Is there a Memorial for Sailors Lost at Sea?

[sbritt11]

I have posted a few posts around my brother who went missing last September.

We have assumed that his final resting place is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. We are wondering if anyone knows of any memorials that have been dedicated to past and current sailors lost at sea?

I am thinking of something that maybe is land based, not a web site, not that is not a good idea.

Thanks.

Steve

 

[Jackdaw]

Sorry to hear of your loss.

Its more of Great Lakes thing, but I'm sure they would add your brothers name to their roll call come fall.

http://marinerschurchofdetroit.org/church-calendar/

 

[Winkfish]

Steve, I am so sorry for your loss. Especially tough when you haven't had a "final" closure.

Was your brother in the military? If so, I'm sure your local military base would be able to help.

Otherwise, where are you? It looks from your profile you're in Florida. I'd imagine there are groups there that would help with that, or if you can find a place near the water, put up your own memorial, like a plaque. Key West comes to mind. The people there seem open enough that you could probably do something special there on some waterfront. Good luck!

 

[Ross]

There is this one for fishermen. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q...esult&ct=title&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CDYQ8gEwAQ

 

[Shoaldrafter]

Missing sail boat and sailor

I doubt that boat just sank.

Rather in that area he may have been caught by drug runners?

Or if he lost motor power, maybe the Gulf Stream carried him to Europe? Or if he fell overboard, the boat may have sailed itself to Europe? Recently there was the Mass. boat recovered in Portugal.

Also, the boat may be adrift in the Sargasso Sea?

But the boat was well off shore so I think that it is still floating somewhere.

I would send emails to all marinas near inlets from Cape Canaveral north.

Have you checked all marinas in the Jacksonville area?

Check with shrimpers in the area.

Ed K

 

[gpd955]

Sorry for the loss of your brother.

Maybe we should try to get one for the Atlantic Coast. Maybe somewhere halfway between Maine and Florida. I'm in for the "planning committee".

Ironically a small group of us from our dock have decided that on 4-15 we are going to sail a few miles out early afternoon to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the loss of Titanic. No reason... Just figured it would be something nice to do. Sail, play some music, say a few words and pour a bit of rum into the sea.

If anyone is interested in working on some kind of sailors memorial, we should. Like a monument or some annual service. There's enough people on SBO to get it done.

 

[Ross]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_Fisherman's_Memorial

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Instead of something "canned", I suggest you put together a memorial service yourselves that remembers him...write your own, use published works. A bit of time online will net you dozens of appropriate poems and other pieces...one or more will grab you as right.

You might find the Navy Hymn appropriate too...it begins,
"Eternal Father, Strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid'st the mighty Ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee,
for those in peril on the sea."

There are several more verses.

My sympathy to you and your family.

 

[AtlanticAl]

I am very sory for your loss, but heir is no single memorial with the names of the sailors, lost in the Atlantic. So many people have been lost there, that it would just be impossible to list them all in one memorial. Unless that memorial was a building, and inside it books of all those lost. If you were to go to the UK, and visit any town, in that town, would be a war memorial, that you can find, if you look for it. On that memorial, is the names of the fallen, for two world wars, but only the fallen, from that town, or village. If you go to a small village, the memorial will have a few dozen names, if you go to a big city, their will be numerous memorials at different parts of that city, listing the names of the fallen, from that part of the city, in two world wars. If you look at uk casualties, they lost almost 400,000 military personnel in the second world war, the first war, they lost over 900,000, now think of trying to fit all those names onto the one memorial. But it does exist. In Edinburgh Castle, their is a building, with every name of every British soldier that died in those two wars, the names are in books that are at places round the room, listed as regiments, so to look up a name, you have to know the regiment, and the date the person was killed.

A large number of the UK dead from both wars, died in the Atlantic, so other than a name in a monument, and a name in a book, their is nothing.

I think thier is a monument in newfoundland, with the names of Newfoundland fishermen who died out at sea, but as of yet, yachties have not organised to build a monument for sailors lost at sea, The obviouse answer would be for every marina, to have a memorial, with each sailor who sailed out, and never returned homes name on it, but, it would probably be bad for business, so they wont do it.

I went to home depot in joplin last week (it just re opened after the tornado tore it down) they had a paque up for the people who died there, seven people died in the store during the may 22nd tornado, they put up a simple plaque, with no names on it. Which is wrong if you ask me, it kind of de humanises it, they should have put the names of the dead on the paque, rather than just say, "for those who died"

 

[Ross]

For those for whom it matters the dead are known. For the rest of us it is enough to know that fellow humans died here. I will bet that more people die from injury in recreational activity other than sailing than die while sailing. Almost every year someone in Harford county is killed in a horseback riding accident. But there is no monument for those dead. Motorcycles are involved in many deaths each year, there is no monument for those dead.

