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Monday, August 19, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
New Data? New Hope? ... New Money?
It still stands that the S/V Nina is well overdue and has not been spotted despite search flights both publicly and privately directed.
Catastrophic event: Who knows. There was no debris of any sort and most yacht sinkings gush forth a variety of cushions, pillows and galley debris but the main thing is the location and date of any such event and that is unknowable.
EPIRB: Known to be aboard and known to be of an older model. Did it not get turned on or did it not get removed from its mounting bracket? How difficult would it be to free the EPIRB and activate it if the vessel had capsized or pitch-poled? Crew would know vessel is clearly an object of a search by now and would activate the EPIRB if able. So perhaps the EPIRB was never deployed or perhaps it simply failed to send out a signal for some reason. I believe two of the crew were more vagabonds than sailors did they not know to turn it on prior to deploying it.
Lack of communications: Satphone and Spot beacon each silent.
Type of difficulty: Unknown. Can not allocate any priority amongst: Dismasted, Capsized, Loss of Keel, Collision, Pitch poled, Abandoned. No way to know that if Abandoned, the crew successfully took to the life raft. Its possible to stow the EPIRB in the life raft and then have the life raft ripped away from the crew's desperate grasp.
Location of difficulty: Unknown. Could be immediately after attempting to send final message. Could be several days of bare-poled sailing on last mentioned course.
Primary effect on survivors: Unknown. Could be wind, current, waves, depending on freeboard and drag coefficients.
Significant prior SAR events: NZRCC was unable to track an 11 meter steel-hulled yacht despite such a structure being a prime candidate for both radar and thermal searching. NZRCC does not seem to review AIS data for possible impact nor plot shipping lanes in search area determinations. Drift modeling varies greatly with no model having any particularly history of accuracy.
Costs: Expenditure of funds is always a factor. Many SAR missions are smuggling interdiction flights that would be flown anyway though perhaps with different sensors selected or at different altitudes. Donated funds are assumed to have been donated despite bleak circumstances and so may be spent free of guilt in comparison to other searches.
Catastrophic event: Who knows. There was no debris of any sort and most yacht sinkings gush forth a variety of cushions, pillows and galley debris but the main thing is the location and date of any such event and that is unknowable.
EPIRB: Known to be aboard and known to be of an older model. Did it not get turned on or did it not get removed from its mounting bracket? How difficult would it be to free the EPIRB and activate it if the vessel had capsized or pitch-poled? Crew would know vessel is clearly an object of a search by now and would activate the EPIRB if able. So perhaps the EPIRB was never deployed or perhaps it simply failed to send out a signal for some reason. I believe two of the crew were more vagabonds than sailors did they not know to turn it on prior to deploying it.
Lack of communications: Satphone and Spot beacon each silent.
Type of difficulty: Unknown. Can not allocate any priority amongst: Dismasted, Capsized, Loss of Keel, Collision, Pitch poled, Abandoned. No way to know that if Abandoned, the crew successfully took to the life raft. Its possible to stow the EPIRB in the life raft and then have the life raft ripped away from the crew's desperate grasp.
Location of difficulty: Unknown. Could be immediately after attempting to send final message. Could be several days of bare-poled sailing on last mentioned course.
Primary effect on survivors: Unknown. Could be wind, current, waves, depending on freeboard and drag coefficients.
Significant prior SAR events: NZRCC was unable to track an 11 meter steel-hulled yacht despite such a structure being a prime candidate for both radar and thermal searching. NZRCC does not seem to review AIS data for possible impact nor plot shipping lanes in search area determinations. Drift modeling varies greatly with no model having any particularly history of accuracy.
Costs: Expenditure of funds is always a factor. Many SAR missions are smuggling interdiction flights that would be flown anyway though perhaps with different sensors selected or at different altitudes. Donated funds are assumed to have been donated despite bleak circumstances and so may be spent free of guilt in comparison to other searches.
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