Well this sucks!

Daddyo said:

What the hell are you talking about? What safe haven, what toy boat?

Click to expand...

Safe haven: On 10/29 on the Bounty thread you posted that you were in Boothbay and left there at the same time the Bounty left "[FONT=&quot]She left when we did." [/FONT]

Like it or not, believe it or not, your boat was designed and built as a recreational vessel,it is a toy boat no matter what you are doing with it or would like to believe it is.

We also felt the level of danger was very, very, very unlikely to ever reach life threatening as shore was always reachable in our Boston Whaler. By the time we got her settled in and the wind direction settled into it's final pattern it was too late to leave without undue risk

Click to expand...

Which one, always reachable in your dinghy in weather and seas that made your toy boat untenable, or it was too late to change your mind by the time the storm arrived as predicted?

Our vessel is taller then the water was deep. Our dingy is an unsinkable Boston Whaler. If we were to drift or break free the shore behind us would allowed us to walk off the boat.

Click to expand...

I like the "walk off the boat" line ...

The Bounty was taller than the water was deep too. Reread your own comments about the Bounty captain and his choice to leave Boothbay at the same time you did.

Your tone is getting more belligerent by the entry. Stupid, stunt, Darwin, amateurish, fool, crime, jail are a few of your choices. Your utter disregard for the facts is beyond comprehension considering I have taken the time to type them out for you. I will not respond to your Neanderthal bullying any longer. Your language does not have a place here and I ask that the moderators reconsider your membership.

Click to expand...

Sorry, Daddyo, but compared to that paragraph, my posts are pretty gentle.


You called for jail for the Bounty captain and your own comments regarding that captain who left the same place at the same time you say you did seem a bit hypocritical.

Calling for my membership to be revoked because I point out that praising a dangerous and irresponsible act embarrasses you is an interesting way to silence criticism of a foolish and negligent act that risked not only your own life but your wife and - please tell me you didn't have children on board - whoever was ignorant enough to stay with you.

You have every right to kill yourself however you wish but to lead others into a situation where the outcome is only decided by luck earns only ridicule. It was crass stupidity and by the sound of it, personal deceit. I am sure you have to pretend you knew what you were doing and had even a microscopic degree of control, but now that you spilled the beans and gathered praise from your recreational peers you are forced to defend the indefensible. You got lucky and didn't kill yourself or your family, that's all the good that can be said.

Silencing me doesn't change the facts. Pointing out that you and your "crew" survived an incredibly foolish act is not bullying. Hopefully my comments will give others something to think about.

Just for grins, go back and read the first 20 posts or so of this thread.

Rick,
OK you pulled me back in. I and the Bounty left Boothbay over two weeks before the storm. The Bounty left Connecticut days before the storm, I sought a safe harbor. Let me repeat this as you seem to have difficulty with the printed word. I SOUGHT AND FOUND SAFE HARBOR, THE BOUNTY WENT TO SEA AND PEOPLE DIED. I was in LI Sound almost a full week before the storm. The storms coarse was settled in only a few days before its arrival. At 6.5 knots my safe havens were spots in the sound or the Hudson (worse). As planned there was no sea state so vicious that would have prevented us from staying on top of our boat had she sunk unlike the Bounty. Yes the shore was reachable by dingy in an emergency, not as a pleasant cruise. Yes we could have walked off the beach behind us had she drug. The tide swing here is 8.5' and being deposited on dry land was the worst case (as four boats were).

You nothing of which you speak. I sure hope a owner like you never abandons his vessel near mine during a storm. These are not toys but homes, livelihoods, major investments, dreams fulfilled, lethal objects. My problem with your posts are your inflammatory use of language. I have sighted just a few on my earlier post, you have now added yet more. I called you a Neanderthal in response to your repeated attacks on myself, and my family. Your opinions have value your childish attacks do not.

As a close to this chapter, we are finally able to get fuel this morning and will be transiting the East River to seek a new safe harbor as a nor-easter is on its way for middle of the week. Hopefully yet more damage will be minimal for the residents in these areas. We need to clear the Jersey shore (no refuge, fuel) and the Delaware Bay before it's arrival. As always we can be tracked on marinetraffic.com wherever cell service permits us to transmit an AIS single.
Best!

RickB said:

What kind of "attacks" are you accusing me of making?

Click to expand...

Your posts seem to be only aimed at belittling and criticizing his every decision. You don't seem content with discussion, suggestion or illumination of things that could be learned from or improved. You do seem to be the antagonist in this whole thread.

Daddyo said:

As a close to this chapter, we are finally able to get fuel this morning and will be transiting the East River to seek a new safe harbor as a nor-easter is on its way for middle of the week. Hopefully yet more damage will be minimal for the residents in these areas. We need to clear the Jersey shore (no refuge, fuel) and the Delaware Bay before it's arrival. As always we can be tracked on marinetraffic.com wherever cell service permits us to transmit an AIS single.
Best!

Click to expand...

Daddyo,
This has been an interesting read, I for one think you DID act responsibly in your storm prep. The comparison of your storm and that of the Bounty's... while it was the same storm is so far from the same it is completely different...to be a few yards vs 100's of miles from the beach isn't the same.You planned and chose wisely... the Bounty didn't.
Don't let Rick B get to you... when he gets on his soap box he gets wound pretty tight.
I look on this ordeal a little different as we are sitting a few miles up river from you in Mid Town and have seen a lot of devastation from this storm.... something we never see at home in Washington. To those that say they should of taken shelter on the beach lets not forget that over 100 people died on the beach from this storm.
Seeing what we have and watching the local vs the national news the damage is much more severe than the networks portray.
good luck on your fuel search Daddyo
HOLLYWOOD

It has been stated that Daddyo's presence on the boat made no difference to the outcome. Since the boat stayed put, I guess that is technically correct.

