Mee 2
Me not. I’m enjoying this one from a distance.
Quote from another forum: “We just want to be left alone right now to deal with all this and not have to read or be subject to, or of, ill-fitting commentary from bloody strangers.”
Holy crap. Broon in the drink.
Though it does stand to reason that he’d come through that safely.
PostCard
UTC date & Time: 09/05/2010 20:44:00
“WInd S to SW E swell 15kts. Hove to for food and nap”
This is on that website he checks in with. It looks to me like he is still at sea…
where did that rescue quote come from? The same site?
kage, that message is dated three days before his boat went down.
http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2010-05-21&dayid=429
Could be wrong…but this is a fairly reputable yachting magazine/blog.
As for the post card…not sure why you’d be, “hove to”, in 15kts of breeze offshore even for a nap and a meal and that would be 3 days before the 12 of May, eh?
westsail.org/discus/messages … 1274748323
latitude38.com/lectronic/lec … 429#Story2 - he’s second on the list of sunkards that week.
For those not in the know, I sank a boat a few years ago. It’s a pretty traumatic experience and I can understand Broon not wanting to talk about it.
But, as he took great pleasure in telling me, you can’t hide from this sort of thing. If anyone makes contact with the man, tell him I’m waiting to hear the story.
Maybe I should start a “I sank my boat” group on facebook?
How much are tickets to Equador anyway? I haven’t had a good laugh for ages.
Trouble with the self-steering?
Two people on board, and a very slow boat. Take turns sleeping and try to keep moving. Otherwise you’ll never get there… oops!
That’s what I was wondering. 15kts is perfect passage-making weather and those boats track well. Anyhoo, enough commentary from us sitting in armchairs.
I opened this thread in the hopes of seeing him uncorking a bottle of champagne with the Mrs. and palm trees swaying behind…
Damn. :s
Litter bug.
Shitshitshitshit
I have never gone down, but I have come close, and it IS terrifying. I could write all kinds of cliches about it -and they’d all be frighteningly accurate.
My stomach dropping at the scraping of rocks on the keel, the thump and movement to the side when you hit bottom or hit rocks, blood going cold when you realize a list is slightly steeper, prickling fear when the fuel lines clog and a gale is starting to blow making the swells too high for the mast light to be visible to other vessels or the mouse short wave to work, then resorting to sos with the spotlight but shit, the wires have busted off on that last hit we took sideways…
…not being able to swallow because you know that the water is too shallow for your boat, the sickening feeling of watching another boat go down - slowly at first, stopping for awhile, and then the last bit very suddenly, seeing the oil coating everything in the galley of a raised boat, getting a massive adrenaline rush to work at a seemingly hopeless task (working the manual sump pump, bailing water, paddling with half an oar when the engine fails), knowing a tug is going to collide with someone in the wee hours of the morn and not being able to convince them you’re right because you are “just a girl” - then watching it happen.
Counting the lifejackets and passengers on commercial boats instinctively, losing the rescue boat in a storm, finding someone else’s rescue boat in a storm, finding an upside down skiff in a whirlpool, cutting line out of props as the boats drift closer to the rocks, cutting myself out from net knowing my air is limited and reminding myself that to panic - or drop the knife - means death.
The gale we lost 6 halibut boats and a airforce jet in one night. Friends who don’t show up at the floats on schedule.
Sobbing at the mariners memorial park in 'Rupert. Not caring whether tourists saw.
My hands are shaking just from writing this.
I am so glad they got plucked out of the water alive and hopefully not hurt.
Hey Bob, we hope to hear that you’re OK.
In the meantime, from today’s news:
edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/mi … google_cnn
Looks like she may not set the record. Hopefully they’ll find her in time, though.
Here she is in January, leaving Southern Cal.
Three cheers for Captain Bob. He and his mate have fought the good fight and deigned to allow us to share in their great adventure from afar.
Bob, I’d like to donate $100 for Stray Dog II – hopefully the leak-proof version – if you’ll tell me where to send it.
Loretta, you sank someone else’s boat on a pleasure trip to Japan; you had very little invested in it, from what I understand, and lost little more than a few hours’ of drinking. Maybe there was some financial loss to you, too; I don’t know. But Bob has lost everything. That was his retirement, his savings, his whole life. His beloved dog’s ashes, which he carried everywhere, were on that boat, as were many other memories. And he worked pretty much a full year on the vessel, getting everything prepared for that voyage. He can’t sit at home and say “Oh, well”–because the Stray Dog was his home, and it’s now on the ocean floor. He’s lost everything.
I’ve got a sense of humour as raw as anybody’s, but I’m not sure this is an occasion to gloat.
We get smacked down, we get up! Then we get a move on, and rebuild, and start again.
Wouldn’t mind hearing about the building/refurbishing of a Stray Dog II. I’ve got tools, and skills if it’s to be done in this part of the world.
That sucks for Broon. I’m sure there were plenty of flotation devices aboard (was Geraldine used as an inflatable device until help arrived?) and it’s good to hear that he was saved by the US and Belgians! Good thing the Belgians were using the USCG’s AMVER.
I’ve been sailing a lot in a 27’ Catalina recently and it’s a basic but pretty good beginner boat. How reliable is the Westsail? Hope Broon gets over this and finds a new boat. 
Such a great hobby.
There’s no room for gloating or sorrow, either. You play on that field of play, one takes one’s chances. Take the pain.
God moves on the water, after all.
Best of luck in any future attempts in that final frontier. Space be damned, we can’t even master our own!
QFT.