We ran into a medium size one last weekend.

The ones that scare me are sitting vertically and have a long period where they go below the surface. I figure that could be an issue hitting one of those. But it hasn't happened yet and I just block out the image. I sure don't tell the wife if I see one. But I am thinking of making a watertight door for my forward bulkhead. If only I had some decent woodworking skills and tools it wouldn't be hard to make the forward section water tight.

One thing that worries me about a potential sail to Hawaii is tsunami debris. There's a lot of it out there. I don't figure logs are really an issue once offshore a ways but the tsunami debris is worrying. Some of it like the giant floating cement docks are downright terrifying.

But all that said it doesn't help having more floating stuff abandoned in the ocean. Logs really aren't that big of a deal as long as they don't have iron spikes sticking out of them. At least I haven't sustained any damage yet and have hit some pretty hard, one of them hard enough that we got stuck on top of it.

....

I was thinking about this rich mans toy the 'Gunboat'. Figures it would be called Gunboat and it figures the guys over at SA love them so much. But back to my thought. I'm not buying the claim that the hatches were washed off of this thing by the sea. From the photo it looks like they were removed by someone for salvage. The removal looks far too clean and complete to have been caused by wave action.

I don't really follow the interwebs when it comes to sailing stories but from what Jon said it sounds like they were offshore in mid winter so I'm wondering if this abandonment isn't really user error.

I'm pretty sure there are many boats that sail across oceans for year after year in all kinds of conditions and they don't lose their masts and they don't tip over. Some boats may be Ok for a midwinter ocean sail and some not. From my knowledge over the years catamarans have not proven themselves to be the best vehicle for extreme rough weather sailing. A case in point is that they don't seem to be common among the large number of boats now going to Antarctica.

I loved the promotional remark about how the gunboat (little g from now on) that tipped over was righted again in a few minutes and went back to sailing. Now I don't know if any of you guys watched the video of that thing going over but it was pretty horrific and they are lucky no-one died. From the look of it, it was far from 'a regular thing we do with catamarans'. It was a scene just like that, that caused the death of that sailor in the 'america's cup' (little a for that as well).

It's sort of funny how if you've got enough money and or you race then doing things that are stupid is somehow Ok. Maybe next time they'll blow the mainsheet instead of leaving it sheeted hard , or how about taking down the jenny an putting in a reef?.... but I digress. Flipping a catamaran is only Ok if it's a beach cat or something. Sure I guess if you're the rich owner guy then having crew die in a capsize is just the price you pay for risk and what's more cool than risk (other peoples) when it comes to rich guys?

At some point we're going to have to admit that it's just not Ok to be abandoning a boat at sea and other than a few exceptional circumstances it's almost always bad judgment and/or user error that leads to such a thing. It's also not Ok to sail in a manner that requires chase boats or other members of a racing fleet to avoid dying. If the expectations were a little more like the old days before you could call in a rescue from on high I think people would be more prudent and ultimately better sailors. Sure they may not get there as fast but if getting there fast really matters get a power boat or take a plane.

Anyway, thought you guys might have missed my curmudgeonly rants over here so thought I'd throw one out there for you.

And as always, all chain, guns on board, Fortress anchors rule, and I love the pretty pink puke color of Island Packets.