Category: Safety & SAR

My friend and colleague Charlie Doane has been making the pages of Panbo since at least 2005 (sometimes even comically) and he does seem to get seriously offshore more than any other writer I can think of. But, damn, it’s unexpected to post an image of him being hoisted aboard a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter last week. The abandonment of the very first Alpha 42 catamaran Be Good Too has been covered extensively elsewhere, probably in most accurate detail by Charlie himself, and discussions about the incident rage in various online forums. While I think that chewing over maritime casualties like this is a good thing — even if it does bring out the pedantic ass in some of us — let me also suggest an appropriate course of action for interested bystanders…

I’ll probably always associate Hurricane Sandy and the sinking of the HMS Bounty with last fall’s cruise to the Carolinas and a Fort Lauderdale Show that got a little scary just because Sandy’s eye passed by about 160 miles to the east. Soon after flying from Lauderdale to Gizmo’s super safe location in Myrtle Beach (lucky!), I was adding Bounty comments to an entry about how I’d first spotted the storm on a Furuno TZT. What I didn’t mention then was that I’m one of a cohort that had more reason than most to get cold chills over the sinking of a large traditional sailing vessel, a loss that could have been so much worse if it weren’t for an extraordinary USCG rescue operation. But it’s relevant now because an old square rig shipmate has written a very fine analysis of the disaster and what we can learn from it…