News showing sailboat sinking in Townsend Inlet, NJ - Poor judgement at issue?

[Scott T-Bird]

8 teens and 2 instructors had to be rescued last Wednesday in Avalon, NJ. The boat appears to be a J24 named "What Exit" and the cause was reported to be a "failed engine" - so the boat was washed onto the jetty and broke up. The group was from Avalon Yacht Club and it was apparently a boat used for instruction. The yacht club looks to me like it is a fairly swanky place probably with wealthy members and a highly organized sailboat racing schedule. Apparenty, among the 4 dinghy fleets, the adults also race with J24's, J30's and other models for offshore events. The protected waters in Avalon are very limited and it appears that sailors typically go out into the ocean thru the inlet and they have to signal for bridge openings (bascule bridge) to get out. I'm thinking that this club has highly experienced membership.

Which makes the whole situation fairly baffling, frankly. Who thought it would be reasonable to send 10 people out the inlet on a J24 with a small (3.5 hp?) outboard engine for propulsion? I went out Barnegat Inlet on Wednesday and back in Wednesday evening. With an east wind and riding an ebb current, the conditions were fairly rough and I think it would have been easily observed from their location that Townsend Inlet was too rough for their attempt. If they were going out before noon, they probably were near slack tide, but the ocean wasn't calm that day. My location was about 60 miles north but I assume conditions were similar. I can't get over the thought that 10 people on board a small boat with inadequate propulsion in a notoriously rough inlet was irresponsible over-confidence.

Embrace the stereotype? Boat named "What Exit" - William F. Yurasko

What Exit isn't just an unofficial state slogan for New Jersey, it's also the name of a boat docked in Avalon.

www.yurasko.net

 

[dlochner]

10 people on a J24 is simply nuts. Five people on that boat get in each other's way. The kids are the innocent ones, they trusted their instructors who will no doubt have a million excuses about why they weren't at fault. I hope that's the last sailing lesson they get to teach, don't overload a boat.

On another note, the Commodore of the AYC probably came close to a heart attack when he got the call. When I was Commodore of the Oswego Yacht Club, I got one of those calls from the CG. "We just rescued a bunch of kids from your sailing program." And calls from the media about the incident (no one was hurt, the kids handled themselves well and followed their training). Fortunately for the Club, the program involved was run by another (non-defunct) organization.

 

[Richard19068]

Wow! 10 on a J24? What were they thinking?

I thought 10 on the 28 foot power boat that capsized on Lake Tahoe was overloaded!

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Wow! 10 on a J24? What were they thinking?

I'm thinking that familiarity breeds complacency. A racing crew aboard a J24 can be up to 5, I believe, to handle all the sail controls and that boat has gone out the inlet numerous times. I suppose they got used to overloading the boat during benign conditions in protected waters. But heading into the inlet during rough conditions with a simple outboard and 10 persons aboard seems pretty foolish. I agree ... what were they thinking?

 

[shemandr]

I'm thinking that familiarity breeds complacency.

I agree.

 

[Foswick]

I try to avoid armchair debriefing. I only know what I saw in the news video and the news frequently gets the details wrong. So, I want to be careful not to make conclusions.

At face value, 10 people on a J24 is too many. However, I have packed a boat for short instructional trips before - not in those conditions, but I understand the reasoning.

I don't see any evidence to suggest that the instructors will try to avoid responsibility, so I think that is an unfair assumption. We also don't know what they knew or observed prior to the trip. I think we can assume that they had reason to believe this would be OK. It is easy to look at the outcome and assume negligence. But, if the outcome had been uneventful, at most the trip would have garnered a raised eyebrow at the number of people aboard.

What strikes me about the incident is the question of why they did not raise sails when the engine failed - especially since this was presumably an instructional outing. Then, I reviewed the video and it does not appear that a sail is even attached - though it is hard to see clearly. Again, trying to avoid judgment based on limited information, it does make me wonder what the plan was.

I would be curious to know more details before making conclusions such as:

• What was the purpose of the trip?
• Did they have sails? Were they attached? Why didn't they use them?
• What were the ages of the kids? Smaller is more reasonable in terms of physical space, but also more likely to be irresponsible. Not sure if there is a happy intersection where the kids are old enough but small enough for this to make sense.
• What did they know about conditions before going out past the bridge? What could they have known?
• What was their plan for an engine failure? Did they have and use a radio? Did they know help was nearby or did they get lucky?
• How long did they wait to call for rescue? In other words, how long did they try to get the engine started? What I really want to know is if they waited until the situation was desperate because, I would say that at the first signs of engine trouble, with that many kids aboard, the situation was immediately worth a "Pan Pan". Seeing what I believe were lifeguards on PWCs, I am wondering why the rescue was done so close to shore. It makes it appear that rescuers knew about the situation only when it got desperate. But, then again, there is no reason to assume lifeguards would have any awareness of such a radio call.
• Where was the club's rescue boat? If they do instruction, one would think they would have a small power boat for this exact purpose. This might get back to my first question as to the purpose of the trip.

 

[Tally Ho]

And then I heard about this tragedy in Miami Beach…

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/two-children-killed-sailboat-barge-collision-off-miami-beach/

Sailing club out of the Miami Yacht Club.

Very sad.


Greg

 

[kappykaplan]

And then I heard about this tragedy in Miami Beach…

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/two-children-killed-sailboat-barge-collision-off-miami-beach/

Sailing club out of the Miami Yacht Club.

Very sad.


Greg

This made the national news tonight.

 

[FastOlson]

Odd that no sails seen rigged up in the video. I wonder whether they could have quickly deployed an anchor? Maybe just too close to the rip rap and had no time?

(I mention that because it's common for the USGC to request that a boater calling for help -- first have everyone don a PFD, and then put down an anchor, while also dispatching a rescue craft. And it's just as common for the caller to say that they do not have an anchor or cannot find it.
This is often the case for a fishing boat at the often-rough mouth of the Columbia, crazy as it may sound. )

 

[JoeWhite]

Yes, just as mentioned above, why at least the main sail was not put up before they went out to the ocean. This is my training on my C36 before I exit from the marina since engines are not reliable. And why did they not drop the anchor? I can say that they were not prepared to go out for a sail, certainly not with 8 kids. When I take guests of 5 and I do not know where one of them is I am not happy, did he fall overboard?
I blame the instructors, I question their experience.

 

[dlochner]

And why did they not drop the anchor?

There is no anchor locker on a J24, the anchor, if they had one was probably buried down below, by the time it was found and deployed they would have been on the rocks.

Lots of inlets between break walls are pretty narrow, with current and wind there just isn't much time when things go sideways. Depending on conditions, boat traffic, wind, and current inlets can get real nasty with cross chop wake and squirrelly currents. It's not so much what they did or didn't do once in the inlet, the problem is they entered the inlet and were overloaded.

 

[thinwater]

Was the anchor ready to run (there was enough room)? Why not? Engines do fail between jetties (it's happened to me twice in 40 years in conditions like that--one was fuel the other was a floating rope) and there must always be a fast, simple plan in the skippers mind. One time I anchored, the other I sailed out. No harm. But my actions were quick and decisive, because I had a plan.

I can imagine that there simply was not enough room on the boat to do much of anything ... which is inherently irresponsible.