Circumnavigation trip abandoned

[Jaxfishgyd]

How the hell is a boat built for this trip have 'rigging attachments to the yacht were inadequate for ocean sailing


stanleyparis.com
Circumnavigation Abandoned – Heading to Cape Town

The President of the boat designers at Farr Yacht Design, after seeing the photos of the failures and repairs, as well as his recognizing that the design of the rigging attachments to the yacht were inadequate for ocean sailing, emailed me to say:
“I have to say looking through them that I’ve become really concerned. My recommendation is to stop and regroup. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, but I don’t believe that you should continue into the Southern Ocean in this state. I think it would be irresponsible to do it. I think you have too many substantial problems to head into harm’s way. The boom end failure is a substantial one. The jury rigged mainsheet arrangement looks very prone to chafe. That, combined with the jury rigged reefing arrangement, leads me to believe that a substantial failure is possible. If that occurs, you will quickly end up in a loss of mainsail situation. That by itself could quickly lead to a dismasting… I think the widespread failures across so many systems, would have kept a crewed grand prix boat on shore. To have this combination of problems in your injured state is inviting disaster… Please make the prudent decision and stop.”



From Commanders Weather who have been routing me, stated after a comprehensive outline of various strategies:

“I am very sorry, but the safest decision will be to head for Cape Town. And, getting into Cape Town is sometimes not very easy!”



From Cabot Lyman, the owner of Lyman Morse, the builders:

“I am in complete amazement and awe of your accomplishment so far -you have the complete respect of everyone who has any knowledge of this project and the many thousands of miles you have already sailed puts you in the category of the very few. Is it prudent for you to stop in Cape Town. Yes, are we all disappointed – yes – extremely so.



And so I have decided to abandon and head for Cape Town, some 1,700 miles away. To continue in the face of the sage advice above would be foolish in the extreme, and cruel to my wife, family and friends. I must now abandon this dream.
Life is full of disappointments- some big, some small. This is a big one as it involved four years of planning and execution. Made bigger still by the involvement of so many others, designers, builders, family, friends, and through social media, several thousand more, all now disappointed and perhaps relieved that with the mounting difficulties that the only right decision has been made.
I should say I am sorry to disappoint so many. But there is one thing I can say and that is, “I tried,” and that my spirit did not give up until those that I must respect made it clear to me that it was over. My physical condition improves daily and is not part of the decision.
There will be no second attempt. It will be a full year before I could start again and I have asked enough of my wife and family already. The boat will be shipped from Cape Town to Maine, restored with the lessons learned, and be the fast family cruiser for which she was intended.
There will be more blogs. In the meantime, to one and all, thank you for your support. Now, some eight days to Cape Town.

 

[rsmith]

Should have bought a Hatteras!

 

[krush]

The devil is always in the details....

 

[jim rosenthal]

I'm puzzled by this, although I commend his prudence and realistic assessment of his situation. If the boat was built for a circumnavigation, how could the rigging fall so far short of what he needed to be safe and complete his trip? It isn't as if he's the first one to try this, and plenty of other sail boats have circled the globe.

I thought if his trip was not completed it would be because of a collision, illness, or some piece of equipment that he turned out to need and didn't have. I didn't expect this kind of end to the project. A shame, after all his time and effort.

 

[Pascal]

Unlike cruising boats, the designers and builders for these racers always push the envelope, going as light as possible to gain every 1/10 kt... Sometimes they go to light. Not the first time, not the last it happens.

 

[Boatnut]

I don't understand, was he in a race, or trying to set some sort of record. It doesn't seem like the boat would be lightly rigged for a circumnavigation. I'd think quite the opposite would be the case. 1/10 of knot might make a difference in a race, for cruising what difference would it make, you get more to to have a drink before pulling into port.

 

[bhostrawser]

Unlike cruising boats, the designers and builders for these racers always push the envelope, going as light as possible to gain every 1/10 kt... Sometimes they go to light. Not the first time, not the last it happens.

This is very true. What is also true is that there is not a ship built that is infallible, Hatteras or otherwise. The boat, they designed and built is quite high performance, and as Pascal states, that does not leave a lot of room for error. Going for zero footprint with a modern boat is a pretty interesting concept, and it certainly impacted their design decisions. Not just in the lightness of the rigging, but not having a radar to detect oncoming squalls at night.

I've sailed across oceans on boats that were built for doing exactly that. There is still a line which they cannot be pushed past without failure, and though that line is fairly extreme, so is the environment they are in. Knowing exactly where that line is on a custom boat that hasn't had extensive testing and revision at the upper end of its envelope is near impossible. Any mistake, no matter now small, is capable of of having major consequences, and often there is not even a mistake, but a rogue wave, or other turn of fate in which the participants have no control. Such is the life when you venture into the deep.

It is hard to understand exactly what happened here, but in some of his blog entries, it sounded like he was exhausted, and was late in reacting to wind changes, couldn't be predictive about reducing sail area, which over stressed the sails and rigging. The fact that he couldn't muster to take the sail down for several hours after it was shredded, likely exacerbated the problem by oscillating the loads through the rigging. This sounds like the decision making and vessel management of a single-hander who has been out in the blue for many days, who is physically and mentally drained, and lulled into complacency.

I woud be hard pressed to find fault in the vessels design or construction without further detail. I think the President of the Designers at Farr implied, "It wasn't bulit for someone who is going to leave full sails up at night without any way of anticipating oncoming squalls, and it certainly wasn't built to leave shredded sails up there flogging the rigging." He was just being nice about it. I could be wrong, it happens with some frequency. In short, I'm not sure they built the right boat for the crew they had, I guess you could say.