The Last Storm for "Petit Bleu"

[@lungarotta]

Appena ho visto la barca ho pensato: "troppo piccola per il nord Atlantico", ma poi mi sono ricordato di Trekka con cui John Guzzwell ha fatto il giro del mondo, e poi i coniugi Lin and Larry Pardey... ma erano altri tempi e altre barche, molto più robuste delle barche di oggi e più equilibrate al punto di vista velico. Concordo con te che il danno al timone era con tutta probabilità dovuto al fatto che l'hai spinta troppo, ma in realtà non sappiano, ne io né tu, cosa sarebbe sucesso comunque anche con una gestione più prudente. E la tua diagnosi per il lancio del SOS è esatta e "classica", in questi casi a cedere prima non è quasi mai la barca ma il fisico e la psiche del navigatore. Come non possiamo pretendere nulla di più di quello che la barca può dare, così non possiamo pretendere nulla di più da noi stessi. Quando lo stress supera un certo limite siamo destinati a rinunciare. Proprio per questo diventa importante la scelta della barca giusta, cioè una barca che non solo sia robusta ma che sia anche comoda (con spazio funzionale) e che ci regali navigazioni "lisce" che ci consentono di riposare e anche cucinare. Sonno e cibo sono essenziali per avere resistenza fisica e psichica. Le barche di oggi, veloci e comode in porto, sono stressanti al largo in condizioni meteo estreme e non aiutano il navigante in difficoltà. Comunque tanto di cappello per quello che hai fatto!!!

[@FedericoLucchi]

Analisi perfetta, hai messo in parole i miei pensieri meglio di quello che ho potuto fare! Il scafo era ben disegnato e con un timone più solido avrebbe potuto fare molto. L'interno era accettabile a parte per l'umidità e il manco di "headroom". In futuro vorrei un barca ove posso stare in piedi e sarebbe molto utile una cupola di plexiglas simile a quella di Moitessier, per dare una sbirciata attorno alla barca senza dovere uscire a bagnarsi. Ero partito in mare con questa barca perché l'avevo comprata per quattro soldi, e come al solito mi sono lanciato senza troppo preoccuparmi (può essere un difetto o una qualità, dipende dai casi). Insomma, una bellissima aventura che mi ha insegnato moltissimo!

[@mauriziodalre7360]

@@FedericoLucchiparenti a Bologna??

[@bowman26]

I agree, modern boats are made with more accurate weather forecast at our fingertips than what was available 40 or 50 years ago.

[@TheSlumpen]

A saturday morning with coffe... First watching the rescue from the filmer of the tanker and then seeing this video. At 6:56 there's a rudder at 7:49 it's gone. Amazing, well done and congratulations on getting one more chance on life. You did well!

[@bowman26]

You did some honest soul searching there. Been in a situation not dissimilar, albeit in the English Channel. Decided to run with the wind to ride it out. Scary stuff, must have been exponentially scarier for you being 400NM off shore.

[@FedericoLucchi]

Yes and no. The cape current over there is quite treacherous, so I felt a little better being far from the very choppy seas near the land. However the storm was indeed pushing me further from land, which caused my mistake of trying to sail too close to the wind instead of just running downwind (the latter would have put a lot less stress on the rudder)

[@markthomasson5077]

Thank you for being honest enough to tell your tale. Perhaps next time, make sure you have a drogue and fittings to suit. Read Roger Taylor, MingMing, a 21’ boat, survived a few storms off Greenland

[@FedericoLucchi]

I read all of Moitessier's books, thanks for the suggestions! This adventure definitely taught me more than 1 year of incident-less sailing could have taught me. Next time I'll be sure to set out on a better boat, and better fitted!

[@SailingStardate]

hey mate glad to see you pulled through it. I watched your other video of the rescue. Which way were the winds blowing? If you had elected to go downwind as you said in retrospect would have been better, where would that have pointed you?

[@FedericoLucchi]

The winds were pushing me offshore, basically towards the EU. That's why I was tempted not to do the intelligent thing and just sail downwind. A big mistake, and made me rethink the importance of "survival sailing tactics. Ultimately in difficult conditions the survival of the boat is way more important than adding a few days to your trip...

[@SailingStardate]

@@FedericoLucchi for sure, a tough lesson, but don't beat yourself up too much over it now, hindsight is always 20/20 and fatigue is a major thing with decision making while sailing solo. All the best and thanks again for sharing.

[@Benandlandon]

Absolutely awesome. Very cool. I sail the great lakes on a 26' Mirage. Cheers!

