no one really did anything wrong and yet an oil rig sank.
It’s not having a standard regarding how things are going to be done. The men learnt from someone else, who trained years before. Nothing stays the same (maybe watch rotation). She was the cook, fine. But I know skippers that cook, she wasn’t even involved in basic rope setup.
Depressing how easily this could have been avoided, simply by everyone just knowing their roles and doing even a single practice run of the safety procedures.
@@Clayne151 Sure, but the point is that everyone would have actually had a solid plan if what to do in this sort of situation. This tragedy wasn't caused by the breakage; it was absolutely caused by them having no idea of how to handle any sort of emergency situation. Everything went wrong because they hadn't practiced their procedures, hadn't formed a solid crew structure, and hadn't worked out issues in the system preemptively because no practice runs were done.
@@RoundSeal I don't think there even is a safe way to regain control of a swinging boom with the main sheet ripped out of the traveller on a yacht of this size. Basically you cannot go on deck without risk of being clubbed to death or thrown overboard. And could easily have happened to even more crew members.
@@Clayne151 I know, but a chara, I don't think I can be any more clear that people who are trained to respond appropriately in emergency situations are not necessarily training for _specific_ situations. In this case, it was _not_ the boom breaking free that was the problem, it was: 1) There was no clear line of information & command among the people on board. This means that people are effectively running around like headless chickens, not knowing what needs doing or has been done. When there is a clear line of command, people fully know their roles and filter information up through the ranks to the skipper, who can then pass on that information to authorities like the Coast Guard. This wasn't happening. 2) They had not done any practice runs with emergency procedures. This is why they weren't familiar with the emergency equipment, and why the 'man overboard' transponder wasn't activated correctly. There's no guarantee that that person would've survived if everything had been done as perfectly as it could be in the situation, but the chances would've gone up enormously. They were acting like a group of people hanging out on a boat together, _not_ a supposedly experienced crew of sailors. They were not prepared for _any_ sort of emergency; I feel pretty confident saying that if any other type of accident had occured, they likely would've responded in the same way. They didn't act appropriately in the situation because they hadn't _practiced emergency procedures_ and panicked as a group; when you consistently practice how to respond under emergency, that response becomes auto-pilot and overrides panic. That was not happening.
This was all caused by overconfidence, which I have experienced myself, and can be deadly! There’s an idea in Zen philosophy called the beginners mind, which is to pretend you’re a beginner even if you have all the experience of a master. I guess they weren’t into Zen philosophy.
See, this is why I always keep my Personal Locator Beacon in my jacket or harness. It doesn't do you any good in a locker on the boat. Even better if you get an AIS combo unit that signals nearby boats as well as satellites.
As always, a really insightful breakdown of the failings leading to disaster. Absolutely love your videos, the attention to detail, production and effort you take to explain everything in an understandable way.
Steve forno was a longtime friend of mine, what upsets me more, is they should have thrown steves becon and the dinghy over to give him a chance to be found...
Right? A lot of EPIRBs float and activate when they get wet. They couldn't throw one overboard? Throw a life jacket and a ring overboard for him to try to swim to?
Sounds like the throwable flotation device was attached to the boat? Bad idea. You need to be able to leave it behind in case you’re unable to bring the boat back round to the MOB, who can then possibly swim to it and wait for rescue.
@@zizulry An EPIRB for one man could have jeopardized the rest of the crew. On the other hand, even if it had drifted differently in the wind, it would have facilitated the search. Considering that the ship itself was not in imminent danger, it would be something to think about.
Once again, the production quality is top notch. Well done! It seems like this might be a case of the old proverb, "Familiarity breeds contempt". Almost like they had so much confidence in their combined experience and knowledge, that they just didn't take the basic steps.
I just finished a five day sailing class-and I am learning more about sailing safety from watching your videos than I did in the classes. Your clear explanations of sailing terminology when describing these sailing disasters is extremely helpful.
A good example of how diffrent even the most experienced sailors can handle a sudden emergency if they are in vacation mode instead of on duty mode. ive seen firefighters lighting a coal grill whilst having the lighting fluid still on the grill and the grass was dry as last years hay. luckily the only thing burnt to crisp was the grill and the beer used to dooze the grass and the grill which was completly engulfed in flames. this is an issue we all face and are guilty of in regular life. luckily for us it usually never lead to any danger. sadly these people had run out of that luck.
1) If the preventer line doesn't have a good angle it isn't going to work 2) I don't ever let my boom out more than 30 degrees to keep the sail off the spreaders. This means less swing in case of failure. 3) I don't get all fancy, because I don't let the boom out that far, I tie the preventer to the toerail from the mainsheet blocks which is just 40% down the boom from the mast. That gives me a good angle. 4) I pull the mainsheet tight so the boom can't move. That is the cause of most failures, the slack in the mainsheet vs the preventer line. 5) it sounds like they had too much sail up for the conditions that elevated the issues to drastic levels. Too much sail area and pushing the boat too hard is the number 1 cause of issues at sea. In 30+ knots of wind and with furling main, they should have had very little sail out. 6) Very odd that the builder of the boat didn't know he had to disconnect the AP from the rudder to solve the problem with steering. Don't know when this happened but the AP I just installed has a quick release made just for this reason. 7) If the preventer fails, then the very first thing you must do is pull in the mainsheet all the way. This is sailing 101. Just goes to show that it doesn't matter how experienced you are, but if you aren't smart and can't function in a crises, that experience is worthless. For those that don't know, by pulling in the mainsheet, that would reduce the wing of the boom from one side to the other from 160 degrees to 20 degrees. It would also take the power out of the sail by keeping it mostly pointed aft towards the wind. Next step would be the center the traveler. 8) never ever go beyond the dock if there isn't a clear captain and that captain be competent. Everything goes down hill if there isn't a competent captain giving orders and the crew following those orders. Sorry but very few women are able to be a good captain on a sailboat when SHTF. 9) never ever waist time calling for help when you haven't stopped the madness on the boat. Help is usually hours away when seconds count. If she was a real captain she would be barking orders: pull in the mainsheet, center the traveler, disconnect the AP, take the helm. drop the main sail. She had lots of crew.
@@FranklinGray in the incident report l believe l read they could steer, a little stiffer with the damaged steering wheel (whatever its called) but it worked
@@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing How could they get to the steering wheel with the preventer and its detached pulley flailing about every few seconds smashing up the steering wheel. They couldn't get the sail to furl because the control panel got smashed up. Their only real chance was to get at the steering from inside if that was even possible. The forces involved with that boom and sheets are unimaginable. Even a dinghy sail can be too much for a person if it gets loose. The whipping and cracking of lines is them passing the sound barrier at 700 miles per hour. Ever been whipped by a fluffy towel? Well then try to imagine dynema with a stainless steel block embedded half way along it (yes the knot that prevented it flying off into the sea). The redesign of the main traveler put it between them and the controls and no way under it. Even being behind it was in the kill zone anyway. I think I would have gone for cutting the main halyard in an attempt to drop the boom into the water or onto the deck to stop the whipping but its easy make plans from here and now.
@@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing The accident investigators found the manual steering from the helm to be working essentially normally and easily (with a little bit of difficulty because of the damaged wheel), so it sounds like the significant problems the crew had with steering at the wheel were because the autopilot was left engaged - they were fighting against its non-bypassed hydraulics. None of the crew could provide positive testimony that the autopilot had definitely been turned off or bypassed.
@markhamstra1083 it appears they were all working against each other, the captain with "30 years sailing" couldn't even activate the epirb, instructions were 1. arm it 2. turn it on all responsibility lands on the captain
As a Kiwi, I appreciated this video. The lesson in getting familiar with ones equipment is applicable to all aspects of life. Very sad & potentially avoidable accident. Thanks Mate
Good episode and very well explained. 🎉 Loving the sailboat graphics and other video inserts to aid with explaining to non-sailers. Keep up the great work mate!
My father was a sailor in the US Navy. I remember him teaching me to tie different knots, explaining their purpose...a knot is very important, as this story illustrates. 🌹⚓
@@johnnunn8688if the line is not strong enough with a knot in it it's not strong enough for the job, period. Or in this case the geometry was so that it simply could not work. If the line had held, something else would have given. Or the line could even have stretched enough for the boom to swing over with the preventer still attached.
I'm not a sailor, but I wonder if all this automation in our lives actually makes things better and/or safer. I lean towards Luddite style in all my critical gear - at least to have some redundancy.
Scottc You are exactly correct we have been sailing the seas for millenia but have only recently begun to view it as less hazardous. Analogy is a tesla occupant switching on a autopilot and climbing in back to sleep.
An old salt I met long ago had zero furling sails or electric winches on his ketch. That had a trade off, but he wanted to be in control of the gear rather than the other way around.
What a nightmare!? Terrifying! In addition to the poorly rigged preventer there was no boom brake. Even a softly tensioned Boom brake would have slowed the swing of the boom and probably prevented the traveller failing. On a vessel this size with such heavy rig and spars I would not leave the dock in a zepher breeze without a brake rigged. MOB wasn't tethered nor did he seem to have a presonal EPIRB on his Life vest or he didn't know how to activate it. It seems he was conscious in the water for some time. Did they turn off the auto pilot after the rudder hard over? This would have killed the AP hydrolic pump and maybe relieved the lock in the rudder drive cylinder. Likewise pull the AP circuit breaker. Know your systems! To restrain the traveller wrecking ball, if possible pull in the mainsheet. This will bring the block that was smashing everything, up to the boom (maybe if German MS rig). Mainsheet would have little load on it. The rest is covered in the video and well described and illustrated. Well done PS. I have not read the full report. Clearly, a totally inadequately prepared crew for a vessel of this size and a voyage across an ocean and this distance. I've been in those waters, sailed from Bay of Islands NZ to Melbourne Australia via Bass Strait in Winter. 60 plus knots, 5-6mt breaking seas, 4 crew, 2000 nm, 16 days. It was rough but we were conservative and careful. Constant monitoring of every detail of every system, every day. We didn't break anything. Always clipped in when outside, full harness and PEPIRB. No excuses. My thoughts to the family and friends of the lost crew.
