Random Picture Thread

This is exactly what happened to a friend of mine, Jorge L., some years ago.
I was living in Cancún when hurricane Gilbert hit, winds reaching 300 kmh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gilbert)
Jorge prepared his boat for the thing in advance. His boat's mast was too high to bring the boat under bridges into Nichupté lagoon, where other boats protected themselves well into the mangroves. He had a pier in front of his house at the beach, in Bahía de Mujeres, so he decided to moore the boat strongly to the pier and deploy several anchors all around.
At sunset he went inside the boat, start the engine and waited for Gilbert. Hurricane hit with all his might that night, Sept 13th to 14th, 1988. At around 0200 Jorge realized that the biggest problem was not the boat itself, but the pier: It was breaking away into pieces. All the bunch, boat, pier and anchors system were thrown to the beach. So he left the boat and crawled through a lifeline he had deployed from his home to the boat, and was lucky enough to make it.
Jorge and his wife spent the rest of the night in the upper floors of the building as the floor level was being flooded by the sea. Both of them survived.
Next day I went to visit them and found the boat buried in the sand very much the same way the boat in SailDesign's posted photo is.
I've found in internet a photo from a cuban fishing vessel which was anchored at Isla Mujeres and was dragged by the hurricane all bay through well up into the beach at the other side: The house it's sitting by is precisely Jorge's home. His wife got crazy about the captain of the vessel being at the bridge at the same level her bedroom was. He saluted her every morning, as cuban authorities didn't allow the crew to abandon the vessel for several days...!

 

weather pictures from Melbourne and Australia

http://www.stormchasers.au.com/vicimages.htm

 

NOAA Ship Discoverer gets pounded by waves in the Bering Sea. This picture was taken in 1979.Commander Richard Behn, NOAA Corps

 

"This rare photo of a rogue wave was taken by first mate Philippe Lijour aboard the supertanker Esso Languedoc, during a storm off Durban in South Africa in 1980. The mast seen starboard in the photo stands 25 metres above mean sea level. The wave approached the ship from behind before breaking over the deck, but in this case caused only minor damage. The mean wave height at the time was between 5-10 metres."

 

hans77 are u majoring in weather and the end of the world stuff nice

 

If I was in a boat and saw that wave coming at me my first thought would have been "Ohh F--K ".

Mychael

 

Why? hanging on would be more use! a lifejacket in that is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike - your boat is your best lifejacket stay in it!

 

AS in "the captain must go down with his ship" lol.

Mychael

 

From a very sad story.


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

 

Here's the whole series of photos of the sailboat submerged in sand. From what we've learned this happened on Sable Island. If memory serves me correctly it was at the time of "The Perfect Storm".


Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Rick Laporte
Senior Information Strategist
Canadian Coast Guard HQ Ottawa

 

I read a book about that "race". I actually have it in front of me. A Voyage For Madmen by Peter Nichols. Sort of a slow read at first, but I'll never see thoes races in the same light again. That part of the story was sad. Its amazing what some men will do. We all have our limits. Thanks hans!

 

Hey Figgy,
Yeah I read that book too, I couldn't put it down.

It was amazing some of the completely different experiences that the racers had.
I think my favourite was Bernard Moitessuer's- giving up the lead of the race and instant fame to continue sailing on around the world on to tahiti and his family. Apparantly he was about to go round the Horn again, but settled on a nearly 1 2/3rds solo non-stop circumnavigation.
There was also that time off New Zealand when dolphins alerted him that his course had changed and was heading straight into a reef.

A great read.
There are a few more books on that race i wouldn't might checking out.

 

I know its 'writers license' to -- what shall we say--embelish. But I have to admitt to having a bit of trouble with the quotation that I have added above.

So the dolphins told him he was of course,-- Ok Ok they cant talk so they what? sqeeked-- grunted at him and did what? and how did he interpret this as Oh I am of course.

Oh the same as skippy??? ( Ausies only)

I just cant read books --Im sorry. Fantastic pics though Hansp

 

Moitessier's book is one of my favourites too, although I somewhat disagree with you: He got instant fame, anyhow, by doing that....

Very nice and interesting photos, Rick. Thanks for posting them.

 

Ok this is from memory,
maybe Figgy could quote the actual book,

but,
he had his boat sailing on some sort of windvane auto-helm. He went down into the cabin for a while and did not notice that the wind had changed.
He came back up and kept on sailing thinking he was on course to sail south past a big treacherous reef off the south of NZ.

So up comes a big pod of dolphins,
they came up right next to his boat and were all agitated and nervous. They would come up in front of him or beside him and all in formation turn right at the same time. Then they would do it again. This happened for a couple of hours I think (not sure).
Finannly he checked his direction and realised that he was heading straight into the reef. When he adjusted course and turned right away from the reef all the dolphins were imeadiatly happy and playfull, doing flips out the water and stuff. They followed him for a little while like this and then left.

Hardly doing justice to the story.
In the book this was second hand telling also,
He probably told it better or more acurately in his own book.