Ken Barnes' Account

[Captain Smollett]

I don't think this link has been posted before.  It was posted on 12 Jan.

Barnes' Account

It answered one question I had that I must have missed elsewhere.  He DID scuttle the boat by opening several thru-hulls.  She's gone.   :'(

[Norm]

Hey Captain:
Thanks for the link.  Very interesting and a welcome read.  Sad story.
Norm

[AdriftAtSea]

Thanks for the link.  It would appear that some of the readers of Ken's revised account did not read his logs.  One of the people wrote:

It seems to me that in all respects, Ken acted as one would expect from a competent, well prepared and thoughtful, singlehanding seaman.

Given what I've read on Ken's own website, I don't see this as accurate... but that's just me.

Well after trying for a while, in my muttled condition, to figure out which way to turn the autopilot to head downwind I finally started to get things sorted out, in my head, now for the boat. First of all I knew there was a large low pressure system ahead of me when I went to sleep but I had been watching these lows and they all seemed to pass by rather quickly, usually in about 24 hours so my thinking was this one will pass and I will get in behind it, I thought wrong. This low decided to camp out for 3 days and as I slept I wandered right into it.

With all of the electronics on-board, you'd think that he'd have some decent weather routing software.  And shouldn't turning your boat be almost instinctive by the time you're heading out on a circumnavigation...

The needle on the wind indicator is spinning in circles with the motion of the boat. I need something to tell me the direction the wind is coming from. I take a strip of toilet paper and tear it from 2 ply to 1 then rip that in half long ways to avoid the extra weight. I carefully tie it to the aluminum arch on the stern of the boat and stand back to watch it hang lifeless.

Umm... the wind blowing on your face should tell you which way it is coming from... and toilet paper is hardly the best medium for a telltale...

Some of you are probably wondering what I do all day. My day goes something like this. Assuming I have good weather, I wake at around 5-6 am, check my course, wind speed and position then make coffee. Sit around drinking my coffee and telling myself that this is the day I'm going to clean up the interior of the boat. I then check the computer for the weather information I have asked to be sent to me each day via sail mail which comes to me through the SSB radio and any personal messages. Still assuming good weather I go out on deck and look over the boat to see what problems might have developed overnight and toss overboard all the flying fish and squid that have accumulated on deck. I then promptly forget about cleaning the boat and read all day. I check weather fax reports around 1pm and at 2pm I plot my position. When it gets dark I go below and read some more.

Umm... should he be sleeping five hours at a time at night, in the open ocean, on a boat with no one else keeping watch???  Also, when I'm on my boat, and we're out... I walk around, check the rigging and other gear, organize what I can, clean what I can... I would think that there would be even more of this type of work on a 44' boat... and plotting his position once a day?  Even out at sea, I would think that he should do it more often... 24 hours is a long time to have to wait to catch a navigation screwup...

If I had known that 75 percent of this first pacific leg would have been in winds under 15 kts. and most of that in less than 10 kts.

I believe that a little basic research using pilot books might have revealed this... as would have talking to anyone who has sailed that region...

Having 120 pounds of propane on board and not knowing if any of the propane supply lines had been compromised in the rollover I did not think it wise to pursue attempting to restore power to the autopilot at that time.

Why was this a danger??? Was he sailing in heavy weather with the propane tank valves open?  There is no reason to be sailing in heavy weather with the propane tank valves open, unless you are actually cooking at the time. 

[s/v Faith]

Thanks for the link.  It would appear that some of the readers of Ken's revised account did not read his logs.  One of the people wrote:

It seems to me that in all respects, Ken acted as one would expect from a competent, well prepared and thoughtful, singlehanding seaman.

Given what I've read on Ken's own website, I don't see this as accurate... but that's just me.

Well after trying for a while, in my muttled condition, to figure out which way to turn the autopilot to head downwind I finally started to get things sorted out, in my head, now for the boat. First of all I knew there was a large low pressure system ahead of me when I went to sleep but I had been watching these lows and they all seemed to pass by rather quickly, usually in about 24 hours so my thinking was this one will pass and I will get in behind it, I thought wrong. This low decided to camp out for 3 days and as I slept I wandered right into it.