While the knot got the blame, the real problem began when the arch was removed, bringing the main sheet down to the deck level. To add to the problem, the addition of the furling boom added a tremendous about of mass, and leverage arm/momentum to the boom assembly. It is not mentioned if any of the rigging was upgraded to deal with that but if the block that the knot ripped out is an indication, probably not. The other issue and the first domino was a really deep lack of familiarity with the boat's systems and basic daily checks that needed to be done to insure operability on the part of EVERYONE on board. Hydraulic level of the rudder system should have been a basic daily check, yet it appears even the boat architect on board never thought to check it, but being architect of a boat does not insure in depth familiarity with the systems. This makes one wonder if they ever checked any of the other critical fluids like engine oil and the accumulators/reservoir for the boom furling system. Money doesn't buy competence, and that was in fatally short supply.
This story is a cautionary tale. It illustrates very clearly why safety drills & the master & crew familiarizing themselves with all safety equipment is vital & must be done-before leaving. What good was all that state of the art equipment if nobody knew how to use it? Also, a thorough inspection might’ve revealed the hydraulic leak. It makes me very sad to think those two deaths could have been prevented.
A fantastic, well explained and expertly illustrated story. Thank you very much. That woman, the skipper, was negligent in her duties. It is the skipper's duty to practice safety procedures, to understand how to properly rig the boat, etc. and two men died under her watch. A man went overboard and he wasn't rescued. She should have done jail time for this incident.
@@frankwilliams4445 On paper, yes. But that was bureaucratic paperwork. This entire thing was an excuse for government overreach into areas than will change nothing. --The MOB was not rescued for lack of steering ability.
From my comfortable chair here on Lombok island, and not in a panic, I would have dumped the pressure off the jib by , dropping it, hopefully not needing to be behind the mast to do so. With all pressure off the fore deck the wind on the main sail would weather vane the boat into irons making it easier to drop the mainsail and get control of the boat
@mikaliz2167 Dropping and/or depowering both sails was my thought exactly! You cannot have a heavy in-furling boom keep swinging around, killing crew and destroying the helm until the rig is down and the boat is sunk!!! Dropping or depowering the sails could have been done from the cockpit in seconds. With a stuck rudder broaching could have been an issue, but had they gotten rid of the sails, both crew would have been alive today and the boat perhaps would have reached safety with less damage.
@@Fishbonesailing And had they turned off the malfunctioning autopilot (which they apparently did not, according to the Maritime New Zealand report), their “stuck” rudder problem would have been resolved and they could have steered using the wheel (which would still have had safety issues because of the designed position of the main sheet and traveler.)
@@Fishbonesailing Loss of vang, flogging main sheet happened within seconds. Sail handling requires rudder control, with which the engine was available.
Wow! Amazing video. An uncontrolled gibe is a terrifying situation in any boat, I can’t imagine it in something this big and heavy. All that technology on board doesn’t eliminate danger. I grew up sailing in the days before GPS and cell phones, which are essential these days-and I’m grateful for them. But being totally analog also meant we were always alert to what could go wrong. I bet this crew isn’t the only one who has left dock without proper safety preparations because sailing seems easier these days. But they had the bad luck to pay the price. I was riveted by this video! Good job!
While I’m a merchant mariner I don’t know much about sail boats. What happened to the hydraulic fluid? I’m assuming they blew a hose and lost all the fluid in a few seconds but I’m very confused as to why they didn’t simply replace the hose and refill the hydraulic tank? Did both steering pumps fail? Did they lose all gensets? Nothing makes sense to me as to how short of physical damage to the rudder itself could be an unfixable problem. Did this boat not have an emergency steering system? Every single screw vessel I’ve ever sailed on has something to steer it in an emergency such as a steam or diesel pony engine, or even a emergency tiller that can be put onto the rudder post and rigged with two block and tackles and manually operated by a few men. You said there was pressure in the steering cylinders, why weren’t the bypass valves opened? Where talking about some massive rudders on offshore tugs and ships here, such a setup for a little sailboat wouldn’t need to be anywhere near as large or heavy.
It's good to see a New Zealand story on your channel. I was working for a company involved in the refit of Platino at the time so I remember it well. Perhaps you could cover the Enchanter fishing boat Sinking from NZ?
It only takes one small mistake to sometimes set off a catastrophic chain of events. Even the most experienced in any endeavour that you can think of make mistakes.
Great review. One hopes other sailors will learn and implement from this incident. The main lesson.., Investing money in large quantities does not suffice to make a boat safe. Owner, skipper and crew well trained and practiced are essential. It takes time to build a team and it has to be done gradually going scenario by scenario. “Team” can be a single handed or multi crew team. You go to sea, the “crew” must be trained on the specific boat. Team buildup plan including manoeuvres , best practices, emergency equipment , prudent sail plans fitting the weather for “this” boat, emergency steering drills, watch checkup list including hydraulic levels, dry bildge checkup etc. it’s a long list , which by the way , must be trained and refreshed periodically. Most important is probably “expect the unexpected and act accordingly”
Key points; They failed to do proper engine and ancillary component inspections which caused the steering failure, they rigged the preventer incorrectly which caused it to fail, they didn't know how to operate eperbs or man overboard recorders so the overboard coordinates were never recorded, they failed to throw the man overboard any rescue equipment when passing him several times, and amazingly they went to sleep instead of conducting damage control by completely cutting free the mast, repairing the steering, and motoring back to look for the lost crewman. Overconfidence to the point of arrogance and a total loss of control when tested. That's called criminal negligence where I come from.
The boat just had an extensive refit with the builder on board whose yard btw was extremely experienced, highly regarded and the work was no expenses spared level. The issue was not picking up on the low oil level in the steering system in time. But even that wasnt a problem on its own it was the accumulated errors beginning with the design changes. The remaining crew were traumatised by a dead body on the cockpit with the skull smashed in with brains and blood everywhere, the sea state was up, it was blowing 30 to 40 and they could not steer the boat and eventually they became exhausted. When Steve went over, that was it- he was dead in that sea state even if they could have got gear to him which they couldnt due to the boom thrashing about, he had no plb or lifejacket etc.. This was a thousand miles North in the middle of nowhere, help is a long way off. I dont know if youve ever been to sea on a yacht but a MOB recovery in anything but the most settled conditions is an incredibly difficult job even with a boat that can manoeuver and with a competent crew who have eyes on the MOB. The could not steer the boat because the helm was smashed. 30-40 in the harbour is one thing but at sea it's quite another.
Some of your criticisms are fair. As for resting there comes a point where that is needed. If you get sufficiently overtired you can become irrational, unable to perperly comprehend what you are seeing. Indeed in an emergency situation sometimes you have to stop, take some deep breaths try and calm down and think. They had sufficient crew that with the mast in the water streaming to windward some crew could be stood down for a time, however there needed to be someone on watch in case that mast became a battering ram. This is the moment for some experienced person to step up and start making orders. Perhaps is someoune had gone down below and filled up the steering unit with fluid the vessel could have been brought under control in a reach. There is a saying in the flying community, aviate, navigate, communicate. Rather than call mayday, get the steering back and get the boat under control. Nevertheless, this crew has my sympathy, it is easy to underperform under stress, which reinforces the need for drills and planning.
well glad you arent a prosecutor. The vessel was checked for safety and exceeded the standards. They followed ALL LAWS. They did not cause the two deaths. Now do I think these people are idiots and shouldnt own a multi-million dollar yacht, hell yes. But are they criminals? No, they arent.
the audio mix for waterline needs some love - I always feel like I'm getting screamed at starting a video, with the levels being _way_ louder than pretty much anything else on youtube
I see this all the time in other aspects outside of maritime. Companies or people will buy safety equipment and trauma kits etc, but never practice using them.
It all goes back to the power steering failure, the leak which should have been spotted during maintenance. This is not a small unit, it must have lost litres of fluid..then all hell broke lose, and in panic mode, mistakes are easily made. RIP lost sailors.
Photo at 40 seconds is not Sydney , it is in the Brin Wilson shed at Gulf Harbour Marina, New Zealand. In fact I took that photo at 1019 on the 9th February, 2015. That is my boat under wraps on the left. Another of my photos at 04:20.
A US $2.5 million refit and there is no waring light/beeper to indicate low hydraulic oil level! The fact there waas NO standby steering system in the event of a hydraulic failure implies negligence on behalf of the designers
I've got to say, in this day and age I'm surprised that a low fluid level warning light/alarm was not installed. My 1976 VW Kombi had one! I'm not joking. This is old, cheap tech. I'm also wondering how such a critical system isn't duel circuit and/or why a mechanical linkage with an auxiliary tiller isn't installed. Some might say that hindsight is 20/20 but anyone who has had experience operating appliances that incorporate hydraulics will tell you that leaks and failures can and will happen.
