Bad as it sounds everybody stayed above the water. Right. That is what a
boat is for in simplest terms

On Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 6:30 PM Randy Stafford via CnC-List <
cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote:

> Listers,
>
> Here’s an overdue report on this situation.  Basically a tale of warning
> about what can go wrong offshore, with potentially very serious
> consequences.
>
> By coincidence a few weeks ago I came into contact on Facebook with one of
> Calypso’s crew, a retired pediatrician.  We subsequently spoke on the
> phone, and she documented her experience on her Facebook timeline, which
> I’ll quote below.
>
> Calypso’s owner and captain is a 75-year old man who’d never been
> offshore.  He found passage crew on findacrew.net, and they too had never
> been offshore (and in two cases had little sailing experience).
>
> The boat experienced a sequence of cascading problems on the passage,
> which put it and its crew in a very serious situation: no electricity, no
> engine, low fresh water, and broken forestay many hundreds of miles
> offshore.  The sequence started with problems furling an asym on a top-down
> furler.  That somehow caused problems with the genoa furler too: the genoa
> wouldn’t furl all the way in or out.  That in turn contributed to the
> forestay snapping when the wind picked up.  When that happened, the crew
> lashed the genoa down the length of the side deck, and fouled the prop with
> sheets or lashing lines.  The prop was fouled hard enough, in forward gear,
> that it wasn’t possible to shift to neutral.  So they couldn’t run the
> engine.  So they got down to 4% battery.  They had to shut off all
> electrical loads including radio, radar, GPS/AIS, lights, watermaker, and
> refrigerator.  They had to drift for two days waiting for seas to calm
> enough to dive the prop.  They lost refrigerated food and got down to 11%
> fresh water (with apparently no bottled water aboard).
>
> If they had not been able to get off distress calls on their electronics
> and satellite phone before shutting down, they would have been in serious
> trouble.  Fortunately two other boats received notifications of Calypso’s
> distress and came to assist, accompanying the disabled boat for many days.
> They lent water and fuel, support and advice.  One of those boats was a
> Leopard 40 named Nobody’s Home in the Salty Dogs rally to Antigua, whose
> delivery captain was a man named Vinny, who is a friend of the delivery
> captain Scott of the boat I was on (a Fountaine Pajot Saona 47 named Quite
> The Catch).  We first heard about this whole situation when Vinny texted
> Scott via satphone.
>
> Calypso departed from Hampton, VA on Saturday October 30th (day 1 for
> them) as part of the Salty Dogs rally.  My boat departed Newport, RI on
> Monday November 1st, bound for the USVI (not part of the rally).  Calypso's
> forestay snapped on their day 7 or 8: Saturday November 7th or Sunday
> November 8th.  By that time there was a strong storm happening between the
> east coast and Bermuda, which would slam New England several days later as
> a nor’easter packing hurricane-strength winds. By Friday November 6th Chris
> Parker was advising all boats in the vicinity to get as far south and east
> as possible, as quickly as possible.  At that time, Quite The Catch was
> approaching Bermuda, and we were seeing forecasts of >50kts on PredictWind
> southwest of our position over the next couple days.  So we diverted SE two
> days and 400nm out of our way to avoid that weather.  Calypso probably
> sailed right through it, but the max wind strength they saw (at least,
> while they had instrumentation) was 37 knots.
>
> Calypso was able to compensate for the broken forestay using halyards to
> the bow stem.  They got her prop unfouled and engine started and batteries
> charged.  Then she was able to limp along under reefed main.  Unbelievably,
> despite all that and a subsequently broken autopilot, her captain wanted to
> continue to Antigua and was requesting fuel!  On the evening of Thursday
> November 11th, as navigator on Quite The Catch, I plotted an intercept
> course to backtrack eight hours to Calypso and give her fuel, but we
> decided not to do it.
>
> When Calyspo got far enough south to hit the easterly trade winds, her
> captain wanted to start tacking upwind to Antigua, starting with a NE leg.
> At that point her crew mutinied, and forced the captain to turn towards the
> USVI.  She arrived in St. Thomas on November 15th after 16 days at sea from
> Hampton, VA.  By contrast my boat arrived on November 12th after 12 days at
> sea from Newport, RI (two of which were extra days for weather routing).
