Hmm. Try and find the problem here.

[Joe Blizzard]

Go ahead, guess..

I'll give you that it might have been a slow news day and he's not quite Joshua Slocum, but y'aller a little harsh sometimes.

The gopro video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dScxbsHSaA
I asked about the recovery in the comments. He said it did sink and he had to hire someone to get his boat back. (The company he mentions specializes in pulling ice-fishermen's cars out of the lake.)

 

[kito]

They should have taken a tip from The Three Stooges.........drill a hole in the boat to let the water out

 

[Brian Schwerdt]

I'll give you that it might have been a slow news day and he's not quite Joshua Slocum, but y'aller a little harsh sometimes.

The gopro video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dScxbsHSaA
I asked about the recovery in the comments. He said it did sink and he had to hire someone to get his boat back. (The company he mentions specializes in pulling ice-fishermen's cars out of the lake.)

Wow, and I thought Oneida's water was gross. That is nasty!

 

[Brian Schwerdt]

BTW, is it just me or is he fighting an awful lot of weather helm? I mean, a little bit is good, but you shouldn't have to hold the tiller at 45 degrees to keep a straight course. Perhaps he should be adjusting his sails...

 

[dlochner]

BTW, is it just me or is he fighting an awful lot of weather helm? I mean, a little bit is good, but you shouldn't have to hold the tiller at 45 degrees to keep a straight course. Perhaps he should be adjusting his sails...

Its odd, on port tack he has lee helm and on starboard tack he has weather helm. He's always moving the tiller to the starboard side.

 

[Joe Blizzard]

Somebody help me out here, I'm not a very good sailor either...
Looks to me like he's on a starboard tack, wind coming over the starboard side of the boat and sails filled out to port. He has the tiller hard over, steering to port, which I assume is to counter weather helm which is trying to turn the boat to starboard, into the wind. He loses the tiller and the boat rounds up into the wind, goes all the way through and when the still cleated main catches the wind from the port side, he's knocked down. I think his biggest mistake was having the main sheet cleated instead of in hand ready to release as soon as the boat started rounding up. I'm not counting losing his grip on the tiller in the mistake column because, well, that can happen and it wouldn't have been much of a problem if he'd been ready on the sheets. Am I close on any of this?

 

[Kermit]

Y'all, he didn't tack. He did an uncontrolled jibe. His mainsheet was way too tight the entire time. He let go of the tiller while jibing. This should be included in an instructional video on how not to jibe. It also appears to me that the rudder is not hung on the center of the transom. I suppose that could cause the lee helm on one tack and weather helm on the other tack issue. The uncontrolled jibe in VERY strong wind is what caused the capsize. I don't know enough about the boat to know why it sank. The only thing he did right was put on his PFD. Oh, and bring his cellphone that was in a water-tight enclosure.

 

[dlochner]

Somebody help me out here, I'm not a very good sailor either...
Looks to me like he's on a starboard tack, wind coming over the starboard side of the boat and sails filled out to port. He has the tiller hard over, steering to port, which I assume is to counter weather helm which is trying to turn the boat to starboard, into the wind. He loses the tiller and the boat rounds up into the wind, goes all the way through and when the still cleated main catches the wind from the port side, he's knocked down. I think his biggest mistake was having the main sheet cleated instead of in hand ready to release as soon as the boat started rounding up. I'm not counting losing his grip on the tiller in the mistake column because, well, that can happen and it wouldn't have been much of a problem if he'd been ready on the sheets. Am I close on any of this?

At the beginning of the video, he is on port tack with the helm over to leeward. At around 18 seconds you can see the girl pushing the tiller to leeward, that's lee helm. That means the boat wants to fall off the wind. At 30 seconds he's driving and the helm is even further to leeward. Lee helm is generally bad. If you let go of the helm or fall overboard, the boat will take off down wind.

AT 48 seconds he tacks and is now on starboard tack. Notice from here on he has the helm hard to weather, weather helm. At 1:10 he loses his grip, the boat turns hard to starboard and goes over.

Something is seriously wrong with the boat. On one tack he has lee helm, on the other weather helm. Regardless of the tack, the boat wants to turn to starboard. No wonder he had trouble controlling the boat, especially on starboard tack, he is fighting the boat.

So, what's wrong with the boat? Is the rudder correctly aligned? Is there a problem with the CB? Is the mast bent?

It looks like he is flying a spinnaker, as the sheet is well aft, not where you would expect a jib sheet. And what is the extra blue line on the port side of the boat? It sort of looks like an extra halyard.

There is probably more to this story than we're hearing.

 

[Joe Blizzard]

Y'all, he didn't tack. He did an uncontrolled jibe.

If he was in a following wind, it would have to have been coming across the boat from aft and starboard to have the mainsail out to port as it was in the video. We see the boat turn to starboard when he drops the tiller. A jibe would have required that the boat turn to port to cross the wind, would it not?

 

[Joe Blizzard]

At the beginning of the video, he is on port tack with the helm over to leeward.

I hadn't paid much attention to the first minute or so of the video. To me it looks like they might have been going downwind in those first segments. Notice how the young lady's hair and the strap on her life jacket aren't blowing around much as compared to the way they're going after the 48 second mark.

It looks like he is flying a spinnaker, as the sheet is well aft, not where you would expect a jib sheet. And what is the extra blue line on the port side of the boat?