There was a standby steering system - or, rather, the mechanical steering from the helm was independent of the hydraulic autopilot system. The two steering systems could not, however, be used at the same time. To steer manually via the wheel (or an emergency tiller), the autopilot needs to be turned off so that its hydraulics can go into bypass mode, allowing the manual helm steering to work without fighting against the hydraulic ram and the check valves in the hydraulic lines. This is a very common setup in yacht autopilot systems. If the autopilot is left on, it will at a minimum be trying to hold a fixed rudder position, which will be very difficult to override with the wheel. From the Maritime New Zealand report, it sounds like the hydraulic fluid leak allowed enough air into the system so that the autopilot could not maintain course, but the crew never switched the autopilot off (even though its electronics remained functional and controllable from multiple stations even after the autopilot controls at the helm were smashed), so the crew were trying to fight against the non-bypassed hydraulic steering and could not effectively steer with the redundant manual steering system. After the accident investigators refilled the reserve header tank with sufficient hydraulic fluid, both of the yacht’s steering systems were operational, even if not optimally due to damage, air remaining in the hydraulic system, etc.
This has many similarities to the "Escape" tragedy, also a ~ 60 foot yacht with many of the same fancy features, including in-boom furling. Sailboats generally have many single points of failure, so that every critical item must be very reliable and properly maintained. These big "luxury" boats are very complex, and one failure can quickly lead to a catastrophic cascade of failures. It is worth noting that many much smaller ( ~ 10 m) boats have successfully circumnavigated with a crew of one or two, while ostensibly safe big sailboats have foundered (the "Bayesian" being the most glaring example, even at anchor).Of course, many smaller boats have also met sad ends, but they have far fewer things that can fail and the forces involved are much smaller, more comparable to human physical strength. Large sloops in particular need particular care since the forces and moments can become so large in bad weather. I cringe now at how much faith I put into my own 9 metre boat in tough conditions...
A lot of ‘expert comments and criticisms here’. An excellent description and account. There were very experienced crew on board. I knew one of them. This was avoidable but it was a very sudden and extremely violent consequence. Please be careful and measured when criticising from the comfort of your living room.
And gee whiz, check the oil in your "power steering reservoir"*. Pack of amateurs , I don't care how long they had been "yachting" , doesn't make them sailors. You can't ignore the mechanical chit and expect it to take care of itself and work right just because it is in shiny $3-4 million toy . Because it was not a weak knot or a wrong line rig that caused this disaster, rather it was the steering/rudder unit ran out of oil and failed. *- AIUI, an inspection had been done before this voyage by the NZCG, and nobody spotted this hydraulic leak or checked the oil levels then or before this voyage.?
In the Gulf of Mexico someone tied a bad knot on the Genoa furling line of the 38 foot Spray replica "Nina". In a squall the Genoa unfurled itself knocking us flat, the bowsprit snapped off, the mast slammed around until a backstay snapped whipping a three-kilo deadeye around on the end. A nightmare on deck. And we were leaking badly below somehow. While I tried to secure the mast the other two below called a mayday and the USCG came and took us off - no help offered and no choice permitted. I might have been able to save Nina if it hadn't been this crazy cascade of events, and had I been thinking clearer - I hadn't slept in days. I might have done better... in hindsight. Sigh. A) Tie knots properly, don't trust a greenhorn to do it unless you check! One single bad knot can sink and kill. B) Don't call mayday, they will force you off. Pan Pan or securité! C) If you call, tell them where you are and leave the radio, they will ask questions endlessly right down to your shoe size and tie up the crew when they should be helping. It's ridiculous! They never shut up. D)The crew must be calmed, their claimed injuries checked, and encouraged to believe they can prevail. E) You step up into a life raft not down. I actually said those words at the time, fat lot of good it did. This horrible night will stay with me forever.
Damn. What an experience. Also, I didn’t realize Pan Pan was a call on boats, not just airplanes! Good to know. And even though it’s painful the USCG forced you off, I’m glad it wasn’t even worse given the situation. Non-sailors don’t realize how much force there is in the wind and the crazy things that can go wrong.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous posts I've seen on YT. You "might have been able to save" your boat...yeah you might have been at the bottom of the Gulf as well. USCG is there to save your a**, not some 38 foot pos dinghy.
@@zizulryI didn't say the USCG didn't have a right to do what they did, nor that I resent them though I'm certainly not impressed by their spirit. They do actually drop pumps and so on all the time. I was extremely surprised they left Nina afloat as a hazard to navigation, and now probably still leaking diesel to this day. They seem to have some mandate to "prevent loss of life and property" just as I do in the fire department - we don't just pull people out, we extinguish the fire and protect nearby structures. I was misinformed by one of the crew who claimed to know these things - "they'll help out, they for sure won't leave her adrift". Conditions weren't bad at all, the squall was long gone. Perhaps my biggest mistake was allowing the other two to get on the radio while I was on deck - believe me there wasn't much time to debate things if I was to stop the mast from falling. I did hear them calling mayday and at the time I wasn't aware that means an automatic removal from the vessel even if conditions had moderated and things were more hopeful by the time they arrived. We actually formed a plan to try to get back to Nina after the USCG had dropped us ashore (we'd left a beacon) but we couldn't get a boat and the beacon quit sending about 12 hours later. She wasn't my boat but you are right, she wasn't a good boat! Once a mayday is called it's over apparently, wouldn't want the USCG to miss a tea break.
A. Your fault - you know that green is green for a reason. B. *uck off, if you do not have control of the situation, what ifs and what could have been don't matter at all. C. They are trying to determine if you are actually sinking or not, like what if two distress calls at the same time? And you not really sinking, but the other one is actually going down and you just leave the radio? Where do they send help first????? Once again, *uck off. D. Like seriously? It's an emergency, encouraged to believe they can prevail? No they need be told what the *uck to do next, abandon, or save ship. E. With people like you onboard, you don't get to step into a life raft. No *ucking wonder, you a jackass sailor.
A comedy of deadly decisions and errors led by a skipper that had some course and book knowledge but no real world knowledge of actually being in command.
The initial steering failure could have easily been avoided by better design. To start with: Why wasn't an alarm fitted to the system? My 1976 Kombi had one! And why was their no redundancy designed in such as a second hydraulic circuit or mechanical linkage?
Enjoyed the video. Just one small point - Cape Reinga is not the most northerly part of New Zealand. North Cape is the northern point of the North Island, but NZ extends further to the north due to other offshore islands.
People love to bash full keel or cut away long keel boats with modest sail plans, like yaws and ketches. The forces at play are much less, much more proven. No fancy complicated steering system needed. Too many modern boats don’t take safety first, fast and efficient should be a distant second. Over 2 million for a boat less sea worthy than a 10k boat.
I already knew it wasn't just the knot. It's like sircraft crash investigating. It's rarely just "one thing". Lots of opportunities to prevent this were passed up. Too bad...
What a complete breakdown of circumstances. I have a report I did for the Navy, the subject line entitled, My Kingdom for a Sailtie. Like this tragedy, there were numerous circumstances that lead to the death of a sailor. Overconfidence of the more experienced sailors, not getting a good weather report, lack of a safety brief, having the wrong sails on board, poor seamanship, limited training, and sadly alcohol was involved. RIP Dan Cianci.
I always activate the tracking function of the chart plotter at the start of a voyage. Even without pressing the MOB buttons, the beginning of the erratic behavior would clearly show the MOB position.
In open seas with an unreliable quartering and high wind, surely you stow the main and run on foresails. Much safer. Why were they not wearing lifejackets? Why did they not drop the main from the mast or even scandalise it by using the topping lift. ANYTHING to stop that boom swinging. The first thing you do after man over board is throw a buoy out and station one person whose sole job is to watch the man overboard, Everything that could go wrong DID go wrong on this voyage. Appalling ineptitude. Kudos for a brilliant and succinct description of this terrible tragedy.
I can't believe two of them went below and went to sleep instead of going looking for their friend Steve. Friends like that I don't need! I don't care how tired they were, Steve's fighting for his life and they take a nap?
I had to think about this one for a while before I commented. The primary mechanical problem is that they lost steering. I have heard so many stories of sailboats/sailing yachts either losing their rudder entirely due to corrosion or just losing control of the steering like this. Once a boat has lost its steering, it’s at the mercy of the elements. So check the rudder/steering system regularly and before any major trip. Beyond that, I really think this boiled down to the skipper should have taken the lead before they left the docks. First priority would be a safety talk… PFDs at night or in rough weather. Someone is on the helm at all times. Then, at least have a discussion of the MOB drill. I can so easily see how this was skipped because the crew was so experienced, so I’m taking a lesson from this. For the most part, racing sailors are wired differently from cruising sailors. Cruisers would probably have had the safety discussion. I have been on an all racing crew, sailing at night on deck with no PFD in moderate conditions with storms in the area. I’ve also been racing on a boat where the owner did a lot of cruising. We all had Type I PFDs on at night with manually activated strobe lights on them. If the guy who went overboard had a PFD with one of those fancy GPS locators (or even just a strobe), he would be alive today. Finally, that damned preventer. I have only sailed on boats under 50’, so I don’t know how common preventers are on bigger boats; but my experience is that preventers are a pain in the ass. When you’re ready for a jibe in a race, those are often forgotten, causing potential disaster. It’s better to have the crew aware (and watching their heads) of a potential crash jibe than have a false sense of confidence that the boom isn’t going to come screaming across the deck unexpectedly. That preventer caused a lot of damage after the steering went out. No preventer, no damage to the traveler, etc. FYI, the “jibe” they did before disaster happened, where they really tacked rather than jibed is called a “chicken jibe”. That was a fairly conservative move for such an experienced crew. Thank you to the creator of this video. This is one sailor who is taking some lessons from this one.
