450 Passage Goes Down

[Clyde]

More information

On a previous post to this web site a guy named Jim Bartch said that he had just bought a Hunter 450 and was going to sail it from California to Hawaii as stated earlier in this thread. In the Honolulu paper they identified the owner of the yacht as a Mr. Jim Bartch from Portland, OR. In the article they said that the sailboat had lost power and steering and was taking on water. The article stated the sailboat was found 1,000 miles Northwest of Hawaii. Link.http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2003/Jan/21/ln/ln24a.htmlFair Winds.Clyde

 

[John Nantz]

More Incident Accounts

Poor Jim - I really feel for him.Life raft for sale: http://www.marinersguide.com/dockswap/hawaii/messages/136.html"STATENDAM To The Rescue" A distress signal was received from the 45-foot private yacht ENCHANTMENT on her maiden voyage from California to Honolulu.: http://www.maritimematters.com/shipnews.html [about half-way down the web page]"This past weekend, Holland America Line’s Statendam played the role of a hero when it rescued three men in the middle of the Pacific Ocean." - http://www.cruise-reports.com/DailyLog/DailyLog.htm [about 80% of the way down]These articles have pretty much the same information. Couldn't find anything on the Coast Guard web sites (Hawaii or North West districts).

 

[David Underwood]

Seems like I remember...

seeing a post some time ago about such a trip planned. At the time I thought to myself that is a pretty long and dangerous trip for a maiden voyage. Wonder about the lost of steering.. would he have lost a rudder? Sure wish Jim would post to us what happened so we can learn from his misfortune. As far as discussion here, I would have never heard of this story except reading about it here. Thanks HOW.

 

[Rick D]

Too Bad, Jim

Those conditions would have been pretty awful for anyone. With the power out and steering gone, they were in a real fix. Still, I'll bet there is a really nice piece of salvage out there just waiting for someone to come upon it. There is no reason to expect a delivery crew to really tough it out too long. Story reminds me to adjust and lube my own steering gear. Rick D.

 

[Jeff]

Search archives - plenty of caution urged&ignored

Search the archives for postings by Bartch - you'll find that there were plenty of replies urging caution and more prep time before undertaking a maiden voyage to HI, by Henk Meuzelaar in particular. The replies by Bartch were striking at the time for their dismissal of this sage advice, and are doubly so now, after the disaster. Thank goodness no one was hurt.

 

[Paul Daly]

Withholding of your Source??? Come On!!!

Henk, I think your post requiring the source is right on and absolutely appropriate. I was thinking the same thing and solved my curiosity by calling Long Distance from my home in KC area to the 11th District office in ALameda, who then called their public affairs officer in HAwaii to obtain that article which was then forward to me along with a follow up call by Petty Officer Bandrowsky.David, you wasted alot of time for all of us along with personell in the USCG simply because you wouldn't provide your source, which in other circumstances could have been life threatening while we all pondered the validity of your claim. If it wasn't a good source, state such, we just are trying to get to the bottom of it. Why in the world would you not want to provide your source?!?!?!?!? That's ludicrous!!!! This is serious business we are talking about here! In the future, I suggest any provision of information of this kind be provided with DETAILS!BTW, do you have a last name?

 

[David]

Paul

I have already stated my source was not first hand information. If you had read my initial post you would have noticed it concerned a completed rescue and no longer a life threatening situation.You are the one who wasted the Coast Guard's time in an after the fact situation.Why is my last name of such concern to you, many regulars on this site use only one name.BTW thanks to those of you who contributed in a positive manner. I thought this was an interesting subject. Hopefully, we can find out what went wrong.

 

[Paul Daly]

David

David, I have re-read your original post. This situation was not "Over", in my opinion, until discovery of the information on M/S Statendam providing assistance. A boat "going down" is still an ongoing matter until all parties are recovered, period. That information came to light just Friday, days after your original post. My call to the USCG, prior to that inforation was not me wasting time, it was me taking action becasue you failed to provide your source so that the information could be corroberated/confirmed and then tracked down on a newpsaper website for updates if available. My call IMHO was what I believe mariners would term prudent investigation of the facts surrounding the case.You wasted my and possibly other's time by not divulging details about your "source". Again, why you withhold this info is extremely strange to say the least. This is my last post on the matter, but please, if my boat goes down, STAY OUT OF IT, let some responsible individuals pursues the matter!Later, much!

 

[Rick D]

Any Info On Conditions, Henk?

Do you have a source of historical weather info that would give some clue what they sailed into? Jim had indicated they were going to go south before hanging a right, but it *sounds* as if they were pretty much on the rhumb line from Newport Beach. As I recall, the latitude of the islands is about the same as Cabo. Curiosity only, no second guessing here. Rick D.

 

[David]

Again

Paul my information was not confirmed and I was only asking for confirmation. I did make the mistake of posting another thread entitled "update". I now realize this should have all been on one thread. If this was a problem I apologize for anyone's inconvenience.I hope none of our boats go down but I would still like to know if one does goes down and why.

 

[henkmeuzelaar]

Archived marine forecasts hard to find

The same thought had also appeared to me, Rick. However, to my chagrin, the FNMOC weathermap site (see link) suddenly does not provide access to archived data anymore and a bit of Googling for other marine weather archive sites (e.g. radiofacsimile forecasts) did not look promising either. My assumption is that one now needs to log in with a DOD password in order to access the archived public data. Only a couple of weeks ago I was able to go in and reconstruct some forecasts that were about 1 week old, if I remember well. In fact, in my advice to Jim Bartch i did use one of these charts as it showed how far South the big depressions have been penetrating in this El Nino year because of the very weak (or absent) Pacific High.I am indeed afraid that the delivery crew more or less chose a rhumb line course and were overtaken by one of these big ones that one normally only encounters much farther North...... We already know that the vessel was going to be short of several important back-up systems because of the short preparation time and that, therefore, they were well advised to hug the coast until they got into the tropics.However, let us see if we can get more facts on the table (e.g. the precise rescue location and time which the USCG should be able to provide)and whether the crew was able to keep any sail up at all (they probably had neither a staysail nor a deep-reefed main) before trying to reconstruct what exactly may have happened. As soon as we have more data, I think it is important to chew the cud on this one a little further since the California to Hawaii passage is the first big offshore passage for a fairly large number of cruisers.Meanwhile, if anyone happens to have a DOD or NOAA password: it would be very nice to have either the January 12-17 (Eastern Pacific COAMP model) wave and wind charts or the corresponding surface analysis and wave analysis faxes from NWS/NCEP......... ;o)Flying Dutchman

 

[Dave Jones]

weather info

The National Data Bouy Center, part of NOAA, homepage has current and historical info for all of its moored and drifting bouys. You just need to click on the area you wish to view and then select the bouy closest to you. the site is www.ndbc.noaa.gov...They have wave height, wind speed and gusts baro, air temp, and you can see plots of trends. Hope this helps..

 

[Derek]

Does anyone have more info?

or did I miss something?