Even the best of us.

[Bolo]

This is one scary and tragic story and should be a reminder to us that even the the best of us and the best equipped boats can fail in horrible ways. Stay safe out there!

 

[Solarken]

Sad unfortunately I’ve had a similar jibe event on fail of the autopilot. Solid preventers are very important. Singlehanded with 500 sq ft of sail up for low winds. 8-12 knots. Actually it was a bit less but then jumped to 24-30 knots and I had to hold the helm and could not reduce sail with no extra hands. No life lost after jibe but my traveler block broke its brake. One problem lead to another and it was that 1% terror sailing ⛵️ day.

happy thanksgiving to all!

 

[Bolo]

This story really hit home for me because one day during in our early, and less experienced, days of sailing my spouse and I were blissfully traveling down wind when we had an unintentional jibe in high winds. While I was at the helm of our Hunter 285 that we owned at the time the boom flashed across the cockpit narrowing missing my ”first mate’s“ head. In fact it went through the hair on the top of her head so it missed her skull by a fraction of an inch. Ever since then we almost always rig a preventer, only not doing so during a series of short jibes, and when we do call out for a jibe we also add the phrase, “Mind the boom!”

 

[Christian Williams]

When you broach, a preventer will hold the boom to windward. That's not useful while knocked down to leeward.

They are good for keeping the boom from hitting your child's head, but offshore, alone, create more problems than they solve.

It seems this disaster was a result of failed (jammed? runaway?) self steering which the crew could not correct. Multiple out of control jibes should not happen. I did not hear how much sail was up in gusts to 48 knots. That's gale force and then some, and time for every cruising boat to reduce sail to minimum.

 

[Bolo]

When you broach, a preventer will hold the boom to windward. That's not useful while knocked down to leeward.

They are good for keeping the boom from hitting your child's head, but offshore, alone, create more problems than they solve.

It seems this disaster was a result of failed (jammed? runaway?) self steering which the crew could not correct. Multiple out of control jibes should not happen. I did not hear how much sail was up in gusts to 48 knots. That's gale force and then some, and time for every cruising boat to reduce sail to minimum.

I also did wonder why they didn’t run with jib alone. At those wind speeds I don’t think you’d loose too much boat speed by bringing the main down and the trade off for safety reasons can’t be ignored. As for hydraulic auto helms it seems to me that there should be a way to disconnect it from the quadrant, at the helm, in emergency cases like a power failure or fluid loss. Maybe this feature is not practical or possible with hydraulic auto helms….but it should be.

 

[Loren Beach]

Lots of different facets to wonder about, but like Bob I wonder why they did not reduce sail down to the jib. I am no expert but have run DW for hours at a time in 24 TW with my small jib. I was making well over hull speed with excellent control. Doing double digits, actually.

From admittedly limited exposure to stories of sailing super yachts, I do wonder if there can be a feeling of near invulnerability by their crews?
(The largest boat I have been on under sail was a heavy 41 foot sloop with a big sail plan. The loads on the sheets were very large. Not scary, but we were really aware of the possibility for damage/injury if a block were to break.)