I'm a simple guy ...I see 'learning how ppl died in some nightmare scenario in the middle of a deep unforgiving ocean' I click while really appreciating been safely sat in my pants with a coffee all warm and dry .
Experienced sailors should already know that knots used to extend lines reduce strength, and that preventer lines should not be extended in this way. Also, for all their experience and safety equipment, they didn't use a friction device in addition to a preventer. Preventers can fail, and booms can start swinging wildly, that's why people invented friction devices that when used in addition to preventers, make downwind sailing almost 100% safe, because even if you're preventer is fouled/broken/failing, the friction device makes it so that the boom can't move so fast that it destroys people and equipment. These devices just get more and more important the bigger the sailboat is.
@@captainjimolchs If a line with load on it separates at a knot between the load and the trim point it can absolutely end up throwing a shock load to any friction point between the load and the knot. It would help if you shared a link to the report since there is no such link in the video description.
an absolutely wild design a lot of boats have is having a hydraukic autopilot held fast to the rudder with no way to seperate the two like on the farr x2
As someone who isn't very familiar with sailing, your explanations and animations were very helpful in illustrating what happened. Good stuff.
Thanks 👍🏻
Same
as someone who is familiar with sailing, you explanations are also good and well explained
As someone who is familiar with sailing, but learned it in Italian / Venetian, it's very helpful when he explains the English terms
As someone who is familiar with sailing, the photos were often misleading and rarely had anything to do with the actual boat, or anything like the same type of boat. And highlighting a knot to explain a breakdown of safety due to multiple causes with complex interactions just encourages people to seek simplistic solutions to every misadventure, which is a guarantee that almost nothing useful will be learned.
I encourage people to find and download Maritime New Zealand's Final Report of 13 June 2016, entitled "Platino Accident", along with the many other highly informative reports from this (and from the UK's MAIB, and US's NTSB, also US Sailing) also the report by Sheldon Stuchell compiled by George Day on a similar incident aboard "Escape" in May 2022, which you can find with a simple Google search from multiple websites. Also the report from Captain Thierry Simon (posting on Cruisers Forum as Captain Orion) on the loss of s/v Sanctuary . The same forum has an account posted by "El Pinguino" of the loss of sailing vessel "Brilliance". There is an almost unlimited amount of info on-line, and in libraries with a Sailing section. Most of the deepest insights are rather timeless, so there is no need to adhere only to contemporary accounts.
So heart breaking to see no expense spared for safety, except the time and training that makes all that expensive gear actually worthwhile :(
Offshore Captain 15 years. Can’t say anything better. Training and practice.
A reminder that safety equipment is only as good as the people using it. Nothing can replace experience and proper training.
normally i just troll people in the comments section, but your comment is actually spot on. props to you
So far there is no way to purchase skill.
You can buy training but that takes time and work to become skill.
@@seanmacmillan782 Training doesn't matter if people (students) don't consider it important. They will forget it immediately. In other words, this catastrophe was caused by lack of self preservation in these people. They could have been trained. But if they really didn't believe that something like this could happen to them, (they obviously didn't) then the training would have been some meaningless role playing to them. If they really believed they were in danger, the training would have been etched into their minds.
One of my favourite maritime channels. Up there amongst the best being Brick Amortar and Oceanliner Designs.
Thankyou for your awesome content.
Thanks, I appreciate that
Having a skipper in name only is a very bad idea. On a side note, in-boom furling systems mean the boom is much heavier than a more typical in-mast furling or slab reefing system. This system requires an especially robust preventer system. In addition this was a very large yacht so the loads on the boom would have been enormous.
I hate heavy booms. No good sailing experience, but several large boom sized hole. My parents may have been yachtmasters, but they consistently forgot to shout.
This is an old style boat probably built in 1700, with big wooden boom.
Maritime New Zealand published the Platino accident analysis and report which is on their website, and is required reading for how to rig a preventer properly. It would have been good to link to it in your description.
For those that are interested, you can also find an excellent discussion on, and the solution to, setting up a safe preventer system at Attainable Adventure Cruising.
The preventer would have failed anyway. The catastrophic loss of steering in strong wind is what doomed it. If the preventer was way stronger, other things most likely would have failed.
@mvd4436 Maybe. I have been on a boat that had a properly rigged preventer in similar conditions, and a strong following sea caused the boat to gybe under autopilot. It put an enormous load on the preventer, but the boat just rounded up and sat there essentially hove-to, backwinded, completely drama free. I have also seen what a swinging roller boom can do. It is terrifying. Point is that in strong downwind conditions, a preventer is a truly essential piece of safety gear and needs to be very very strong, as strong or stronger than the mainsheet. I've seen way to many people just use any spare piece of line clipped in with substandard hardware. Incidentally I find the title of this video misleading, althought the knot did fail, it wasnt the knot's fault. A bowline is a suitable knot for this purpose, but the line was rigged in an unsuitable geometry.
@@Toro_Da_CorsaI strongly disagree. An autopilot can always fail without warning, and the wind can suddenly shift to the same effect.
There has to be a plan B for that event, and that's the preventer (or a boom brake, which probably would have been better in this situation).
As a professional master mariner with 40 years experience and several hundred thousand blue water miles ( stopped counting) I would like to state that I hold experience well above qualifications. When I started experience was what counted. The fervour for qualifications has been advanced by insurance companies and can be achieved with minimal sea time. Unless there is regular time at sea these ‘qualifications and acquired skills ‘ fall out of habit. Practise ( helps) make perfect
This SO applies everywhere!!! Excellent comment. We can add MBAs to your list and some PhDs as well!!!
I have almost no sailing experience, but I know one thing for a fact, people lose those skills in a panic or stress situation. If you don’t train and refresh that training you’re simply lulling yourself or fooling yourself and then others end up paying the price.
Qualifications mean nothing. The skipper is a good example. Hopefully she’s a qualified cook.
@@mark95b77
Qualifications aren’t skills, obviously.
To have all that gear, classes (for certifications), and ‘experience’, these sailors made every rookie mistake in their preparation and emergency event. --edited punctuation
It’s a story as old as time. Tons of money to buy all of the fanciest electronics and safety gear, but never once tested them or learned how to use them.
I realize stress makes people think differently, but if you pressed the “man overboard” button and it didn’t work then wouldn’t the obvious next step be to try holding the button down?
@@MADmosche Obvious for you, obvious for me, not so obvious for an older lady who certainly grew up in an analog era.
@@MW-te5fv Only serves to highlight the importance of training and prep. Tragic event.
Puts on seat belt, "I'm invincible" , puts peddle to the metal
@@MADmoschenot to most women
Sorry, but this was not the knot that killed these two sailors:
The holes in the swiss cheese started to line up before they ever left the dock: --
* four seasoned sailors - each one assuming that another would know how to .. rig a preventer .. switch on an epirb ..etc.
* no briefing before the trip - PBED - Prepare, Brief, Execute, Debrief.
if one of them had been a new sailor, perhaps the Skipper would have covered the safety features on the boat.
* no check on liquids - engine oil, fuel, hydraulic oil
* no man overboard drill - it is done EVERY time with a dummy person and a real (see wet) recovery whenever a Clipper Racer (Clipper Round the World) leaves on their next leg.
* Not even discussion of the MOB possibilty -- were they wearing their life jackets - in the picture those life preservers had no crotch strap.
* no emergency tiller - was there even one on board? How to rig it in the event of failure?
* no understanding of how to rig a preventer - that angle from the boom did NOTHING except to overload the line and fittings.
Sailing downwind is DANGEROUS.
This is all correct, also each sailor should have been familiarized with each system and control on the boat, through a drill.
Leslie she was under rigged as this major refit should have ensured reinforced fiberglass and extra-long back in place so the traveler and stay with not rip out.
I don't have any experience on this subject, but your comment helps me put this situation in a better perspective . Thanks!
Instructions unclear, p'd the bed.
All of the points you make seem valid to me, but I find it peculiar that on a yacht as expensive and modern as Platino a system as crucial as steering can fail catastrophically without any warning and go into a condition which the crew can do nothing about. If the hydraulic power steering on a car runs out of fluid, steering becomes much more difficult, but the front wheels do not snap to the full-lock right or left position and stay there.
Not to mention sounds like they had no storm sailing tactics … 35-45 knots on a cruiser- 3rd reef and storm jib. Also, no way to quick drop the main or even an attempt … “experience does not mean competency”
Time for another well produced video about a real life event. Underrated channel
👌🏻😀 thanks
1000%
Steve's daughter, Grace, told me that this was Steve's 16th voyage to Fiji on a yacht. She had asked him not to go. Being the kind community man that he was, he went anyway, wanting to help and give a hand to locals. It certainly appears that this feeling was not reciprocated, when the remaining people on deck saw him at least twice as they passed him, as he floated there in the swells with his hands raised. I cry to this day. How could they have not, at least, thrown a life support item overboard and toward him? A truly good man was lost at sea. Ironically, at his memorial, we were told of how his grandfather (or perhaps great?) had also been lost at sea. I cannot imagine a more hopeless and lonely way to die. Especially in a place that you have loved and embraced. RIP Steve There are many who miss you, especially in Devonport ❤
@sesescence RIP Steve, hopefully he went quick and calmly
we're not people on the internet, we're people. thank you for humanizing the story, painful though it is. be well
You obviously didn't pay attention, they were fighting for their lives on an out of control sailboat. Just, wow. You probably think mountain climbers who don't help stranded climbers above 8000 meters are selfish too. One must save themself before saving anyone else. He shouldn't have gone on the trip, he was a big boy, nobody held a gun to his head.
