Rescued Nine Times In 7 Months - But Planning To Cross The Atlantic

[Bossybabe]

This pair really don't get the obligation ships and rescue services have to help sailors in distress, the cost of the rescues or the risk to other people's lives. Makes my blood boil.

Rescued transatlantic duo are 'catastrophe waiting to happen'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-35420983

[200p]

Well, one day their luck will run out.

[Frank Hovis]

Heard one on the radio, boy was he being your stereotype loudmouth yank. "It could have happened to anybody."

What NINE times?

[workingpoor]

Both 71

Boat looks hardly seaworthy

Sense of entiltlement

[Bossybabe]

Both 71

I know two people much older than that, who have crossed the Atlantic several times in the last ten years. One of them is disabled following contracting polio as a child. Neither has needed a single rescue.

These yanks come over as just plain ignorant.

[thecrashingisles]

Maybe as well as the Darwin awards we should do Dignitas awards for people crying out for euthanasia.

[workingpoor]

What is the survival time when immersed in the atlantic at this time of year 4hrs? assuming you were physically able to keep yourself afloat.

Even in a liferaft if you cannot keep it bone dry inside i think you would have 12hrs max

[Bossybabe]

What is the survival time when immersed in the atlantic at this time of year 4hrs? assuming you were physically able to keep yourself afloat.

Even in a liferaft if you cannot keep it bone dry inside i think you would have 12hrs max

Immersed would be twenty minutes tops if you're young and fit. If not, five minutes.

[yellerkat]

I know two people much older than that, who have crossed the Atlantic several times in the last ten years. One of them is disabled following contracting polio as a child. Neither has needed a single rescue.

These yanks come over as just plain ignorant.

Were they on BA?

[long time lurking]

Cross the Atlantic at this time of the year sureyl not ,that's paramount to suicide in any small yacht

[interestrateripoff]

If they try and cross the atlantic a 10th successful rescue seems unlikely.

[The Masked Tulip]

Good grief - they have been trying to go from Norway to Maine... and have been doing so since July. So they think they could continue to try and do this in the depth of winter?

I was expecting to see some route from Spain swinging across in a southerly arc to the Caribbean and on to Florida.

[MrPin]

These people would not make very good Vikings.

[Riedquat]

Boat looks hardly seaworthy

To my utterly inexpert mind it looks like a rather nice boat that's been badly treated. I wouldn't be surprised if the visible damage is from their previous running aground, and the rest that I can see has an air of "stuff piled around, don't really know or care what I'm doing" about it.

[Exiled Canadian]

The next time they requiring rescuing the emergency services should only act on a "Salvage basis" and impound the boat until the cost of the rescue is repaid.

[libspero]

Crossing the Atlantic isn't that big a deal, they could do it in about 3 weeks or so. Trying to cross from here at the moment will be a nightmare though with the weather as it is and the fact that they'll be sailing against the trade winds.

They should get properly patched up and take a leisurely trip down to the Azores and across to Central America and back up the coast again. At least then they'll have the wind behind them.

Best of luck to them I say. They're obviously very unlucky/incompetent but they are in their 70s and as they say, there are worse ways to go. Hopefully a friendly expert will help get them seaworthy and on their merry way.

As for the cost, the RNLI spends it's whole time fishing idiots out of the sea. I don't see these two are really any different. It's not like it costs the tax payer anything. It's probably as much use to fish these guys out as it is to hand out free "safety frisbee's".

[geezer466]

Or next time just rescue the 2 gents and let the boat sink...

Sorted.

[Kurt Barlow]

What is the survival time when immersed in the atlantic at this time of year 4hrs? assuming you were physically able to keep yourself afloat.

Even in a liferaft if you cannot keep it bone dry inside i think you would have 12hrs max

Depends what you are wearing - a survival suit or Drysuit and the survival time can go to weeks.

[libspero]

Quite a long thread on this over on the cruising forums:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f2/how-not-to-plan-an-ocean-passage-159798.html

Not mentioned in the BBC article in the OP, but one of them was an aircraft pilot before he retired.. the mind boggles!

[workingpoor]

Depends what you are wearing - a survival suit or Drysuit and the survival time can go to weeks.

Maybe south of the equator but north of it i think it's measured in hours.

[Turned Out Nice Again]

Immersed would be twenty minutes tops if you're young and fit. If not, five minutes.

Not necessarily

This happened 25 years ago, on the 11th of March, 1984. Around 11 pm, 5 km east of Stórhöfði on Heimaey (the largest of the Westmann Islands, an archipelago off the south coast of Iceland), the fishing boat Hellisey VE 503 rolled over. The emergency raft was unreleasable. Three out of five fishermen were able to climb up on the upended keel of the boat, but it sank about 45 minutes later. The air temperature was -2° C, the sea was as cold as 6° C. One of the remaining three men died almost as soon as he got into water. The two others, Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, steersman, then 22 years old, and Hjörtur R. Jónsson, captain, 25 years, swam side by side and tried to keep talking. Very soon Guðlaugur understood that he was alone. However, he remained calm and concentrated. He headed to the west, where the lights of Heimaey were visible. In water that cold he had to die in 20 or 30 minutes. It is unbelievable, but he swam about 6 hours to survive.

http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/03/true-viking-grit/

[Bossybabe]

Were they on BA?

A 40 foot sloop. (Not the John B!). They used to cross to Barbados every autumn to spend the winter and came back with Spring.

[Bossybabe]

Not necessarily

This happened 25 years ago, on the 11th of March, 1984. Around 11 pm, 5 km east of Stórhöfði on Heimaey (the largest of the Westmann Islands, an archipelago off the south coast of Iceland), the fishing boat Hellisey VE 503 rolled over. The emergency raft was unreleasable. Three out of five fishermen were able to climb up on the upended keel of the boat, but it sank about 45 minutes later. The air temperature was -2° C, the sea was as cold as 6° C. One of the remaining three men died almost as soon as he got into water. The two others, Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, steersman, then 22 years old, and Hjörtur R. Jónsson, captain, 25 years, swam side by side and tried to keep talking. Very soon Guðlaugur understood that he was alone. However, he remained calm and concentrated. He headed to the west, where the lights of Heimaey were visible. In water that cold he had to die in 20 or 30 minutes. It is unbelievable, but he swam about 6 hours to survive.

http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/03/true-viking-grit/

Exceptions that prove the rule. The Poole Fisher sank in February south of the Isle of Wight in the early eighties. Of the eleven crew only one was rescued alive - a fit well built young man in his twenties. Everyone else died. That's my personal experience.

HSE's view:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/otopdf/1995/oto95038.pdf

[Turned Out Nice Again]

Exceptions that prove the rule. The Poole Fisher sank in February south of the Isle of Wight in the early eighties. Of the eleven crew only one was rescued alive - a fit well built young man in his twenties. Everyone else died. That's my personal experience.

To be fair, Guðlaugur was later found to possess a very unusual tolerance for cold, nicknamed "seal blood". There was a movie made about the event in Iceland; good film - I recommend it.

[blobloblob]

Non-story, only rescued by this bit:

Peter Haddock, Hayle harbourmaster

I suppose when you've got a big website like the BBC's, you've got to find lots of contents to fill it.