Hi Don,

I've been running boats up and down the East coast now for over 35 years. I hear plenty of 'stuff', and tend to follow this stuff pretty closely (grin)

I'm also blessed with a pretty good memory, at least regarding certain things... Here's a list of abandonments of sailing yachts in proximity to North America, or involving American sailors, that have occurred over approximately the last year to 18 months, just off the top of my head, without any 'research' at all... No doubt I'm omitting some...

Seriously, I doubt cruising boats were "disappearing" at anything remotely close to this rate, a decade or 2 ago:

1 - The 2 boats lost in last fall's SDR Rally, of course

2 - The Swan 46 WOLFHOUND near Bermuda

3 - Your friend's CS 36 abandoned after losing a rudder a few days out of the Cape Verdes...

4 - REBEL HEART

5 - The Gulfstar 50 TRIUMPH, abandoned after the loss of engine, and a single lower shroud, 700 miles E of Cape Cod on passage to the Azores

6 - The Alpha 42 BE GOOD TOO in January

7 - A 40' trimaran off the Texas coast a couple of months ago

8 - That Hunter found abandoned 100 miles off the Gulf Coast, the YouTube video posted here this winter, turned out the crew had been evacuated by the CG earlier

9 - The Pearson 362 RUNNING FREE abandoned enroute to Bermuda and Europe last spring, that eventually fetched up on the beach on Martha's Vineyard

10 - The 32' Aloha abandoned off the Florida Keys during this winter's Polar Vortex, eventually grounded on Singer Island

11 - The 50' Beneteau BLUE PEARL, abandoned after sinking NE of Bermuda 2 weeks ago

12 - 3 European sailors rescued near Sable Island last September on passage to the Azores

13 - The Swedish couple taken off their 32-footer near Bermuda about 6 weeks ago

14 - An AMVER rescue last November after the abandonment of the junk-rigged schooner EASY GO, which departed Nova Scotia bound for the Caribbean

15 - Pretty certain there was at least one abandonment off Oregon/N Calif last fall/winter, can't recall the specifics

16 - Those Polish morons rescued mid-Atlantic attempting to sail from Europe to N America in January 2013, if memory serves

17- Last, but not least, the subject of this thread

For anyone interested in researching the numbers, a good place to begin might be the "News Feed" archives on Sailnet, which currently go back to 2006... Over 15,000 reports of every conceivable incident relating to sailboats, from the sinking of the BOUNTY, to the rescues of people from capsized daysailors on reservoirs in places like South Dakota. If anyone thinks cruising boats have been abandoned over the course of any equivalent prior timeframe, with the frequency we've seen lately, that could be a good place to begin collecting "data", however "anecdotal" it may be... (grin)

Below, RUNNING FREE, abandoned from below the latitude of Bermuda, made it all the way to Martha's Vineyard, all by herself...

best regards,

Jon