[@Antipodean33]

"very cool" what are you talking about, are you a psychopath

[@FedericoLucchi]

@@Antipodean33 It might sound weird, but it WAS very cool. The storm has been the best hours of my life by far... that is, until the moment the rudder decided to quit

[@leversforever9748]

That look on your face 7:54 says it all, like holy shit I'm in trouble!!!

[@FedericoLucchi]

Absolutely!

[@dabadoo7631]

wow you got the footage back after it got soaked!

[@CondorTheBird]

No, this is a different boat and different storm.

[@FedericoLucchi]

Correct, I brought my phone to a repair shop which was able to download the data.

[@newfiescreech7328]

Simply wow! I'm glad you're telling the tale, hats off to the rescuers. I'm curious what model of boat you were in?

[@newfiescreech7328]

I found it from your other video a sonic 23

[@FedericoLucchi]

@@newfiescreech7328 You were faster than me! Cheers! ;-)

[@mailbagps]

In SSS transpac all racers are required to have a fully independent steering system. It is always possible to steer a boat to some degree with drogues - you gave up too early.

[@FedericoLucchi]

There is ALWAYS a way to go on if you have the energy and motivation. Having a satellite SOS device onboard, it made it a little too easy for me to bail out.

[@thomsonsails]

​@@FedericoLucchi Looks like it would have been safer to stay on the yacht than get to and on the ship ! That looks way sacrier. The yacht looked to be coping ok. I was going to say that I hoped you had scuttled the yacht, but I can see that you would have had no time to go below and cut a hose.

[@GrassBandit]

What sos device did you use?

[@lght5548]

Excellent documentary...as always 👍

[@RokinDokin]

Those are solid 6, maybe 7 winds at the absolute best. Force 9 to 10? Absolutely no chance. That is not at all what 9 or 10 looks like, much less anything higher.

[@FedericoLucchi]

The weather forecast said 9-10, so did the 1st mate of the rescuing vessel. The worst part of the storm isn't on video however because I was too absorbed at the rudder to go down and grab my phone.

[@leecowell8165]

Doesn't surprise me about that rudder! Fin keel NOT a long keel with the rudder mounted to IT rather than a transom only mount. There isn't even a skeg mount for that rudder. This is NOT an offshore boat! Yeah compare this to ANY Cape Dory or even a 20 foot Flicka (both long keeled boats with lead ballast a lot more evenly distributed AND with much less slippage to leeward. Not having better steerage didn't help either with such a prolonged storm situation. The real problem though was a woosy rudder mount. yeah you shoulda been running bare poled (or with a reefed storm jib in those kinda winds) and downwind with a decent vane. Did you recover the boat?

[@FedericoLucchi]

Totally agree, I sailed with what I had, but a full-keeler is obviously way stronger. My point in the video is that the boat was lost because I pushed it way beyond its limits. Had I been more conservative, I'm pretty sure it would have fared well. That little boat was way sturdier than it might seem! Nope, boat was lost. I was picked up in the middle of a storm, in the night, 400 miles off land. I was "allowed" to leave the tanker after 2 weeks. Finding the boat again would have been an absolute miracle. Besides, I left the hatch open so as to allow it to sink ASAP, to avoid some other solo sailor colliding with it.

[@ceirwan]

Properly engineered spade rudders can & do circumnavigate and travel to far flung places. Don't confuse bad engineering with bad design. And when sailing fin keel boats make less leeway than long keel boats, because its a more efficient shape, the only time the long keel boat would make less leeway is when drifting / dead in the water, as it ceases to become an aerofoil & just becomes a barn door. I've owned a few boats now & the only one I had trouble with, was a skeg hung rudder, cracks were forming in the skeg root & needed extensive repair work. Of course this was a weakness in the engineering of the skeg, not the design concept, much like a poorly engineered or poorly maintained spade rudder failing.

[@FedericoLucchi]

@@ceirwan Got it! Thanks for the explanation. I'm not very knowledgeable in boat design, but I came to the conclusion that my boat's rudder was definitely not meant for this. Still, I don't want to simply shift the blame on the equipment (very typical of poor seamanship), I'd rather admit that most fault was actually mine for not sailing my boat the way it should have been sailed.

[@ceirwan]

@@FedericoLucchi Thing is, your boat is quite old. I don't mean that in a bad way, just that it means that stuff that was adequate when new, is probably old, worn and needing inspection now. Cars get inspected yearly, and parts replaced all the time, but sailors very rarely drop and inspect rudders for example, can you imagine driving in a 40 year old car that had never had the suspension checked out? Sure long keels and skeg hung rudders allow you to get away with less maintenance and inspection, but they're also poorly manoeuvrable, slow sailors compared to newer designs. I think your rudder will be more than suitable for offshore work once its been properly repaired to a good standard.