>
> Learn what you will from this saga.  Now I will paste the crew member’s
> Facebook postings, in the order in which she posted them.
>
> "Wow! Where to start?? We just spent 16 days at sea and ended up in the US
> Virgin Islands instead of Antigua. Lots of stuff on the boat broke and
> because of it we couldn’t sail east into the wind to get there. We
> anticipate being able to pick up another sailboat from here and continue to
> explore the Caribbean.  Here are some pretty sunrises and sunsets while I
> process how to share this story.”
>
> "Days 3-6: Our trip was supposed to be about 14 days. We should have
> traveled east for the first 5 or so days until we got through the Gulf
> Stream, and then we would head S or SW using the trade winds to arrive in
> Antigua.  It very much didn’t happen that way. First, our Spinnaker (a very
> light, broad sail that sits in the front of the boat and is used in light
> winds), wouldn’t open or close from its wound-up position properly. We
> ended up having to disassemble it and put it away in a bag every day (see
> 5th pic). Even though the bag was clipped to safety lines on the boat, the
> rough weather caused the bag to open and dumped the sail into the ocean.
> Twice, we woke to find the sail floating alongside the boat. Nothing like
> picking up 250 pounds of wet sail out of the ocean while the boat is
> bumping along at 7 knots.”
>
> "Day 7-8: Turns out the the spinnaker problem somehow turned into a jib
> problem. (The lines may have wrapped around it at some point, or something)
> The jib wouldn’t wind itself closed/open properly and the extra stress
> caused the forestay (the forward cable that holds up the mast) to snap. Now
> we were down 2 sails and had minimal support to our mast for our last, the
> main sail - so had to drop our last sail to save the mast. We tied the jib
> to the deck but apparently didn’t secure the lines well enough and they
> (the lines) drifted under the boat and tangled in our prop. No prop —> no
> motor to charge the batteries—> batteries dropped to 4%. Had to retain
> enough power to fire the engine when we eventually unfouled the prop so
> turned off all lights, all radar and radio, the refrigerator (yes, we lost
> most of our food), the desalinator (we were down to 11% water), and we were
> adrift with no power for a night. Luckily, our 2 buddy boats drifted with
> us but I won’t lie, we were scared shi!tless.”
>
> "Day 8-9: As we were praying for our lives we sorta forgot to take
> pictures for the next part of the saga but here’s the gist: As our forestay
> broke and the jib sail was whipping all over the place I was trying to
> figure out how to get help. In my panic, I couldn’t find the number to our
> shore support so I called my dear sister, Stephanie, who couldn’t hear
> anything I was saying on the satellite phone other than “Mayday” so she
> just called the Coast Guard! Then I saw all the SOS buttons on all our
> equipment. Needless to say, both the coast guard and shore support for the
> rally (endless thank yous to Kevin and Glenn) responded with calm guidance
> and the other two boats (mentioned yesterday).
>
> After spending the first night adrift with no lights or battery power (due
> to the lines wrapped around our prop), the next day we were able to slowly
> sail with a heavily reefed main (see video and explanatory note below it)
> and manual steering. The second night, still without power, we blindly
> sailed all night long just following the lights of our buddy boat. On the
> second day, we finally had calm seas and Steve and I went swimming under
> the boat to remove the lines from the prop. Truth be told, Studly Steve
> gets to add that job to his résumé.  With the prop cleared, we were able to
> start the motor, charge the batteries and get underway again, albeit with a
> reefed main sail. But the story isn’t over quite yet…”
>
> "Day 11-16: With a damaged forestay we would probably have to motor more
> than we originally planned. After swimming under the boat, our two buddy
> boats took advantage of the calm day and sent over five 5 gal Jerry cans of
> fuel and two 5 gal bottles of water in a dinghy. As water in our tanks
> got low, we had noticed it was cloudy and there was all kinds of stuff
> floating in it. The three of us quietly kept one of the 5 gal water bottles
> to ourselves and didn’t tell our captain.