I'm thinking that's a shroud, looking kind of odd because of the gopro's fisheye distortion.

 

[Kermit]

If he was in a following wind, it would have to have been coming across the boat from aft and starboard to have the mainsail out to port as it was in the video. We see the boat turn to starboard when he drops the tiller. A jibe would have required that the boat turn to port to cross the wind, would it not?

Crap, I don't know. It just looks like a jibe to me. A very uncontrolled jibe. My head hurts.
And speaking of me being wrong, I did find one more thing he did right. He was having fun right up to the moment he lost his boat. Sailing is supposed to be fun, right?

 

[PotomacDaysailer]

If he was in a following wind, it would have to have been coming across the boat from aft and starboard to have the mainsail out to port as it was in the video. We see the boat turn to starboard when he drops the tiller. A jibe would have required that the boat turn to port to cross the wind, would it not?

I agree. Doesn't look like a jibe to me. At 1:31 in the slo-mo replay, right after he loses his hold on the tiller, as the boat rounds up to stbd, you can see the main luffing and the jib sheet shaking indicating that the jib is luffing as well.

Also agree that it appears that the tiller has to be held over to starboard all the time, like maybe the rudder is angled to starboard with the tiller amidships.

 

[dlochner]

With that much weather helm, his hands and arms must be getting tired, easy to lose the grip on the tiller.

He lost his grip, the boat auto tacked, but the jib didn't tack, it was backwinded. That helped to drive the boat over and all the weight was on the wrong side.

The jib sheet lead still looks funny. It shouldn't be that far back. Is it possible he was trying to go upwind with a spinnaker?

 

[Davidasailor26]

I think between all of the posts here we've got a pretty complete picture of what happened, but not necessarily in one place.

Looks to me like the first 45 seconds are broad reaching on port tack. There are a couple of times when moving whitecaps are visible and they seem to be approaching the boat from its aft port quarter. Judging from the tiller position, there is a bizarre amount of lee helm considering the wind speed and direction. In that much breeze (looks to me to be in the mid-upper teens at least) I'd expect moderate weather helm if anything. Then, at 45 seconds, it cuts to close reaching or beating on starboard tack. The tiller is still hard over to starboard, indicating massive weather helm. Eventually the tiller comes free and the weather helm pulls the boat to windward, and its own momentum carries it through into an auto-tack backing the jib and beginning to fill the main on port tack, with crew weight still mostly to starboard, leading to the knockdown. Crew weight on the boom and mast, and insufficient hull floatation finishes the job.

So, why is so much rudder angle and tiller force required? The fact that it's lee helm on port tack and weather helm on starboard implies that it's not simply a sail trim issue. Must be either improperly rigged mast or unbalanced foils. In any case, it seems to me that it's something that our illustrious skipper could have noticed and handled before coming up to the wind on starboard, making the worst combination of weather helm and imbalance.

As for the news story, it definitely must have been a slow news day for a sinking of a boat this size to make the cut. Next, given the apparent shortcomings of the skipper's experience, it seems there would be better options for someone to interview for boater safety tips. Interview the skipper if you must to get his perspective on what happened, but then let him go and get some lessons while you interview someone with a little more experience for the safety advice. Having said that, none of his advice was really too awful; certainly it doesn't hurt to tell people to have communications and life jackets. At the end of the day the casual viewers got some potentially helpful safety reinforcement, and we got some fun footage to dissect.

 

[tomgrigsby]

Geez people - a couple of novices screw up and tip over in a small sail boat - haven't we all? Problem was that they weren't aware that boat had no flotation and couldn't be righted.
I'm a little surprised how negative some of the comments are. I thought the sailing fraternity here was a little friendlier than this. I won't be posting my mistakes here. Yeesh.

 

[kito]

I think most of the negative comments here (like mine) were directed at this making news in the first place. Like you said, it happened to most of us.....maybe not the sinking though.

 

[Nereussailor]

I sailed Lake Winnebago hundreds of times when I lived in Wisconsin. It can be a nasty lake to sail on if you get caught in a storm. It's a very shallow lake but very big (about 7 miles x 23 miles). The waves build fast and can make an enjoyable day of sailing turn into a hectic day real quick. I've been on it in 55kt winds on a Catalina 25 and it was exciting!! The owner of the boat didn't share my excitement. A smaller boat would have been scary.
There are a couple of deep spots in the lake but they aren't real big. They're kind of hard to find without having them marked on a GPS. The depth of 95% of the lake is about 15 ft or less, so even if they sank the boat completely, it wouldn't be hard to raise.

 

[tomgrigsby]

I think most of the negative comments here (like mine) were directed at this making news in the first place. Like you said, it happened to most of us.....maybe not the sinking though.

I'm sure you're right. None of us likes to have sailing cast in a negative light on the news. I feel bad for the girl though. She believed him when he told her the boat couldn't sink. He won't be living it down anytime soon, I'll wager.

 

[TriSwiss]

Our Hero

I'm sure the girl thought he was a real modern hero rushing in and using his zip-locked mobile phone to summon help.

I'm sure you're right. None of us likes to have sailing cast in a negative light on the news. I feel bad for the girl though. She believed him when he told her the boat couldn't sink. He won't be living it down anytime soon, I'll wager.