Does this mean that women can't operate boats?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/27/us/women-lost-at-sea-rescued-navy-trnd/index.html

Two women set off for Tahiti and are lost at sea for 5 months because "THEIR ENGINE WAS DAMAGED." Ahh, IT'S A SAILBOAT.

The video shows what appears to be a sailboat that is not sinking, has a standing mast with boom, stays, and shrouds intact. There appears to be a furled sail around the fore stay and a sail on the main boom. Nothing in the video indicates a crippled boat. Even if the rudder had fallen off, they should have been able to rig something.

On top of all that, in this day of advanced technology, they had no reliable means of communication. But, they did have a year's supply of rice, pasta, and oatmeal. Are these two woman a pair of Liberal, hippie idiots out to commune with the universal spirit?

If someone else knows why these two should be allowed to handle anything more complex than a can opener again, I would love to know why they couldn't sail a sailboat.

 

I read that after their motor quit working, they had been trying to sail to shore but were rescued before getting there. LOL

 

They gave up and drifted 5,000 miles to Japan? If they were trying to motor all the way to Tahiti, does that boat carry enough fuel for 2600 miles? Something curious here.

 

I know. It makes no sense. And a years supply of food on a rather smallish sailcraft? Who does that?

 

Intelligent people do. For this, they survived. They had what mattered: a hand operated water distiller and a LOT of lightweight basic foodstuff. That means beans, pasta, oatmeal and rice. Add water and a vitamin pill and you live. We go offshore, usually just for the day or maybe a weekend. If offshore we have enough food aboard for months and distillers JUST IN CASE. Even my little aluminum bass boat that I may take out and run along the shore has enough food, water distiller and survival gear to last a couple weeks - and fishing and spearing gear also for emergency food.

You won't read experiences blue water cruisers sneering like the OPer. Motors are used for the doldrums as sails don't work in dead air - and are used to maintain the bow into the wind in hard seas and winds, though not extremely hard winds and seas. Navigation electronics fails.

While nearly all blue water cruisers carry emergency signal devices originally for downed aircraft, like burglar alarms they are 99+% false alarms and have seriously reduced their value. A thousand rescues a day can't be set out - only to learn all 1000 were a false alarm.

The Coast Guard declared the boat unable to be salvaged, meaning it was damaged. Their account is not unique to them or women. A small group setting out never to be heard from again is not rare. There also is the entire family lost on a sailboat recently, and they were not far offshore.

There also are accounts even of experienced ocean sailors in small boats vanishing and of their going insane and ending their lives from the the demons a person can face in isolation in a storm tossing your boat like a roller coaster day and night. In one instance a solo male sailor cruising literally chained himself to the mast step in the cabin tossing the key outside his reach to prevent himself committing suicide, hoping to be rescued.

Sailing in dead air and sailing in a storm is not possible, though the wind and currents are taking you where ever it takes you.

The article claimed the motor, which would be deep in the hull, was damaged in a storm, which would indicate damage. With an approaching storm they feared it would sink the boat.

Anyone think it is a easy to sail across the Pacific blue water in a small boat should do it and then get back to us. The Pacific has sunk ships, even military ships with no mechanical problems. Its not like sailing across a lake.

 

^^^ Dead-on accurate.

There are many (many) women who sail blue-water vessels across oceans, even solo, and they are just as competent as their male counterparts. These women provisioned correctly for a pacific crossing. That their engine was reportedly disabled in a storm... and that the Navy deemed the vessel unseaworthy suggests that they had a hull breach in the engine room (which is usually behind a watertight bulkhead, else they would have sunk).

I did not read anything in the Navy's account of this that suggests incompetence or failure to provision properly for the passage they were attempting.

 

I heard that, stranded with a years worth of food.... that's the way I want to get stranded

 

There are obvious problems with their plan - all common errors. Their boat is too large. For 2 people, 32 foot is about as large as it should be to be manageable. The boat also appears to not have enough ballast and keel. Most sailboats are NOT made for deep blue water, even if big. A deep blue water cruising sailboat is quite different from lake and coastal boats. Blue water sailboats are heavy, very stoutly built, with significantly larger and heavier keels. Others don't want them because an open ocean cruising sailboat 1.) cost more, 2.) have a deeper draft and 3.) are slower.