>
> After we started up again, we thought we might make it to Antigua after
> all but we had stiff winds and couldn’t sail into them because of the
> damage we had. Then our auto-pilot died and we couldn’t recalibrate it in
> the rough water and the radar which identifies hazards and other ships had
> failed. So when our cap’n suggested sailing north (!!) to get around the
> wind we just about mutinied. We’d survived two weeks without showers, the
> loss of much of our refrigerated/frozen food (shrimp, salmon, chicken,
> lunch meat, milk), the stench of the head, drinking cloudy water, 3 hour
> watches around the clock, not being able to sail at more than 5 knots, and
> being adrift at sea. We had had enough and told him he need to seek the
> nearest landfall. He initially said we’d have to throw him overboard, which
> we considered. Eventually, he came around and the US Virgin Islands here we
> come.”
>
> "Although we had a harrowing experience this hasn’t scared us off of
> sailing. There’s something peaceful about being out there surrounded by
> blue in all directions."
>
> Cheers,
> Randy Stafford
> S/V Grenadine
> C&C 30 MK I #79
> Ken Caryl, CO
>
>
> On Nov 12, 2021, at 11:39 AM, Chuck Gilchrest via CnC-List <
> cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote:
>
> Any thoughts I had about becoming a delivery skipper as a retirement
> “career” have dissolved and disappeared after reading this thread..
> Best of luck Randy on the remainder of the voyage and keeping fingers
> crossed for Calypso.
> Chuck Gilchrest
> Half Magic
> Landfall 35
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Nov 12, 2021, at 1:18 PM, Randal Stafford via CnC-List <
> cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you Dennis and all who replied. I just got a cell signal off
> Tortola, about 25nm ahead.
>
> As of this morning Calypso was some 200nm astern of us; we’re heading 214M
> to the western tip of Jost.  In addition to her previous troubles (broken
> forestay, wrapped prop, etc.) now apparently her autopilot has also
> failed.  But her owner is apparently determined to continue to Antigua, and
> borrow fuel to do so, instead of ducking a closer port for repairs. I
> gather someone dived the prop to clear it.
>
> There was a nasty storm between the Carolina coast and Bermuda last
> weekend. PredictWind showed 50 knots forecast, and by last Friday Chris
> Parker was advising boats to get as far south and east as they could, as
> fast as possible.
>
> I’m crewing the delivery of a Fountaine Pajot Saona 47 from Newport to St.
> Thomas.  We sailed over 300 miles out of our way, almost to the 61st
> meridian, to avoid that storm, adding two days to our trip. And still we
> saw 41-knot gusts last Saturday or Sunday night.  And due to that big low
> pressure system, the wind was out of the south for days instead of the
> usual easterlies, hampering our progress to the Caribbean.
>
> Anyway, I think Calypso was in the darkest red part of that storm and got
> beat up pretty badly.
>
> The delivery captain on my boat, Scott, has a friend Vinny who is
> delivering another boat to Antigua in the Salty Dog Rally, with the owners
> aboard.  They were the closest vessel to Calypso when her distress call
> came in, and went to assist her. Vinny texted Scott about the situation,
> including issues with crew dynamics on Calypso.
>
> Last night we could have diverted six or eight hours to rendezvous with
> Calypso, but didn’t want to give away our fuel to a captain making (in our
> opinion) unreasonable decisions.  So we never met up.
>
> As far as I know, Calypso’s owner is not on this mail list.
>
> Cheers,
> Randy
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Nov 9, 2021, at 3:26 PM, Dennis C. via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com>
> wrote:
>
> 
> Chuck is correct.
>
> I'm assuming that the 121 Calypso is the one making 5 knots trailing the
> fleet.
>
>
> --
> Dennis C.
> Touche' 35-1 #83
> Mandeville, LA
>
> Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with
> the costs involved.  If you want to show your support to the list - use
> PayPal to send contribution --   https://www.paypal.me/stumurray  Thanks
> - Stu

-- 
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Thanks to all of the subscribers that contributed to the list to help with the 
costs involved.  If you want to show your support to the list - use PayPal to 
send contribution --   https://www.paypal.me/stumurray  Thanks - Stu

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