O/T: Abby Sunderland Rescued!

So what leads you to believe that her navigational skills were insufficient to the task of hitting Australia?

No. What was being repaired was the autopilot.

I have no idea whether she knows how to do celestial navigation. It's not really all that hard though. Tania Aebi figured it out as she went, and she started with an almighty lot less experience than Abby Sunderland.

Oh, yeah, right! :(

Call me cynical, but I don't think this girl would have a clue how to even begin to do the first or have any idea how to sail w/o the electronics to tell here where land might even be...

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dpb wrote: ...

And, just to make it clear, no, this old wheat farmer wouldn't have a clue, either, and ain't clamin' would've made it as far as she did, even (but then again, woulda' known better as well).

I just don't think she's ever sailed enough w/o all the modern appurtenances to have a even a ghost of a chance w/o 'em if more than a short distance away from shore what more w/ in a disabled boat...

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Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, you don't know her.

The only "modern appurtenance" she needed and didn't have was a stick of wood.

That's true I don't know her -- what I do know is that she's only 16, not a seasoned sailor w/ 20 years' experience behind her to draw on from which to improvise. I also know she ignored advice to reschedule departure to avoid being where she was this time of year which is notoriously bad weather period for the area.

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Doesn't take 20 years experience, it takes a modicum of mechanical aptitude. And supposedly she has done a good deal of singlehanded ocean sailing prior to this, so she's more "seasoned" than many.

Which reflects on her judgment but not on her ability to tie ropes and cloth to a stick of wood (or aluminum or carbon fiber or unobtainium or whatever else the pieces she has dragging in the water alongside the boat are made of).

----------------------------------------- It is obvious that the "Brain Trust" for this attempt had a strong influence from the "Go Fast", hitech racing crowd.

(Carbon spar, water ballast, etc)

It is also obvious they really didn't understand 12VDCV power systems on an extended voyage sail boat.

IMHO, the decision to use an electronic/electro/hydraulic auto pilot rather than a servo wind vane doomed this project before it ever left the dock.

To keep weight to a minimum, the house bank battery was much to small for the task.

As a result, the recharge rate was less than optimum.

The alternator chosen required a 2 gang set of matched belts to drive it; however, the 18 HP, Yanmar diesel is fitted with only a single groove sheave.

As a result, the alternator "Ate" belts.

(This maybe what Abby's "Engine Trouble" was all about since the

The basic design parameter of a sailboat electrical system is that the house bank must carry the load while cycling between 60% and 90% of capacity.

Some simple rules of wet cell batteries.

For every 100AH consumed, you must replace with 125AH

The sustained average recharge rate of a battery is about 15%.

If you want to recharge at a 60A rate you need 400AH of batteries.

They stopped in Cabo and added some house battery capacity but didn't have a 2 gang sheave machined and installed to solve the belt drive problem.

Machinery and electronics are great things, but on a small sailboat trying to do a non stop around the world passage, electrical and machine devices will bite you in the ass.

At least that was my experience sailing a 30ft boat on the Great Lakes.

Had many machinery malfunctions but never had a piece of line (rope) fail.

Sailing and simplicity go together.

Machinery on a sail boat is a disaster waiting to happen, IMHO.

Lew

Yeah! What luck. What a total surprise. It's not like she didn't have more people than Waldo looking out for her.

nb

One does wish that L. Francis Herreshoff was alive to comment on the current state of the art.

--------------------------------- And maybe even Josh.

Any body got a box of carpet tacks?

Lew

And that includes things such as the olympics. I've seen more than one child's childhood ruined by spending her every free moment training for gymnastics.

Same thing with other sports.

Well, crikey, there's a recommendation! Maybe the next stunter will have no experience sailing ...

$200K worth of equipment.

Correct.

Consider then, Shackleton.

Now picture the captain of the fishing vessel that saved her, tangled and drowning in that mess because some California teen had a 'dream'.

He'd be at the forefront of technolgy, just as he was in his day.

"Lobby Dosser" wrote in news:hv4ogc$3ot$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

'scuse me, what scientific observations or previously unachieved endeavors was Abby aiming for? Other than being the youngest to do something.