O/T: Abby Sunderland Rescued!

[J. Clarke]

I guess the US Navy's skills aren't up to that task either then.

But what leads you to believe that the carried $200K worth of navigation equipment.

[J. Clarke]

Why would the "captain of a fishing vessel" be "tangled and drowning in that mess" and what specific "mess" would this be? And would it make a difference if it was the rigging of the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle in which he was "tangled and drowning"? You seem to be arguing against all use of sailing vessels.

[J. Clarke]

Well, wet stainless doesn't handle a lot different from dry stainless and one hopes that she has a few appropriately sized wire rope clips on hand.

As to having a clue where she is, she lost her mast, not her GPS. If you think that GPS needs some kind of mast, you've never actually handled one.

Of course you have examined her at some length on these matters.

Why would a boat with a heavy keel and no mast be "totally capsized"?

Why would she be "separated from the boat"? It has been customery for decades for singlehanders to wear tethers.

What "transponder"? She has not one but two emergency position indicating radio transmitters, neither of which is a "transponder". It would have been quite remarkable for both of them to fail.

[J. Clarke]

Except that a jury rig doesn't involve erecting a 60 foot mast, it involves erecting enough mast to move the boat. It's been done succesefully with a couple of pieces of cut-in-half boom and number three jib rigged so that what is normally the clew was at the head.

You people aren't grasping that what it takes to move the boat and what it takes to achieve high performance are two different things.

[Lew Hodgett]

------------------------------------- Absolutely.

Assuming she could have salvaged the boom, she could have used it to jury rig a mast using lines and winches on board.

With the boom rigged as a mast, hopefully the would have been able to rig a tri-sail as a jib.

Might have been able to maintain 1-3 knots forward motion.

By the time all this was accomplished, SAR would and did resp> Would she cut it

away, or would she use the "aluminum or carbon fiber or unobtainium or whatever else the pieces she has dragging in the water alongside the boat" to rehab/rework the boat into something she could sail, steer and navigate.

--------------------------------------- See above.

----------------------------------------

Cable cutters? I hope so.

Simple hydraulic cutters would do the job.

ENERPAC comes to mind.

Small, light weight, actuated with minimum sourse.

You simply cut away the rigging at the chainplates.

The name of the game it to stay ON the boat.

------------------------------------------------

debris, rigging a mast from broken material and then sailing away to a safe port.

I though he was going to spill his beer he was laughing so hard.

---------------------------------------- That makes two of us. See above.

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to clear the wreckage.

---------------------------------- You gotta be kidding, she is young, not stupid.

-----------------------------------------

"Have you ever even tried to right a tipped boat of any size, Robert?"

----------------------------------------------- No need, hull was already in normal sailing position; however, only had a stump of a mast remaining.

---------------------------------------------

right a 40' boat with a 60' sail on or off it, then reattach a mast of sorts and sail away.

---------------------------------- Sci-Fi at it's best.

----------------------------------- I was thinking.... now THAT would be your book, movie and speaking engagements...

------------------------------------------- No doubt that will happen, so what?

------------------------------------- I can think of a half dozen sailors who have gone before her, all of then older than 16 when their problems developed.

-------------------------------------

The smartest thing she did was call it off and MANUALLY fire off her rescue beacons.

------------------------- Yep.

Lew

[J. Clarke]

So you spilled your beer at your own observation that she could have rigged a jury mast with her boom?

[snotty]

Here's how he summed it up:

?My personal recommendation to people would be to carry one, but I would also caution that it?s not a panacea,? Wheeler said. ?There?s no guarantee that having an MLU is going to lead to a successful resolution of a search.?

Hardly agrees with your nutty assertions.

[salty]

You have read too many adventure novels.

What you are proposing is not in the realm of reality.

[Lobby Dosser]

What "nutty assertions"? Here's what I said re beacons:

"One school thinks they may contribute to more inexperienced and less well equipped people attempting feats they might otherwise think twice about."

Wheeler is of the carry it anyway school.