With all of the electronics on-board, you'd think that he'd have some decent weather routing software.  And shouldn't turning your boat be almost instinctive by the time you're heading out on a circumnavigation...

The needle on the wind indicator is spinning in circles with the motion of the boat. I need something to tell me the direction the wind is coming from. I take a strip of toilet paper and tear it from 2 ply to 1 then rip that in half long ways to avoid the extra weight. I carefully tie it to the aluminum arch on the stern of the boat and stand back to watch it hang lifeless.

Umm... the wind blowing on your face should tell you which way it is coming from... and toilet paper is hardly the best medium for a telltale...

Some of you are probably wondering what I do all day. My day goes something like this. Assuming I have good weather, I wake at around 5-6 am, check my course, wind speed and position then make coffee. Sit around drinking my coffee and telling myself that this is the day I'm going to clean up the interior of the boat. I then check the computer for the weather information I have asked to be sent to me each day via sail mail which comes to me through the SSB radio and any personal messages. Still assuming good weather I go out on deck and look over the boat to see what problems might have developed overnight and toss overboard all the flying fish and squid that have accumulated on deck. I then promptly forget about cleaning the boat and read all day. I check weather fax reports around 1pm and at 2pm I plot my position. When it gets dark I go below and read some more.

Umm... should he be sleeping five hours at a time at night, in the open ocean, on a boat with no one else keeping watch???  Also, when I'm on my boat, and we're out... I walk around, check the rigging and other gear, organize what I can, clean what I can... I would think that there would be even more of this type of work on a 44' boat... and plotting his position once a day?  Even out at sea, I would think that he should do it more often... 24 hours is a long time to have to wait to catch a navigation screwup...

If I had known that 75 percent of this first pacific leg would have been in winds under 15 kts. and most of that in less than 10 kts.

I believe that a little basic research using pilot books might have revealed this... as would have talking to anyone who has sailed that region...

Having 120 pounds of propane on board and not knowing if any of the propane supply lines had been compromised in the rollover I did not think it wise to pursue attempting to restore power to the autopilot at that time.

Why was this a danger??? Was he sailing in heavy weather with the propane tank valves open?  There is no reason to be sailing in heavy weather with the propane tank valves open, unless you are actually cooking at the time. 

Wow, that is alot of criticism.

  I am sure errors were made that are clear in hindsight, even more clear from the comfort of a shore. 

  I believe it is always helpful to try to figure out what went wrong.  Even more helpful when aded by the thoughful analysis provided by the person who was there. 

[AdriftAtSea]

s/v Faith-

While your statement about the hindsight is applicable... some of the points I raised are fairly serious oversights... Also, while it is helpful to look at what went wrong... a lot of my preparation involves looking at what could go wrong and making plans to address it if it happens. 

No one should be sailing in heavy weather, especially short-handed, with open propane tank valves...  The risk of a catastrophic explosion caused by that situation, which Ken was afraid of, was one that is totally avoidable.   

Preparing for a circumnavigation, especially if you're going to go the "I need all the technology I can buy" route, should have at least included one piece of weather routing/forecasting software. 

He says he was receiving the weather information via SSB and even with a system coming in his direction, he was only checking it once a day???? 

He had internet access via satellite phone and two computers on board, five GPS units from what I counted:  Dataline GPS, handheld GPSMap 76 and three backup Garmin handheld GPS units.

He could have gotten near-real-time weather data via his Iridium phone. 

As for the telltales... he has four or five GPS units, radar, two laptop computers, but doesn't install $7.99 telltales (and that's only if you buy them and don't use cassette tape, video tape or dacron yarn) on his boat??? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that cassette tape, video tape, a yarn out of a piece of braided line, or even teflon tape from your toolkit makes for a better telltale than a half-width strip of double-layer toilet paper... and your face can generally tell you where the wind is coming from, if you've been paying attention.

Most of the books I've read, and more importantly, the twenty odd years I've been sailing, has led me to believe that there is generally not enough wind, rather than too much wind.  And that the times there is too much wind, it can easily become way too much wind... Granted, none of my sailing experience is from the south Pacific...but still.