You make it sound as if his daughter or friends had an inordinate amount of control over him. If he was doing what he loved, why point fingers?
I really love how thorough you are with information and details about everything you cover and creating a real sense of mystery about what, exactly, has gone wrong. I’ve learned a great deal from your videos and I appreciate that you are in no way salacious in your retellings of these often tragic mishaps.
Your videos are genuinely educational, thoughtful, and gripping without sounding judgmental: Mishaps, accidents, and even mistakes are rarely made by anyone with genuine malice or genuine stupidity and I feel that your accounts implicitly acknowledge this. I really commend you for your thoroughness and sensitivity and I thank you for these stories.
That’s very kind of you. That’s the aim. It’s easy to judge from an armchair but these accidents happen without perfect knowledge in the moment.
@@waterlinestories - Your account of the Deepwater Horizon incident allowed me to really synthesize an event that before I only knew the parts of and I believe that is where your work truly shines. In this video, the granular detail about how this boat was rigged, the relationships between the people aboard, and the diffusion of authority is so important. As you say, everyone online has an opinion about “what (the proverbial) they should have done is…” and I think it’s human nature to look for a villain. But so often the “villain” is just normalized bad practices that haven’t been tested to failure, as it were, or someone being in a rush, unsure what’s happening, or unsure what to do.
It’s hard for some to conceive of a world where no one really did anything wrong and yet an oil rig sank.
@b.w.22 normalised deviance. I think that’s the term they use in aviation
“Didn’t know how the crew had set it up”. She may have had all the qualifications and courses because she was good at “taking tests”.
"all the gear, no idea"
What's your point?
@@biturboism His point is... she was good im memorising theory, but lacked the practical skills using the theory
@@markbaa Then the test was invalid.
It’s not having a standard regarding how things are going to be done.
The men learnt from someone else, who trained years before.
Nothing stays the same (maybe watch rotation).
She was the cook, fine.
But I know skippers that cook, she wasn’t even involved in basic rope setup.
Depressing how easily this could have been avoided, simply by everyone just knowing their roles and doing even a single practice run of the safety procedures.
That would absolutely not have prevented the preventer from snapping.
There is no safety drill I know of that could have helped recover from that.
@@Clayne151 Sure, but the point is that everyone would have actually had a solid plan if what to do in this sort of situation. This tragedy wasn't caused by the breakage; it was absolutely caused by them having no idea of how to handle any sort of emergency situation. Everything went wrong because they hadn't practiced their procedures, hadn't formed a solid crew structure, and hadn't worked out issues in the system preemptively because no practice runs were done.
@@RoundSeal I don't think there even is a safe way to regain control of a swinging boom with the main sheet ripped out of the traveller on a yacht of this size.
Basically you cannot go on deck without risk of being clubbed to death or thrown overboard. And could easily have happened to even more crew members.
@@Clayne151 I know, but a chara, I don't think I can be any more clear that people who are trained to respond appropriately in emergency situations are not necessarily training for _specific_ situations. In this case, it was _not_ the boom breaking free that was the problem, it was:
1) There was no clear line of information & command among the people on board. This means that people are effectively running around like headless chickens, not knowing what needs doing or has been done. When there is a clear line of command, people fully know their roles and filter information up through the ranks to the skipper, who can then pass on that information to authorities like the Coast Guard. This wasn't happening.
2) They had not done any practice runs with emergency procedures. This is why they weren't familiar with the emergency equipment, and why the 'man overboard' transponder wasn't activated correctly. There's no guarantee that that person would've survived if everything had been done as perfectly as it could be in the situation, but the chances would've gone up enormously.
They were acting like a group of people hanging out on a boat together, _not_ a supposedly experienced crew of sailors. They were not prepared for _any_ sort of emergency; I feel pretty confident saying that if any other type of accident had occured, they likely would've responded in the same way. They didn't act appropriately in the situation because they hadn't _practiced emergency procedures_ and panicked as a group; when you consistently practice how to respond under emergency, that response becomes auto-pilot and overrides panic. That was not happening.
Love the amount of detail, definitely the best channel for everything ships and more.
Thanks 👍🏻
This was all caused by overconfidence, which I have experienced myself, and can be deadly! There’s an idea in Zen philosophy called the beginners mind, which is to pretend you’re a beginner even if you have all the experience of a master. I guess they weren’t into Zen philosophy.
Good story, Paul. This story just reconfirms why I'll stay on land 😅😂
🤣 thanks Beverly
See, this is why I always keep my Personal Locator Beacon in my jacket or harness. It doesn't do you any good in a locker on the boat. Even better if you get an AIS combo unit that signals nearby boats as well as satellites.
Former USCG Search and Rescue "operator" and been sailing for over 20 years. Breaks my heart how easily preventable all this was.
As always, a really insightful breakdown of the failings leading to disaster. Absolutely love your videos, the attention to detail, production and effort you take to explain everything in an understandable way.
👌🏻 thanks
Steve forno was a longtime friend of mine, what upsets me more, is they should have thrown steves becon and the dinghy over to give him a chance to be found...
Right? A lot of EPIRBs float and activate when they get wet. They couldn't throw one overboard? Throw a life jacket and a ring overboard for him to try to swim to?
Sounds like the throwable flotation device was attached to the boat? Bad idea. You need to be able to leave it behind in case you’re unable to bring the boat back round to the MOB, who can then possibly swim to it and wait for rescue.
@@zizulry An EPIRB for one man could have jeopardized the rest of the crew. On the other hand, even if it had drifted differently in the wind, it would have facilitated the search. Considering that the ship itself was not in imminent danger, it would be something to think about.
they had 2 EPIRB and the life jackets had gps locators @@captainjimolchs
Once again, the production quality is top notch. Well done!
It seems like this might be a case of the old proverb, "Familiarity breeds contempt". Almost like they had so much confidence in their combined experience and knowledge, that they just didn't take the basic steps.
👍🏻
I just finished a five day sailing class-and I am learning more about sailing safety from watching your videos than I did in the classes. Your clear explanations of sailing terminology when describing these sailing disasters is extremely helpful.
Thanks that’s really kind of you to say. Happy sailing
You fail to plan, you plan to fail. 😔
Or another way to say it "Prior planning prevents piss poor performance".
@@Scooternjng stealing this (work at startup with chaotic management)
@@peterdieleman303 go right ahead. Its a common enough phrase in the US military
I try to fail at failing
Thanks again for your wonderful uploads Sir.
👍🏻
A good example of how diffrent even the most experienced sailors can handle a sudden emergency if they are in vacation mode instead of on duty mode.
ive seen firefighters lighting a coal grill whilst having the lighting fluid still on the grill and the grass was dry as last years hay.
luckily the only thing burnt to crisp was the grill and the beer used to dooze the grass and the grill which was completly engulfed in flames.
this is an issue we all face and are guilty of in regular life.
luckily for us it usually never lead to any danger.
sadly these people had run out of that luck.
1) If the preventer line doesn't have a good angle it isn't going to work
2) I don't ever let my boom out more than 30 degrees to keep the sail off the spreaders. This means less swing in case of failure.
3) I don't get all fancy, because I don't let the boom out that far, I tie the preventer to the toerail from the mainsheet blocks which is just 40% down the boom from the mast. That gives me a good angle.
4) I pull the mainsheet tight so the boom can't move. That is the cause of most failures, the slack in the mainsheet vs the preventer line.
5) it sounds like they had too much sail up for the conditions that elevated the issues to drastic levels. Too much sail area and pushing the boat too hard is the number 1 cause of issues at sea. In 30+ knots of wind and with furling main, they should have had very little sail out.
6) Very odd that the builder of the boat didn't know he had to disconnect the AP from the rudder to solve the problem with steering. Don't know when this happened but the AP I just installed has a quick release made just for this reason.
7) If the preventer fails, then the very first thing you must do is pull in the mainsheet all the way. This is sailing 101. Just goes to show that it doesn't matter how experienced you are, but if you aren't smart and can't function in a crises, that experience is worthless. For those that don't know, by pulling in the mainsheet, that would reduce the wing of the boom from one side to the other from 160 degrees to 20 degrees. It would also take the power out of the sail by keeping it mostly pointed aft towards the wind. Next step would be the center the traveler.
8) never ever go beyond the dock if there isn't a clear captain and that captain be competent. Everything goes down hill if there isn't a competent captain giving orders and the crew following those orders. Sorry but very few women are able to be a good captain on a sailboat when SHTF.
9) never ever waist time calling for help when you haven't stopped the madness on the boat. Help is usually hours away when seconds count. If she was a real captain she would be barking orders: pull in the mainsheet, center the traveler, disconnect the AP, take the helm. drop the main sail. She had lots of crew.
@@FranklinGray in the incident report l believe l read they could steer, a little stiffer with the damaged steering wheel (whatever its called) but it worked
@@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing How could they get to the steering wheel with the preventer and its detached pulley flailing about every few seconds smashing up the steering wheel. They couldn't get the sail to furl because the control panel got smashed up. Their only real chance was to get at the steering from inside if that was even possible. The forces involved with that boom and sheets are unimaginable. Even a dinghy sail can be too much for a person if it gets loose. The whipping and cracking of lines is them passing the sound barrier at 700 miles per hour. Ever been whipped by a fluffy towel? Well then try to imagine dynema with a stainless steel block embedded half way along it (yes the knot that prevented it flying off into the sea).