 

[Shoaldrafter]

Lend the guy a hand ...

For those for whom it matters the dead are known. For the rest of us it is enough to know that fellow humans died here. I will bet that more people die from injury in recreational activity other than sailing than die while sailing. Almost every year someone in Harford county is killed in a horseback riding accident. But there is no monument for those dead. Motorcycles are involved in many deaths each year, there is no monument for those dead.

- - - - // - - - -

Consider lending the guy a hand. These forums and others on the internet connect a large nunber of both seasoned sailors and newbies. With this vast exposure over the East Coast of USA and then the Carribean and west shore of Europe, there must be some evidence of something.

There are several threads on these forums involving the missing boat and sailor. There is Coast Guard contact.

The fellow looking needs to write accurate time line of events. It would help if we had comments of Coast Guard. Such comments should include weather, weather following routine stop, and accurate history of all weather events.

I do not say that the boat could have sank with no evidence, all I am saying is that a detailed investigation has not been made.

I have seen mention of the fact that it was a 36 foot 2003 Beneteau with hull I.D. # BEY76318F304
http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/pls/webpls/cgv_pkg.vessel_name_list
The boat name is Know Patience

There are companion threads:
http://forums.oday.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=134519

http://cruising.sailboatowners.com/csbb/index.cgi/page/1/md/read/id/176068/sbj/florida-missing-boater-please-help/

And a news report:
http://www.news4jax.com/news/29397915/detail.html

Everytime I look at page 1 of this forum I see Captain Herring's political post, but where are the administrators of this site in offering help in a situation like this???

I gather the original poster is not adroit in the ways of list and internet sailors. And little help was given except to provide accurate Coast Guard documentation of boat.

Come on guys, 2,000 eyes might be able to see something.

If he fell overboard, surely there are some navigators could know how to estimate where the boat went? If a boat is just floating in the Atlantic, have any ships reported sitings?

If he tried to enter a port and hit a breakwater or jetty are there any reports? This is a sea worthy 36 foot sailboat. There must be tracks somewhere...

Ed K

 

[Joe11688]

I'm so very sorry for the loss of your brother, Steve. There have been many who have been lost at sea through the years and it would be fitting and proper to memorialize them somehow. Perhaps a compilation of all the names of the lost ones in each area of the people that we know of, could be memorialized at YCs and other organizations throughout the country on a designated day each year.

Long before I became a member of the Shawomet YC, we had a yacht club member who lived just down the street over the town line in Somerset Ma. who attempted to make 2,800 mile voyage from Nauset on Cape Cod Ma. to a Portuguese fishing village known as Leixo, in an 8' sailboat that he had built.
He left on April 9, 1975 on what was to be a 50 day voyage to Portugal.
He was sighted by a fishing vessel one week after he left and was never seen again.
His name was Allan J. Chadburn. One of my close YC pals in the club knew Allan very well.
May his soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God, Rest in peace. Amen.

 

[Ross]

Joshua Slocum sailed around the world single handed and wrote a book concerning and a few years later went missing on a passage to the Caribbean.
There is a prayer that in large tells it all : Oh God. your sea is so large and my ship is so small.
We live by threes. Three weeks without food, three days without water or three minutes without air and we die.

 

[Scott B]

- - - - // - - - -

Everytime I look at page 1 of this forum I see Captain Herring's political post, but where are the administrators of this site in offering help in a situation like this???


Ed K

Done.

We can't always think of everything. Feel feel to contact us with any suggestions via PM, which is a quicker way to get our attention.

 

[AtlanticAl]

For those for whom it matters the dead are known. For the rest of us it is enough to know that fellow humans died here. I will bet that more people die from injury in recreational activity other than sailing than die while sailing. Almost every year someone in Harford county is killed in a horseback riding accident. But there is no monument for those dead. Motorcycles are involved in many deaths each year, there is no monument for those dead.

Yes but their is a memorial for them, its called a grave, and a headstone, when you have no body to bury, things are different. My unlce died at sea, body never found, his wife lived for another thirty years, and when she died, she got buried, had his body been found, she would have been buried next to him. As it was, she was burried alone.
It all depends on how importantly you view people who died. I remember i was stationed on a ship in Portland, UK, and one day, i took a walk up through the cemetary, reading the names on the graves, that went way back, some of them unreadable, due to wind and frost erosion, but i one sticks on my mind, here lies the body of David Stone, killed by a lucky shot from the customs cutter.