Sleeping through the night single-handing is like asking to win a Darwin Award.  Whenever I'm sleeping aboard my boat, I'm up at least three or four times during the night to check on things.  Six hours is a lot of time for the weather to go bad, and a lot of time for water to be filling up the bilge...a broken through-hull or hose doesn't necessarily make enough noise to wake you... but it could easily fill the bilge with enough water to sink you in six hours.

I guess what really irritated me about Ken and his ordeal was the way he didn't really accept responsibility for what happened... he blamed it on the sea and the wind, rather than a lack of ability, preparation and skill on his own part.  He and his girlfriend also don't seem to understand the risks that the fishing boat that rescued him underwent or the costs to the crew and company that owns the fishing boat incurred.  No one asked him to go and round Cape Horn.

From his own words, the conditions he reported were:

I was sailing in 35-45 kt winds on my starboard quarter on a course just south of east with the center of the low pressure system to my southwest and still aways away. The swells were averaging 20-25 feet and coming from 3 different directions but primarily from the northwest.

Personally, I would consider 35-45 kt winds and confused seas of 20-25 feet, which vastly increases the potential for rogue waves, to at least be serious, if not extreme.  Especially, if you consider that most of the research has stated that a breaking wave of about 50% of the boat LWL is sufficient to capsize the boat, without considering the effects of wind. But in Ken's own words:

Because I was not In what I considered to be extreme conditions, which I would define as exceeding hull speed with no sail up, or even close to it, I wasn't thinking of defensive positions yet, such an steaming a drogue and lying a hull. I was below decks at the time of the roll and can only make assumptions of what actually took place at that time based on what I had seen happening before the roll. The boat was rounded up in a gust of wind and before the autopilot could correct a breaking wave caught me broadside. Individually the wind strength, wave or angle to the sea would not have caused a rollover but all 3 together produced that result.

I don't think it would be all that far-fetched to consider his actions negligent...and contriubtory to the loss of his boat.  A reasonable sailor would probably consider those conditions worthy of at least some safety preparations.  It is also pretty well known that autopilots are not sufficient to the task of steering in conditions like that—large confused seas, yet he went down below and left it to the autopilot, yet blames the conditions for the rollover...

Yes, his boat had some serious damage.  The lack of steering was very critical, as was the broken hatch.  Both of these complicated the fact that he had no rig. 

The steering could have been bypassed with an emergency tiller and disconnecting the wheel itself from the system, either by bypassing the hydraulics or removing the cables.  A tiller probably isn't ideal on a 44' boat, but it is certainly better than no steering at all. If he had an emergency tiller, he made not effort to deploy it, or at least has never mentioned any such efforts in any of the interviews, articles or logs I've heard, read, or seen.

The missing hatch could have been closed off with plywood.  Even on my little boat, i carry some plywood and some extra lexan sheets, just because.  Going to round Cape Horn without any such emergency supplies is foolish.  If he had any materials, including the floorboards from his cabin, that could have been used to close off or reduce the opening of the broken hatch, he made no mention of it anywhere.

From the photos I've seen of his boat, he had a fair amount of mast left to work with towards jury-rigging something.  I understand why he wanted to get off the boat.  Having the boat rolled and dismasted, and having another weather system closing in on him was good reason to get off.  But, like most emergencies, it wasn't a single thing that caused the problems, but a lot of things going wrong all at once.  Each would have been manageable by itself with proper preparation.

I guess another reason I'm ranting, and I do admit to ranting... is that some of my family and friends take his story and say that is why I shouldn't go out singlehanded.  In many ways, singlehanded sailors get tarred with the same brush... the bad misfortune of one gets applied to all.  Other singlehanders have been in worse weather, in boats less seaworthy or capable than his and survived.  Also, the danger he got himself into reflects poorly on the sailors who have done singlehanded voyaging successfully.

[Captain Smollett]

It's my understanding that plotting once per day while blue water saiilng is the norm, and it is usually done sometime around noon (the historical start of the naval day, since that's when a sun shot was taken).