The redesign of the main traveler put it between them and the controls and no way under it. Even being behind it was in the kill zone anyway.
I think I would have gone for cutting the main halyard in an attempt to drop the boom into the water or onto the deck to stop the whipping but its easy make plans from here and now.
@justinfufun5483 the following day everything was cleared and they had steering, they couldve engaged the diesel motor and returned home
@@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing The accident investigators found the manual steering from the helm to be working essentially normally and easily (with a little bit of difficulty because of the damaged wheel), so it sounds like the significant problems the crew had with steering at the wheel were because the autopilot was left engaged - they were fighting against its non-bypassed hydraulics. None of the crew could provide positive testimony that the autopilot had definitely been turned off or bypassed.
@markhamstra1083 it appears they were all working against each other,
the captain with "30 years sailing" couldn't even activate the epirb, instructions were
1. arm it
2. turn it on
all responsibility lands on the captain
Another tragic story with a horrendous outcome, incredibly well told. Thank you.
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As a Kiwi, I appreciated this video. The lesson in getting familiar with ones equipment is applicable to all aspects of life. Very sad & potentially avoidable accident. Thanks Mate
They were all so experienced at sailing that they pretty much decided to improvise and forgot how to actually sail the boat.
I can only imagine the curses Steve was hurling at them as he drifted away.
Right?! They couldn't have even thrown him a life jacket and a ring to swim to? Also a lot of EPIRBs float and activate when wet..........
Super excited about this one because ive been learning to sail recently and I understood everything! Just learned about preventers last month.
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Thanks for an excellent presentation. The graphics were great, and the narratives were first-class. I look forward to your next video.
Thanks, I really appreciate that 👌🏻
Thanks for all your work as always!
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My biggest fear is to fall overboard, and fight for my life while nobody ever comes until I'm too tired, hoping someone will come until the very end.
One of your best videos yet! ❤🔥
Thanks 👌🏻
Can we please get an episode about your story? How did you become so knowledgeable about all things maritime?
Would love this
I know that he works as dive instructor and has worked as a technical diver - that's why his videos on salvage & dive accidents are so good.
Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll read this! 🤞
Google?
@@johnnunn8688 I would rather hear it from him.
Good episode and very well explained. 🎉
Loving the sailboat graphics and other video inserts to aid with explaining to non-sailers.
Keep up the great work mate!
Thanks 👌🏻😀
Your explanations are both detailed and easy to follow, fantastic work. These sort of analyses will save lives.
Thanks 👍🏻
My father was a sailor in the US Navy. I remember him teaching me to tie different knots, explaining their purpose...a knot is very important, as this story illustrates. 🌹⚓
But can make the line 70% weaker, so the lines should never have been knotted together.
Except it had very little to do with the knot and a lot to do with what the skipper and crew had NOT done prior to the incident.
Thank you for enlightening me mates! Salute! 🌹⚓
@@johnnunn8688if the line is not strong enough with a knot in it it's not strong enough for the job, period.
Or in this case the geometry was so that it simply could not work.
If the line had held, something else would have given. Or the line could even have stretched enough for the boom to swing over with the preventer still attached.
@@johnnunn8688 WRONG! In general knots take 30% of a lines strength.
Boy this takes me back to being 13 and solo sailing a sunfish up in Maine. You learn to duck fast.
You also learn to see it coming,
I'm not a sailor, but I wonder if all this automation in our lives actually makes things better and/or safer. I lean towards Luddite style in all my critical gear - at least to have some redundancy.
you are right. and i've been sailing for 60 years.
As an engineering minded person the more complex something is the less I trust it.
It horrifies me how most things are built.
Scottc You are exactly correct we have been sailing the seas for millenia but have only recently begun to view it as less hazardous. Analogy is a tesla occupant switching on a autopilot and climbing in back to sleep.
An old salt I met long ago had zero furling sails or electric winches on his ketch. That had a trade off, but he wanted to be in control of the gear rather than the other way around.
Nothing whatsoever to do with automation - it was people that made mistakes - that is usually the case.
What a nightmare!? Terrifying!
In addition to the poorly rigged preventer there was no boom brake. Even a softly tensioned Boom brake would have slowed the swing of the boom and probably prevented the traveller failing. On a vessel this size with such heavy rig and spars I would not leave the dock in a zepher breeze without a brake rigged.
MOB wasn't tethered nor did he seem to have a presonal EPIRB on his Life vest or he didn't know how to activate it. It seems he was conscious in the water for some time.
Did they turn off the auto pilot after the rudder hard over? This would have killed the AP hydrolic pump and maybe relieved the lock in the rudder drive cylinder. Likewise pull the AP circuit breaker. Know your systems!
To restrain the traveller wrecking ball, if possible pull in the mainsheet. This will bring the block that was smashing everything, up to the boom (maybe if German MS rig). Mainsheet would have little load on it.
The rest is covered in the video and well described and illustrated. Well done PS. I have not read the full report.
Clearly, a totally inadequately prepared crew for a vessel of this size and a voyage across an ocean and this distance. I've been in those waters, sailed from Bay of Islands NZ to Melbourne Australia via Bass Strait in Winter. 60 plus knots, 5-6mt breaking seas, 4 crew, 2000 nm, 16 days. It was rough but we were conservative and careful. Constant monitoring of every detail of every system, every day. We didn't break anything. Always clipped in when outside, full harness and PEPIRB. No excuses.
My thoughts to the family and friends of the lost crew.
While the knot got the blame, the real problem began when the arch was removed, bringing the main sheet down to the deck level. To add to the problem, the addition of the furling boom added a tremendous about of mass, and leverage arm/momentum to the boom assembly. It is not mentioned if any of the rigging was upgraded to deal with that but if the block that the knot ripped out is an indication, probably not.
The other issue and the first domino was a really deep lack of familiarity with the boat's systems and basic daily checks that needed to be done to insure operability on the part of EVERYONE on board. Hydraulic level of the rudder system should have been a basic daily check, yet it appears even the boat architect on board never thought to check it, but being architect of a boat does not insure in depth familiarity with the systems. This makes one wonder if they ever checked any of the other critical fluids like engine oil and the accumulators/reservoir for the boom furling system.
Money doesn't buy competence, and that was in fatally short supply.
No knot failed. It was a pad-eye that was over stressed.
This story is a cautionary tale. It illustrates very clearly why safety drills & the master & crew familiarizing themselves with all safety equipment is vital & must be done-before leaving. What good was all that state of the art equipment if nobody knew how to use it? Also, a thorough inspection might’ve revealed the hydraulic leak. It makes me very sad to think those two deaths could have been prevented.
A fantastic, well explained and expertly illustrated story. Thank you very much. That woman, the skipper, was negligent in her duties. It is the skipper's duty to practice safety procedures, to understand how to properly rig the boat, etc. and two men died under her watch. A man went overboard and he wasn't rescued. She should have done jail time for this incident.
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"That woman" was not the skipper.
@@captainjimolchsShe was though?
@@frankwilliams4445 On paper, yes. But that was bureaucratic paperwork. This entire thing was an excuse for government overreach into areas than will change nothing.
--The MOB was not rescued for lack of steering ability.
From my comfortable chair here on Lombok island, and not in a panic,
I would have dumped the pressure off the jib by , dropping it, hopefully not needing to be behind the mast to do so. With all pressure off the fore deck the wind on the main sail would weather vane the boat into irons making it easier to drop the mainsail and get control of the boat
@mikaliz2167 Dropping and/or depowering both sails was my thought exactly! You cannot have a heavy in-furling boom keep swinging around, killing crew and destroying the helm until the rig is down and the boat is sunk!!! Dropping or depowering the sails could have been done from the cockpit in seconds. With a stuck rudder broaching could have been an issue, but had they gotten rid of the sails, both crew would have been alive today and the boat perhaps would have reached safety with less damage.
@@Fishbonesailing And had they turned off the malfunctioning autopilot (which they apparently did not, according to the Maritime New Zealand report), their “stuck” rudder problem would have been resolved and they could have steered using the wheel (which would still have had safety issues because of the designed position of the main sheet and traveler.)
@@Fishbonesailing Loss of vang, flogging main sheet happened within seconds. Sail handling requires rudder control, with which the engine was available.
Wow! Amazing video. An uncontrolled gibe is a terrifying situation in any boat, I can’t imagine it in something this big and heavy. All that technology on board doesn’t eliminate danger. I grew up sailing in the days before GPS and cell phones, which are essential these days-and I’m grateful for them. But being totally analog also meant we were always alert to what could go wrong. I bet this crew isn’t the only one who has left dock without proper safety preparations because sailing seems easier these days. But they had the bad luck to pay the price. I was riveted by this video! Good job!
any technology YOU CAN'T FIX with simple tools is not a safety device.
While I’m a merchant mariner I don’t know much about sail boats. What happened to the hydraulic fluid? I’m assuming they blew a hose and lost all the fluid in a few seconds but I’m very confused as to why they didn’t simply replace the hose and refill the hydraulic tank? Did both steering pumps fail? Did they lose all gensets? Nothing makes sense to me as to how short of physical damage to the rudder itself could be an unfixable problem. Did this boat not have an emergency steering system? Every single screw vessel I’ve ever sailed on has something to steer it in an emergency such as a steam or diesel pony engine, or even a emergency tiller that can be put onto the rudder post and rigged with two block and tackles and manually operated by a few men. You said there was pressure in the steering cylinders, why weren’t the bypass valves opened? Where talking about some massive rudders on offshore tugs and ships here, such a setup for a little sailboat wouldn’t need to be anywhere near as large or heavy.
