Bad Juju.

Ouch! That is unfortunate.

Having met some of you and checked out the boats at the West Coast rendezvous, I'm starting to look at candidates to purchase. It is odd to see one of the boats on the market land on the rocks. Thank goodness the skipper was OK and hope they succeed refloating her.

Years ago, a friend was part of the port crew for a trans-pac boat that he needed to move from San Diego to Newport and asked a group of us if we wanted to go along. We left around midnight and motored North with no wind on a dark night. I was up in the cockpit at who knows what hour and pointed out a light that was off the port bow to my friend who immediately turned hard to port 'till the light was on the starboard beam (as I dimly recall) and kept it there. Looking back, having the depth sounder on might have been a good idea! If we didn't whack the breakwater we would have been on the beach!

Dick 

 

Carl,

I meant it in a positive way.  A "gutchy-carbon-fiber French racing yacht" hits the rocks and bursts into a gbillion pieces... conversely, a Westsail 32 ends up on the rocks and merely gets a hole put in it and mast brought down.  Yeah, rock will win (undeniably), but the "burnishing" is that the Westail can/will be repaired, refloated, and rebirthed to sail once again (think of Satori too).  I doubt the new cutting-edge French yacht will sail again.

I love my WS32, and will defend its reputation vehemently.  Mine is another case where even sinking cannot stop her from ever sailing again :)

T.

Tyler & Carl

Just to add my 2 cents;   It appears that it was a navigation issue, not a boat issue.

One thing I do (well suppose to do) is plot my position on the chart from the GPS or from that funny looking thing, every so often (on the hour). This can save you, when there is a question as to which point you are coming to.  One other saying which I have used more than once (When in doubt stay out)  as the night can hide so very much even if you know where you are.

I also think what Carl tried to say, is over confidence (to stout to fail) is a very bad place to be from!
The ocean can kick your a&& if you don't respect it, plan for it and keep track of it.  from my research in 2002 about 1% of the folks out sailing don't come back i.e it is not as safe as I would like and indeed my stout westsail could sink in the right conditions.  I assume most of the boats that sank were caught off guard, or were tired and made a mistake, or were not watching, or had to many things go wrong, or made to many mistakes, or etc. etc.  

And yes I feel Lucky, I have a nice boat (W32) and She has taken me far afield but, I have done my best to predict what is ahead and weather I could make it through, and I have spent much in prep her to go even farther, but just blind trust in her, without being watchful of her, her systems, and the the sea around will most likely not get me to where I want to go.

I do hope the salvage and work goes easy for the Blue Mist

And Jay; thanks for posting the links and video.

ps it is indeed nice to be lucky and it is also very sad to see others who have not.