I'd like the opinions of those that have been "out there" on this, though.  Once per day on true open water has been my general plan; have I been wrong to assume this?

[AdriftAtSea]

Capn Smollett-

True, but with five GPS units aboard you'd think he could at least look at one every six hours or so... it doesn't require the effort and work that a sextant site did, and he did have a serious weather system to be keeping track off...

[oded kishony]

I find a discussion of the seamanship mistakes to be very useful. When I used to go sailing with a buddy of mine we relished going out in the foulest weather. Practicing heaving to, reefing sails just learning how to cope with high winds and turpbulent water. I'm more cautious with my family on board but I still like to think and plan for all conditions that we might encounter out there.

One of the stories that confounded me in Barnes's acount is that he describes sailing downwind with the saild 'plastered to the mast.' when he decided to reduce sails. He then says that the mainsail was stuck and he was not able to lower it even  using a downhaul line he'd rigged. After which he describes a harrowing climb up the mast in high winds to pull down the main. In all this account he never mentions that he turned the boat into the wind and heaved to, which would have taken the pressure off his main, allowing him to lower it easily.

Oded

[Ol' Coot]

Disclaimers:

I have done no significant amount of sailing further than the New Jersey shore or Long Island Sound.

I have no "blue water experience" to speak of.

I can't fault Ken Barnes for wanting to make the trip of a lifetime.

I was not there...

That said, I have to agree in spirit with Adrift.  I see either extreme naivte(sp?) or lack of judgement, or lack of planning in almoast everything Barnes has written. 

I would not leave the marina with out knowing that my batteries were secured in place.  I can not imagine being off shore (even coastal sailing) without the ability to seal a broken hatch.   I can't believe he didn't know which way to set his auto-pilot (I have "crib sheets" for quick start/engagement up on all electronics such as AP, LORAN, GPS, VHF procedures for "stress situations").  I can't imagine going offshore for a day or two in his state of un-preparedness. much less trying to round the horn.

Kevin

[sailaway21]

Am I missing something here?  Heading just south of east with wind on starboard quarter would indicate that the low was to the north and slightly west of his location.
Furthermore, there is no excuse, while awake, to not take a fix.  Especially with a plethora of electronic nav gear available.  I just finished the Pardey's Storm Tactics and one of the typhoons they encountered and survived was gotten into by unusual set and drift, which they caught, altered course for, and may have saved their lives as they missed the heart of the storm.  They were tardy in picking this up and were 100 miles north of desired position, but they did pick it up.  Others, without the rigor required of offshore navigation were lost at sea, men and vessel.  You must regularly plot your position as well as the position of significant weather systems around you.  Once a day sounds weak.  And "around you" means 500 miles on out.  Weather systems will commonly be out-running the vessel and, if evasive action is to be taken it must be done days in advance.
His sleeping schedule seems odd-maybe he was sea-sick.  The inability to clean his vessel displays lack of basic seamanship.  A first principle of basic seamanship is that everything is squared away.  Cleaning and securing, down to the level of sanitation, is a priority job.  There may not be time or proper conditions to "do it later".  Delayed sanitation chores put the entire crew at risk to an insidious foe and may incapacitate them at the most inoportune time.
The instrumentation you carry with you is only good if you know how to use it and do use it.  Toilet paper?  I can only assume that at that point the man was seriously dis-oriented.
My response would have been, ok we've lost our mast, steering and stove in a hatch.  Let's get the hatch secured first, if only with a tarpaulin, then set about to regain steerage.  We can be thinking about jury rigs as we're doing this.  Note, I have not gotten to sending a distress signal as yet.  Although he certainly could have radioed in his condition, position, and a stand-by for further updates.  Personally I'm not thinking of abandoning ship until further along as doing so has it's own risks.

The discussion of this is worthy if lessons are learned.  And the lesson is not necessarily that of not single handing, although,  in this case additional crew may have been warranted.

