Cross an ocean in a dinghy?

This sort of thing is why, when asked where I'm going to go in my boat, I answer 'Bruny Island'.

PDW

 

There are no pictures of the epic failures.

They sank to the bottom, nothing remaining, not even the story...

Blub, blub, blub...

 

A great story. Thanks for making it available.

You're a brave man Peter.

 

My favourite is the one about the Kaz II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaz_II

no, storm, no illness, 3 men just disappeared off a perfectly seaworthy boat.

I remember reading once that most sailors bodies found by the US Coast Guard have their fly's unzipped. It took me a while to figure out why.

 

The torn sail was a bit of a puzzle, but the coroner seemed to zero in on the most likely scenarios. Plenty of people have died retrieving fishing lures. The unzipped fly ? Fall overboard taking a leak ?

 

You got it. To have a pee, you have to relax a lot of muscles - on unexpected wave or wind gust, and over you go.

One other story I tried to find but couldn't, a guy turned on the motors of his large powerboat, went up to retrieve the anchor, and fell overboard trying to get it up. He couldn't go to the stern to the boarding ladder because the props were turning, so he swam half a kilometer to a navigation buoy, spent 6 hours freezing has *** off before he got rescued.

 

There is a mistake in thinking that ocean crossing in a ten ft. boat is somehow more simple. I was interested in the Around In Ten race, and spent some time
producing hull designs of all configurations. It became clear early on that it was no easier to product a hull that would fill the design goal at that length than at another. Any savings that might be had were offset by lack of carrying capacity and lack of sailing ability. The exorcize was not completely futile as it generated an Idea for a 10 ft cutter, novel but also not to useful.

As John W. pointed out increase the length to 15', and it starts to become
practical. It would be fun to use John's scamp design to build an offshore class around. It also might be more productive.