But I ask this with no experience whatsoever in dealing with storms and surges of this magnitude. If the anchor had started to drag, or the chain had broken, or the hardware to which it was secured had broken, what about starting the engines and keeping the boat off the beach with them?

While I suspect the situations are apples and oranges, this is what we did when we were dragging in the wind and waves toward a lee shore early one morning. We started the engines and used them to slow our rearward drift while we got the anchor up, and then motored into deeper water and then ran an oval holding pattern in the bay for several hours until dawn so we could see what the conditions were outside the bay as well as see all the crab pot floats that were outside the entrance to the bay.

If this would have been a viable course of action to take in Daddyo's situation had the boat not stayed put--- and I don't know if using the engines would or wouldn't have been effective in this situation--- it would have been difficult to do if he wasn't on the boat to do it.

Not to derail the conversation, but I have a question about the geography of the Long Island Sound. Are there no small canals, coves, inlets or rivers to utilize during a storm? Our hurricanes come and go but we all find spots to tie up along rivers and bays.

rwidman said:

Securing the boat the best you could and then heading for safe haven on land would have been the prudent thing to do in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Only thing to keep in mind here is that your opinion doesn't mean squat-all to anybody else but you. And the same applies to all the rest of us. Daddyo doesn't care what you would have done in his situation, just as I won't care what someone else might do in some situation I find myself in or what they think later of the decision I made.

You guys keep plowing the same old furrow over and over. The point as I see it is that none of us were there, none of us are Daddyo, all of us have different reasons for doing what we do, we all have different levels of experience, fear, bravery, confidence, whatever, which makes all this Monday-morning quarterbacking totally meaningless except as a vehicle for everybody to say what they would have done and why Daddyo should have done that instead of what he did do.

You say he did the wrong thing. Fine, you're certainly entitled to your opinion and you are certainly entitled to express it here.. And should you find yourself in the same situation you should do what your experience, confidence, fear, bravery, whatever, leads you to do. And the outcome will be what it will be.

But this endless harping on a non-event is ridiculous, I think. Daddyo made what he felt was the right decision, and it turned out to be the right decision for him and his family. What might have happened, what could have happened, has no relevance because it DIDN'T happen. People make these kinds of decisions every day in every kind of situation imaginable. If they didn't, nothing would ever get done. There's risk in crossing the street, there's risk in going to the moon, there's risk in driving to work, there's a risk in flying a plane, there's risk in operating a boat.

And how you assess a risk and what you choose to do about it bears no relevance at all to how I might assess the same risk and what I might choose to do about it.

So everyone is certainly free to continue to rail at Daddyo about what he did or didn't do, but the one thing you might want to keep in mind as you write your criticisms is that NOBODY ELSE CARES, least of all him I'm betting.

I'm starting to get the impression that the folks who are so desperately critical of Daddyo's actions are actually disappointed that his boat didn't blow ashore or break up and kill everybody because at least that would have proved that their own assessment and opinions about the situation were right. Sort of a shame then, I guess, that his decision and actions had the results that they did.

Marin said:

If the anchor had started to drag, or the chain had broken, or the hardware to which it was secured had broken, what about starting the engines and keeping the boat off the beach with them?

Click to expand...

Yes. He could have moved and reset. Thus protecting his property and those of others. He also would have spared us taxpayers, and other insured the expense of removing his boat from the shore. He also spared the environmental impact of the fuel and oil from an up-ended boat.

He was facing a tidal surge and winds. Holding against those would have been much easier with engines at idle.

Again... different decision are made by different people in identical situations. This one worked out just fine. Many folks who lost their trawlers will be wondering if they did the right thing... from shore this summer.

rwidman said:

The danger here is that someone other than Daddyo might read about his survival and dismiss common and good sense when faced with a similar situation on their own.

Click to expand...

If people act on what they read on an Internet forum, particularly with regards to a situation this serious, and blindly follow someone's advice or imitate what someone else did without the intelligence to figure out on their own if it's the best thing for them to do then they deserve whatever happens to them.

Hi again, Daddyo

1950’s, 60’s 70’s - - > Having grown up around/aboard boats, for years working in boatyards with shipwrights, and having many times cruised/visited most parts/numerous harbors along the Atlantic coast from NY to and including Maine... with a couple Nor Easters and two hurricanes under my belt while on board: In my opinion you did exactly correct in your plan and its resulting 100% success for weathering “Sandy”. Those who don’t know what you did nor understand where you were (cause they simply have not been there) and those who want to ridicule you because they just cannot understand/see the complete picture are making fools of themselves in the eyes of we who in times past have actually experienced your recent dilemma. Trust your instincts and already gained knowledge. I believe in your seamanship Daddyo and would be honored to accompany you as ship/boat mate any time!

Art

I'm active in a photography forum, where if you don't want somebodies incessantly negative, combative posts to be a part of your online experience, you can put that individual on "ignore". (Sort of like finally killing that annoying mosquito in your tent at night.) Does this forum have that?



Moderator response:
Yes it does and now would be a great time for a few of our members to use it.

The moderation team has decided that this discussion has run its course. We feel it is now time to close this topic and move on.

Thank you