Great story! Your production is top notch! Truly an underrated channel.
Thanks 🤣
Top content as always. Thanks for all the work you do to keep us entertained 💙🏴
Great Video again👍 We sail with a beambreak. Greetings from Croatia 👍
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It's good to see a New Zealand story on your channel. I was working for a company involved in the refit of Platino at the time so I remember it well. Perhaps you could cover the Enchanter fishing boat Sinking from NZ?
Thanks I’ll check it out. 👍🏻
So much for all the credentials and experience.
It only takes one small mistake to sometimes set off a catastrophic chain of events. Even the most experienced in any endeavour that you can think of make mistakes.
Great review.
One hopes other sailors will learn and implement from this incident.
The main lesson.., Investing money in large quantities does not suffice to make a boat safe. Owner, skipper and crew well trained and practiced are essential.
It takes time to build a team and it has to be done gradually going scenario by scenario.
“Team” can be a single handed or multi crew team. You go to sea, the “crew” must be trained on the specific boat.
Team buildup plan including manoeuvres , best practices, emergency equipment , prudent sail plans fitting the weather for “this” boat, emergency steering drills, watch checkup list including hydraulic levels, dry bildge checkup etc. it’s a long list , which by the way , must be trained and refreshed periodically. Most important is probably “expect the unexpected and act accordingly”
Neither does passing a government inspection.
Key points; They failed to do proper engine and ancillary component inspections which caused the steering failure, they rigged the preventer incorrectly which caused it to fail, they didn't know how to operate eperbs or man overboard recorders so the overboard coordinates were never recorded, they failed to throw the man overboard any rescue equipment when passing him several times, and amazingly they went to sleep instead of conducting damage control by completely cutting free the mast, repairing the steering, and motoring back to look for the lost crewman. Overconfidence to the point of arrogance and a total loss of control when tested. That's called criminal negligence where I come from.
Exactly. I was expecting to hear about charges brought? She was the skipper, so she was responsible.
The boat just had an extensive refit with the builder on board whose yard btw was extremely experienced, highly regarded and the work was no expenses spared level. The issue was not picking up on the low oil level in the steering system in time. But even that wasnt a problem on its own it was the accumulated errors beginning with the design changes. The remaining crew were traumatised by a dead body on the cockpit with the skull smashed in with brains and blood everywhere, the sea state was up, it was blowing 30 to 40 and they could not steer the boat and eventually they became exhausted. When Steve went over, that was it- he was dead in that sea state even if they could have got gear to him which they couldnt due to the boom thrashing about, he had no plb or lifejacket etc.. This was a thousand miles North in the middle of nowhere, help is a long way off. I dont know if youve ever been to sea on a yacht but a MOB recovery in anything but the most settled conditions is an incredibly difficult job even with a boat that can manoeuver and with a competent crew who have eyes on the MOB. The could not steer the boat because the helm was smashed. 30-40 in the harbour is one thing but at sea it's quite another.
Some of your criticisms are fair. As for resting there comes a point where that is needed. If you get sufficiently overtired you can become irrational, unable to perperly comprehend what you are seeing. Indeed in an emergency situation sometimes you have to stop, take some deep breaths try and calm down and think. They had sufficient crew that with the mast in the water streaming to windward some crew could be stood down for a time, however there needed to be someone on watch in case that mast became a battering ram. This is the moment for some experienced person to step up and start making orders. Perhaps is someoune had gone down below and filled up the steering unit with fluid the vessel could have been brought under control in a reach. There is a saying in the flying community, aviate, navigate, communicate. Rather than call mayday, get the steering back and get the boat under control. Nevertheless, this crew has my sympathy, it is easy to underperform under stress, which reinforces the need for drills and planning.
well glad you arent a prosecutor. The vessel was checked for safety and exceeded the standards. They followed ALL LAWS. They did not cause the two deaths. Now do I think these people are idiots and shouldnt own a multi-million dollar yacht, hell yes. But are they criminals? No, they arent.
@@SunBear69420 they were not "idiots" you need to read the report from the perspective of a sailor
the audio mix for waterline needs some love - I always feel like I'm getting screamed at starting a video, with the levels being _way_ louder than pretty much anything else on youtube
I see this all the time in other aspects outside of maritime. Companies or people will buy safety equipment and trauma kits etc, but never practice using them.
It all goes back to the power steering failure, the leak which should have been spotted during maintenance. This is not a small unit, it must have lost litres of fluid..then all hell broke lose, and in panic mode, mistakes are easily made. RIP lost sailors.
There was an "off" button in the cabin. Failure to verify the MOB function is inexcusable. Worst case: log the position on paper.
Photo at 40 seconds is not Sydney , it is in the Brin Wilson shed at Gulf Harbour Marina, New Zealand. In fact I took that photo at 1019 on the 9th February, 2015. That is my boat under wraps on the left. Another of my photos at 04:20.
Awesome upload as always! Beautiful sailboat.
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A US $2.5 million refit and there is no waring light/beeper to indicate low hydraulic oil level! The fact there waas NO standby steering system in the event of a hydraulic failure implies negligence on behalf of the designers
I've got to say, in this day and age I'm surprised that a low fluid level warning light/alarm was not installed. My 1976 VW Kombi had one! I'm not joking. This is old, cheap tech.
I'm also wondering how such a critical system isn't duel circuit and/or why a mechanical linkage with an auxiliary tiller isn't installed. Some might say that hindsight is 20/20 but
anyone who has had experience operating appliances that incorporate hydraulics will tell you that leaks and failures can and will happen.
There was a standby steering system - or, rather, the mechanical steering from the helm was independent of the hydraulic autopilot system. The two steering systems could not, however, be used at the same time. To steer manually via the wheel (or an emergency tiller), the autopilot needs to be turned off so that its hydraulics can go into bypass mode, allowing the manual helm steering to work without fighting against the hydraulic ram and the check valves in the hydraulic lines. This is a very common setup in yacht autopilot systems. If the autopilot is left on, it will at a minimum be trying to hold a fixed rudder position, which will be very difficult to override with the wheel. From the Maritime New Zealand report, it sounds like the hydraulic fluid leak allowed enough air into the system so that the autopilot could not maintain course, but the crew never switched the autopilot off (even though its electronics remained functional and controllable from multiple stations even after the autopilot controls at the helm were smashed), so the crew were trying to fight against the non-bypassed hydraulic steering and could not effectively steer with the redundant manual steering system. After the accident investigators refilled the reserve header tank with sufficient hydraulic fluid, both of the yacht’s steering systems were operational, even if not optimally due to damage, air remaining in the hydraulic system, etc.
This has many similarities to the "Escape" tragedy, also a ~ 60 foot yacht with many of the same fancy features, including in-boom furling. Sailboats generally have many single points of failure, so that every critical item must be very reliable and properly maintained. These big "luxury" boats are very complex, and one failure can quickly lead to a catastrophic cascade of failures. It is worth noting that many much smaller ( ~ 10 m) boats have successfully circumnavigated with a crew of one or two, while ostensibly safe big sailboats have foundered (the "Bayesian" being the most glaring example, even at anchor).Of course, many smaller boats have also met sad ends, but they have far fewer things that can fail and the forces involved are much smaller, more comparable to human physical strength. Large sloops in particular need particular care since the forces and moments can become so large in bad weather. I cringe now at how much faith I put into my own 9 metre boat in tough conditions...
A lot of ‘expert comments and criticisms here’. An excellent description and account. There were very experienced crew on board. I knew one of them. This was avoidable but it was a very sudden and extremely violent consequence. Please be careful and measured when criticising from the comfort of your living room.
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Complacency kills. Like the sky, the ocean cares not about your qualifications or experience. 😕
Sailing is such a pleasurable pastime. Next year, we are going to try our hands at mine clearing in Cosivo .
All the gear and no idea?
I just learnt more about sailing than I have throughout any of my random boat trips.
And gee whiz, check the oil in your "power steering reservoir"*. Pack of amateurs , I don't care how long they had been "yachting" , doesn't make them sailors.
You can't ignore the mechanical chit and expect it to take care of itself and work right just because it is in shiny $3-4 million toy .
Because it was not a weak knot or a wrong line rig that caused this disaster, rather it was the steering/rudder unit ran out of oil and failed.
*- AIUI, an inspection had been done before this voyage by the NZCG, and nobody spotted this hydraulic leak or checked the oil levels then or before this voyage.?
In the Gulf of Mexico someone tied a bad knot on the Genoa furling line of the 38 foot Spray replica "Nina". In a squall the Genoa unfurled itself knocking us flat, the bowsprit snapped off, the mast slammed around until a backstay snapped whipping a three-kilo deadeye around on the end. A nightmare on deck. And we were leaking badly below somehow. While I tried to secure the mast the other two below called a mayday and the USCG came and took us off - no help offered and no choice permitted. I might have been able to save Nina if it hadn't been this crazy cascade of events, and had I been thinking clearer - I hadn't slept in days. I might have done better... in hindsight.
Sigh.
A) Tie knots properly, don't trust a greenhorn to do it unless you check! One single bad knot can sink and kill.
B) Don't call mayday, they will force you off. Pan Pan or securité!
C) If you call, tell them where you are and leave the radio, they will ask questions endlessly right down to your shoe size and tie up the crew when they should be helping. It's ridiculous! They never shut up.
