Post Mortems
I have no idea what happened. The Spot track is a simple explanation, and simple explanations are often right. If typical two on, two off crew shift, it's less likely both watch crew were asleep. Once my watch crew had fallen asleep on a return, so it can happen, even if a lot less likely during the race with an experienced competent crew.
OK, if asleep, and they also put in a waypoint that went through the north island or entered the north island as a waypoint, that's another possibility. Now we have two compounding errors unusual for an experienced crew.
So now, picture this: assuming all the latter, the Aegean hits the rocks at maybe 7 mph. You walk at 4 mph & run at 9 mph (lots of assumptions). So, one crew in the V berth, feet forward. One 30 feet aft, feet to the hull side. One crew 34 feet aft, aft of the wheel, facing forward. The other crew in the cockpit, facing aft, back against the cockpit 30 feet aft.
You hit a solid wall at 7 mph, as if you were running. If you ran into a tree as you probably did as a kid, you might be knocked out. You might even break something. No doubt, the bow of the boat is busted up, at least three feet. However, the anchor roller, anchor locker and forestay work as an energy absorbing medium.
The conditions are 1-3 knots of wind and 1 knot of southerly current. Modest 2-3 foot shore break.
So, if she T-bones the island. how do three of four crew die from blunt force trauma? I could understand it in a vehicle while being unrestrained in a 30 mph collision if all three were sitting on the front seat. This isn't close. The skipper drowned, but with blunt force complication. Besides, the keel would most likely hit first, thus mitigating the forces on the crew and vessel further.
The debris field was southwest of the Spot impact point by maybe two miles. We were transiting at a very conservative distance as we went through the debris field. Granted that the current runs south, but how did the vessel disintegrate into such small pieces? Where is the keel, rig and engine? You would think that if the surf was large enough, or the forces large enough, to inflict this trauma on a vessel, the investigators would find it because it would be right there.
The chances of hitting something like a 24 foot Panga with a cargo running fast and no lights is a possibility. But where are the bodies or cargo or debris?
What about a tanker running North? You wouldn't expect it to be that close to the islands. However, a dock mate in Ensenada told me they were in about the same location around the same time and had hailed one which did respond to them. We also had an incident on the return around the same area. Figure a tanker running 18 mph and a vessel at 7 mph head on, and the remains of the vessel and crew being dragged the length aft, the scenario sounds more convincing.
I would expect there to be a search for the hard metallic components of Aegean. Short that or a very convincing rationale why, this won't digest well with boaters in the area.
I'm sure everyone involved is working hard with facts rather than assumptions. Hopefully, the results will be of value to us.
For the record, as a young man, I did accident reconstruction if not very sophisticated.
