Kaimusailing

The final chapter of the Rainmaker catamaran dismasting was published on the Sailing Anarchy site. It is a story of good preparation, well built new boat, unlimited resources, and a disastrous failure anyway. One can read between the lines of the story. Toe stomping is avoided. There have been many diatribes posted on the anarchy's forum suggesting foolhardiness or lack of seamanship. Just as car wrecks happen in spite of all our efforts, a boat wreck can happen, chalk it up to accident, I'm sure hindsight will help all involved to avoid a recurrence.
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Another incident involving a father/son team of Australian sailors who blundered during the same general time period sailing from Rhode Island south toward Nantucket resulted in their eBay purchased boat getting trashed by an offshore blizzard. They should have been wiped off the face of the sea, but were saved by the Coast Guard. The comments about this disaster were especially virulent. Certainly, at the least, the sailors endangered the lives of the Coastguardmen who saved them.
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The common denominator in these two incidents is “Winter in the North Atlantic near the Gulfstream”. Blue water sailors can sail right around the world and avoid storms and icy weather by careful planning and heeding as many meteorologic predictions as possible. Routing planners are helpful. The Rainmaker crew had tremendous resources available and took a chance that turned bad. The Australian father/son ignored the magnitude of a blizzard forecast and took a chance that turned bad. We can learn that there is a limit we must comprehend. Imagine your boat being destroyed by weather and sea conditions. Imagine drowning in icy waters. Obviously these sailors did not comprehend their limitations. What hit Rainmaker was probably a microburst. They are not that rare. The surface of the water turns to a foaming sheet moving at high speed. There is a sudden impact of much higher velocity winds than ambient conditions along with loss of visibility. When we got hit by one off the coast of Florida, Kaimu suddenly heeled as if she were going over. I had my head stuck down in the engine box because we were becalmed and the engine wouldn't start. The sound of the approaching wind is something I'll never forget. The sudden bang after the first gust hit sounded like the mast was giving way. It was merely the traveler releasing from its jam cleat. The traveler is 18 feet long, so the main let out about 9 feet suddenly with a big bang. The jib was still cleated and while the blast lasted, about 45 minutes, the boat was carefully feathered into the relatively flat seas. There was no time for a sea to build. Letting the boat fall off too much would be disastrous. Letting it pinch up too high would lose way, lose steerage. I think my fingerprints are still etched into the wheel.
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Maybe sitting out the winter season in a warm cottage isn't so bad. I am itching to do so many things when the weather improves. A hike down to the docks revealed the Bodkin well iced over, nice blue sky, snow melting some, the robins foraging in the mud for worms.