D)The crew must be calmed, their claimed injuries checked, and encouraged to believe they can prevail.
E) You step up into a life raft not down. I actually said those words at the time, fat lot of good it did.
This horrible night will stay with me forever.
Damn. What an experience. Also, I didn’t realize Pan Pan was a call on boats, not just airplanes! Good to know. And even though it’s painful the USCG forced you off, I’m glad it wasn’t even worse given the situation. Non-sailors don’t realize how much force there is in the wind and the crazy things that can go wrong.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous posts I've seen on YT. You "might have been able to save" your boat...yeah you might have been at the bottom of the Gulf as well. USCG is there to save your a**, not some 38 foot pos dinghy.
@@zizulryI didn't say the USCG didn't have a right to do what they did, nor that I resent them though I'm certainly not impressed by their spirit. They do actually drop pumps and so on all the time. I was extremely surprised they left Nina afloat as a hazard to navigation, and now probably still leaking diesel to this day. They seem to have some mandate to "prevent loss of life and property" just as I do in the fire department - we don't just pull people out, we extinguish the fire and protect nearby structures. I was misinformed by one of the crew who claimed to know these things - "they'll help out, they for sure won't leave her adrift". Conditions weren't bad at all, the squall was long gone. Perhaps my biggest mistake was allowing the other two to get on the radio while I was on deck - believe me there wasn't much time to debate things if I was to stop the mast from falling. I did hear them calling mayday and at the time I wasn't aware that means an automatic removal from the vessel even if conditions had moderated and things were more hopeful by the time they arrived. We actually formed a plan to try to get back to Nina after the USCG had dropped us ashore (we'd left a beacon) but we couldn't get a boat and the beacon quit sending about 12 hours later. She wasn't my boat but you are right, she wasn't a good boat! Once a mayday is called it's over apparently, wouldn't want the USCG to miss a tea break.
A. Your fault - you know that green is green for a reason.
B. *uck off, if you do not have control of the situation, what ifs and what could have been don't matter at all.
C. They are trying to determine if you are actually sinking or not, like what if two distress calls at the same time?
And you not really sinking, but the other one is actually going down and you just leave the radio?
Where do they send help first?????
Once again, *uck off.
D. Like seriously? It's an emergency, encouraged to believe they can prevail?
No they need be told what the *uck to do next, abandon, or save ship.
E. With people like you onboard, you don't get to step into a life raft.
No *ucking wonder, you a jackass sailor.
What do you mean by the USCG "will force you off"? Sorry if it's a stupid question, never been sailing in my life.
Excellent presentation and analysis. Thank you. Extremely well done and useful. raphael nyc
👍🏻 thanks
A comedy of deadly decisions and errors led by a skipper that had some course and book knowledge but no real world knowledge of actually being in command.
With all that automation, it still can't provide safety against mechanical failure.
The initial steering failure could have easily been avoided by better design. To start with: Why wasn't an alarm fitted to the system? My 1976 Kombi had one! And why was their no redundancy designed in such as a second hydraulic circuit or mechanical linkage?
Enjoyed the video. Just one small point - Cape Reinga is not the most northerly part of New Zealand. North Cape is the northern point of the North Island, but NZ extends further to the north due to other offshore islands.
🤣 of course it does. I try to find a trap to walk into in every video. And 💥 there it is.
As a land lover, this ish is scarier than any creepypasta ever!
What a failure; did not even think to throw a life preserver to the man in the water.
Such equipment si generally mounted on the transom, which could not be reached.
People love to bash full keel or cut away long keel boats with modest sail plans, like yaws and ketches. The forces at play are much less, much more proven. No fancy complicated steering system needed. Too many modern boats don’t take safety first, fast and efficient should be a distant second. Over 2 million for a boat less sea worthy than a 10k boat.
I already knew it wasn't just the knot. It's like sircraft crash investigating. It's rarely just "one thing". Lots of opportunities to prevent this were passed up. Too bad...
Great well made vid. Hearing you pronounce NZ locations was quite amusing 😅
butchering local names is my speciality. 🤣
What a complete breakdown of circumstances.
I have a report I did for the Navy, the subject line entitled, My Kingdom for a Sailtie.
Like this tragedy, there were numerous circumstances that lead to the death of a sailor.
Overconfidence of the more experienced sailors, not getting a good weather report, lack of a safety brief, having the wrong sails on board, poor seamanship, limited training, and sadly alcohol was involved.
RIP Dan Cianci.
Well done. Thank you.
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I always activate the tracking function of the chart plotter at the start of a voyage. Even without pressing the MOB buttons, the beginning of the erratic behavior would clearly show the MOB position.
It was functional and mentioned in the report.
Great video as always!
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In open seas with an unreliable quartering and high wind, surely you stow the main and run on foresails. Much safer. Why were they not wearing lifejackets? Why did they not drop the main from the mast or even scandalise it by using the topping lift. ANYTHING to stop that boom swinging. The first thing you do after man over board is throw a buoy out and station one person whose sole job is to watch the man overboard, Everything that could go wrong DID go wrong on this voyage. Appalling ineptitude. Kudos for a brilliant and succinct description of this terrible tragedy.
Wow. Lost count of the times I said "fuuuckiiiNNelllll" listening to this. Absolutely great stuff and what a lesson.
🤣 that’s the reaction you’re supposed to have
Hey Colin, great video!
Not the knot killed 2 crew, but unpreparedness and bad seamanship.
And bad design, in this instance.
What a way to go… the old “double boom”. ⛵️💥
Only one hole in the swiss cheese, but everybody had it.
I can't believe two of them went below and went to sleep instead of going looking for their friend Steve. Friends like that I don't need! I don't care how tired they were, Steve's fighting for his life and they take a nap?
I had to think about this one for a while before I commented. The primary mechanical problem is that they lost steering. I have heard so many stories of sailboats/sailing yachts either losing their rudder entirely due to corrosion or just losing control of the steering like this. Once a boat has lost its steering, it’s at the mercy of the elements. So check the rudder/steering system regularly and before any major trip.
Beyond that, I really think this boiled down to the skipper should have taken the lead before they left the docks. First priority would be a safety talk… PFDs at night or in rough weather. Someone is on the helm at all times. Then, at least have a discussion of the MOB drill. I can so easily see how this was skipped because the crew was so experienced, so I’m taking a lesson from this. For the most part, racing sailors are wired differently from cruising sailors. Cruisers would probably have had the safety discussion. I have been on an all racing crew, sailing at night on deck with no PFD in moderate conditions with storms in the area. I’ve also been racing on a boat where the owner did a lot of cruising. We all had Type I PFDs on at night with manually activated strobe lights on them. If the guy who went overboard had a PFD with one of those fancy GPS locators (or even just a strobe), he would be alive today.
Finally, that damned preventer. I have only sailed on boats under 50’, so I don’t know how common preventers are on bigger boats; but my experience is that preventers are a pain in the ass. When you’re ready for a jibe in a race, those are often forgotten, causing potential disaster. It’s better to have the crew aware (and watching their heads) of a potential crash jibe than have a false sense of confidence that the boom isn’t going to come screaming across the deck unexpectedly. That preventer caused a lot of damage after the steering went out. No preventer, no damage to the traveler, etc.
FYI, the “jibe” they did before disaster happened, where they really tacked rather than jibed is called a “chicken jibe”. That was a fairly conservative move for such an experienced crew.
Thank you to the creator of this video. This is one sailor who is taking some lessons from this one.
Having worked as a sailing instructor, accidental jibes are scary even on small boats. I'd never want to experience one on something that big
Accidental jibes don't happen when I steer.
I'm a simple guy ...I see 'learning how ppl died in some nightmare scenario in the middle of a deep unforgiving ocean' I click while really appreciating been safely sat in my pants with a coffee all warm and dry .
Best place to be when shouting at a video. 🤣
I hope the “ supposed captain “ had some sort of negligent charges brought against her.. 2 DEAD and SHE DIDNT KNOW HOW IT WAS RIGGED.
No qualifications were required for this voyage.
As we say in 4wd community "all the gear, no idea"
Wow! Anything that could go wrong, really did.
Yep 🫣
I've spent a lot of life on the water. Two words sum it all up: Relentless Force. If you don't get ahead of those two, you're finished.
you better knot mention that
Experienced sailors should already know that knots used to extend lines reduce strength, and that preventer lines should not be extended in this way.
Also, for all their experience and safety equipment, they didn't use a friction device in addition to a preventer. Preventers can fail, and booms can start swinging wildly, that's why people invented friction devices that when used in addition to preventers, make downwind sailing almost 100% safe, because even if you're preventer is fouled/broken/failing, the friction device makes it so that the boom can't move so fast that it destroys people and equipment. These devices just get more and more important the bigger the sailboat is.
No knot failed. The vang ripped apart the pad eye.
@@captainjimolchs
That wasn't the description of the failure in the video. Knot failed, then a shock load was transferred to the pad eye.
@@jeremyrainman The video is inaccurate. Read the report. What shock load? Knot failure reduces shock load!
@@captainjimolchs
If a line with load on it separates at a knot between the load and the trim point it can absolutely end up throwing a shock load to any friction point between the load and the knot.
It would help if you shared a link to the report since there is no such link in the video description.
an absolutely wild design a lot of boats have is having a hydraukic autopilot held fast to the rudder with no way to seperate the two like on the farr x2
What a nightmare. Attaching a preventer midships is totally counter-intuitive (to me at least) And that was only the first domino to fall.