[@SeamusOR]

@@FedericoLucchishowing up on marine traffic ais a few miles off the coast of Guadeloupe. Is that your vessel?

[@jackdbur]

Definitely not the boat to take sailing offshore in the north Atlantic especially without serious fowlweather gear! And into the teeth of a storm!

[@FedericoLucchi]

Totally agree, although my poor storm sailing skills killed the rudder. I think it would have sailed through if sailed downwind, as I should have.

[@sailingAlpa42]

did you loose the ruddrer completly. or it just broke off ?

[@FedericoLucchi]

I was able to recover it, and I might have been able to repair it somehow once the storm passed. I abandoned ship mostly due to fatigue, fear, and not being overly fond of that particular sailboat (I still have marks on my head from all the times I bumped it on the cramped interior). It has been a good lesson, and next time I'll be able to prepare better (my clothing wasn't too well adapted for a storm either), and think it over longer before sending an S.O.S.

[@emmanuelgillabert3341]

Federico, merci pour ces images impressionnantes. Il semblerait que votre safran ait cédé au niveau des ferrures. Merci pour votre modestie, car oui, facile de donner des conseil depuis le canapé du salon. Vous avez fait le mieux que vous pouviez faire dans l'état d'épuisement, de peur, de perte de confiance dans lequel vous vous êtes trouvé. Votre petit bateau a peut être survécu, fait le bouchon, vous avez renoncé à l'accompagner car vous n'en aviez plus la force. Votre vie est sauve, bravo à tous ces marins, belle leçon.

[@the_grand_tourer]

04:25 That's interesting, I was skipping through your video and noticed you didn't have a foresail up, my instant reaction was there'd be far to much weight on the rudder ... bad luck ! (American customs and immigration are monsters, hate dealing with them, in fact I choose not to fly through JFK where they are the worst). Pleased you are safe, I've just enjoyed your trim tab video.

[@themetabaron8722]

Why didn't you fashion a rudder, or drag a bucket, or just adjust your sails instead of abandoning your boat in the ocean? There were SO MANY options for not abandoning your boat if you had been prepared enough both in knowledge and material to make the trip you took.

[@BilobateDrip]

It was a first trip. Live and learn. We're human

[@themetabaron8722]

@@BilobateDrip Crossing the Atlantic as YOUR FIRST TRIP??? You obviously don't appreciate the gravity of open water sailing. Which is why you were so arrogantly ignorant in your lack of preparation and training. I'm not gatekeeping sailing, I share my love of it with everyone. But ignorant people like you often getting killed or endangering people coming to rescue you, make us look bad. You're lucky to be alive, as you lack the most basic sailing knowledge.

[@Avalyera]

@@themetabaron8722 I hope you aren't confusing BilobateDrip for Federico Lucchi, whose video this is. As for Federico, as described in the first minute and a half of the video the goal of the trip does not seem to have been to cross the Atlantic but to sail along the coast. From there, sailing out was driven out of perceived necessity rather than hubris. As for all the other possible solutions to the problem--given that the storm was forecasted to only get worse and that the sailor was already exhausted from more than a day steering the ship, I can't really say I blame him. As a layperson I do not know how well the ship would have weathered the storm without steering, but if there was doubt over whether or not the ship will make it I'd certainly rather call for help too early than too late.

[@FedericoLucchi]

@@themetabaron8722 I wasn't crossing, I was trying to reach South Carolina but was pushed offshore by contrary winds and inexperience.

[@FedericoLucchi]

As Avalyera described perfectly, when you're in the middle of the storm, exhausted and your boat being knocked flat every 15 minutes, if you have an SOS device you're probably gonna give it a go. My boat wasn't particularly dear to me, it wasn't in great condition and I didn't really want to risk my life for it. I thought about repairs, I had the tools, but ultimately I gave up to make sure my wife would see me again.

[@garyczarnecki3971]

Been sea like this 60 Km west Santa Barbara in 25-35 it's NW blow. Sunny and dangerous. Accidentally jibed 4 times in a 14- 18 trough. Lucky for me I was on my trusty ocean machine, a 51 Formosa. Fell off and made for Two Harbours. Just two of us.

[@FedericoLucchi]

I had one accidental jibe during the storm, due to falling asleep at the helm. The boom grazed my head... made me slap my face a few times to make sure it doesn't happen again. Small mistakes can be fatal when sailing solo!