Small sailboats are are so wide for their waterline length it is almost like trying to sail a huge round fishing bopper with a sail on it. In hard seas they are tossed like a bopper. They don't particularly like to sail straight. They are extremely SLOW under sail and 4 miles per hour average is typical - remembering the current and wind it likely taking you another direction.

They can't sail without wind - but the current moves them in the current's direction, and in hard winds and seas can only put out a storm anchor (underwater parachute) with usually around 300 feet of heavy line to it - something 90+% of even blue water cruisers don't carry. Without that, in a day the wind, waves and current can push you as much as 300 miles off course, now having to tack against the wind with the wind and current trying to take you their own way. Without a storm anchor the boat can be violently tossed about hour after hour after hour.

There have been occasions were even near shore can be harrowing. On time during the day and less than 10 miles from shore on an island with our 17 foot flat bottom fishing boat the wind really kicked up, causing white caps. We were the only boat still out. 10 miles doesn't seem a challenge, but water was breaking over the bow with each wave, about 7 mph was all I dare do, and if the boat had ever gotten sideways to the waves it would have been flipped. In deeper water, larger boat and bigger waves, it is a real challenge, particularly at night. Get sideways to the waves just once and you're going over. At least well designed sailboats are resistant to capsizing far more than power boats, but you have far less control over a sailboat even it its tiny motor is working. In a powerboat at least you can power to boat well. In sailboat you get what the wind and waves delivery to you.

The last people we know to set out on an extended cruise were basically going to cruise the coast in a million dollar motorsailer. They only made it a few hundred miles before a keel failure force them to give it up. Being near shore they weren't in danger. Had they been deep blue and in a storm and they would not have survived.

I would speculate that of people who set off on a long range blue water sailing cruise on a small boat, 99% never do it again.

Those two women's tale is a success story. Why? They were prepared. They survived.

 

Yes, one article said the motor failed because it was flooded.

 

If you don't sink, have food and water you survive, unless you go insane and end your life. (That is not unheard of. The demons of the deep blue mess with people's heads.)

 

Stupidity comes in two genders and all colors....

 

There are... like... 14 genders, or so I hear.

 

Not sure about that but, one thing I am sure of is that stupidity exists in all of them

 

A lot of sailboats have engines. Look who doesn't know anything about boats.

 

All good points, but this story still seems weird. In the doldrums for 5 straight months? Seems unlikely. Crossing the ocean without an epirb? Or did it malfunction?

 

Agree, though kinda a loner myself, never understood people that go crazy like that

 

Well, at least they lived to hear the insults from a misogynist parading his ignorance.

 

Never go anywhere without a roll or three of baling wire, lot's and lot's of Gorilla tape, an array of zip ties, and the huge zip ties available at HVAC supply houses.

If you can even get a tarp up square rigged fore on a spinnaker pole or boat hooks in fair weather you are going to go slowly somewhere with some control.

 

After reading the story, I am proud of those girls, the dogs and the USA navy

 

I forgot to give a shout out to Taiwanese Fisher men who first tried to help them...thanks

 

Ya, it def looks like they shoulda been able to sail that boat with just a little creativity... I think theres more to their story.

They had what they needed to live, which puts em ahead of most recreational boaters.

I question their skill and problem solving ability, but at the end of the day, they survived a REALLY long time as a result of good planning and forethought. Overall: kudos!

And this is not a gender issue. Plenty of men (and women) have died in their situation.

 

From your own link;

Does that mean men can't read?

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but I was an ordinary seaman on an MSTS freighter for six months during the Vietnam War running supplies into that country and I know a s**tload about sailboats; I used to read about every sailing story I could get my hands on. I even wrote a science fiction story with a twin keel cutter as a main element. My point in this post is that what looks like a competent, fully rigged sailboat in no apparent danger of sinking could not be put under sail for maneuvering but could safely drift for 5 months. People here seem to have the idea that drifting in the middle of the Pacific for 5 months will be totally void of any wind or stress on the hull while hanging a rag and going 2 or 3 knots will drive it to the bottom faster than a submarine with screen doors.

 

It's not my ignorance on parade here, it's your's. Those two appear to be totally incompetent, doing something incredibly beyond their ability, and you get pissed at me for pointing it out. If they had been men, I would have been just as insulting; maybe more so.

 

I see a standing mast and rigging. That means they were capable of something. In past years, i have read accounts of people that had their boats turn turtle and lose all their rigging over the side. They still managed to put up some kind of stick and rag and make it to a port. There is something strange here.