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2013-04-16

Am I missing something?

I don't typically link directly to the websites of others for my posts, but like "Credit Card Captains", this is too good, or perhaps rueful, not to share.

Swan lurk: The boat that couldn't sink could be yours.

This is basically a recapitulation of this. Please read them and evaluate. You may feel pangs of sympathy. Or contempt. Or a frothy mixture of same. Or, like me, you wish you had a buddy with a helicopter, a winch and a harness. That's a cool half-mil of salvage.

Now, I wasn't there, I can't judge...or rather shouldn't, but does it strike the average reader of these delirious missives that the skipper and crew perhaps gave up a little too easily?

The part about the iPad being at 15% power...I nearly spilled my beverage. And yes, I know I'm sounding like Crusty Old Skipper Who Hates Everything, but it has become common for me in recent years to nail jaywalkers while riding my bike on city streets. They emerge from between parked cars with their eyes locked on their texting...I feel I'm doing the species a service with an elbow check or three. I get a similar feeling reading this story. Sailors like this will eventually make seatbelts and airbags mandatory on boats, if that makes sense. I won't even get into the idiot tax of compulsory insurance.

Could they not have...oh, I dunno, sailed due west until they hit Virginia or North Carolina? Was the siren's call too compelling?
Don't sail from home without them. All of them! There be dragons! And sarcasm!


I don't know. I wasn't there. But it reminds me of an increasing trend in cruising, that of calling for rescue from a floating boat capable of sailing, and particularly of this boat.


1 comment:

John Nyc said...

The old rule still stands, you have to walk up to a liferaft, not down.

Many abandoned boats have been found still floating around for many days, if not many months later.