[Captain Smollett]

I just finished the Pardey's Storm Tactics and one of the typhoons they encountered and survived was gotten into by unusual set and drift, which they caught, altered course for, and may have saved their lives as they missed the heart of the storm.  They were tardy in picking this up and were 100 miles north of desired position, but they did pick it up.  Others, without the rigor required of offshore navigation were lost at sea, men and vessel.

And the Pardey's offered that a big part of the loss of Crusader was probably likely due the boat herself being vulnerable - a 50 gallon per day leak and rot in the spreaders.  Fixing their position more precisely likely would not have helped.  Just a thought.

Once a day sounds weak. 

Once per day while at-sea is the norm; for a vessel that travels around 100-120 nm per day, that seems pretty reasonable.  Most hurricanes/typhoons are 2-5 times that in diameter, so it really does not matter if your DR position is off by a few miles.

My response would have been, ok we've lost our mast, steering and stove in a hatch.  Let's get the hatch secured first, if only with a tarpaulin, then set about to regain steerage.  We can be thinking about jury rigs as we're doing this.  Note, I have not gotten to sending a distress signal as yet.  Although he certainly could have radioed in his condition, position, and a stand-by for further updates.  Personally I'm not thinking of abandoning ship until further along as doing so has it's own risks.

Just out of curiosity, have you BEEN in storm conditions at sea?  I have not.  I'd like to think my response is as you've described.

I'm reminded of the phrase "there but for the Grace of G o d go I."

[sailaway21]

Let me first address your once a day positioning question.  Set and drift are much more of an issue on a relatively slow moving sailboat than they are to ships.  As a result, and much to Pardey's dismay, you may think you are making six knots good SE when in fact you may be making two knots east.  It is one thing to be only making 120 miles good for the day's run, quite another to be more or less where you were the day before.  With weather moving in, wouldn't you have rather altered course 18 hours prior rather than finding out your CMG was not what you thought at noon the following day.  With the electronics available, once a watch of four to six hours seems prudent.

Crusader's condition was certainly suspect but may have been irrelevant in 120 kt winds, ie...she would have gone down regardless.  Timely weather updates and reasonable fixing of positioning are always relevant.  The two experiences are revealing.  The Pardey's did most things right and still took a beating, which I am sure they would admit could possibly have been avoided with earlier action.  Crusader apparently did many things wrong and paid the ultimate price.  Had her maintenance been better, had she navigated better, perhaps any of numerous actions might have saved her.  Regardless, we can learn from the incident the value of due diligence in those areas theorized to contribute to her demise.

Yes I have been in numerous typhoons, a few hurricanes, and countless nameless gales that aspired to their status!  I experienced all of them in large ocean-going vessels and have little desire to repeat the experience in any size vessel.  My curiosity has been well sated.  The only relevance my experience brings to bear is that slow moving sailboats must take proper prior action well in advance of weather systems.  Actually I find the Pardey's decision to sail engineless questionable.  And that brings us to the point that planning long precedes the actual voyage.  Selecting a proper vessel may involve issues other than just sturdiness in a seaway.  A lighter, faster vessel may be capable of another 50 miles a day, and this could result in greater safety.  In an age where instant gratification seems possible whether it be cell phones, delivery pizza, or Coast Guard rescue mother nature has not gotten the word.  The offshore mariner is required to conduct risk analysis and plan accordingly long before he sails.  Having sailed, he has few options in rethinking his planning, and has entered the judgement phase of his plans.  EPIRB's and the like are not life-saving gear.  They are distress alert devices.  God willing, the Coast Guard and deep sea mariners are the actual life-savers.  Mr. Barnes did not, to my way of thinking, appreciate this fully.  As a result of his actions he presumed upon unknown mariners to save his hash and fortunately for him his presumptions proved to be sound.  I would not recommend emulating him.  I am sure he is quite a fine chap, who got in over his head, and i am sorry that his name is becoming synonymous with how not to do it.  But then we are human aren't we, and how much do we ever really learn from success?

[Captain Smollett]

Let me first address your once a day positioning question.  Set and drift are much more of an issue on a relatively slow moving sailboat than they are to ships.  As a result, and much to Pardey's dismay, you may think you are making six knots good SE when in fact you may be making two knots east.  It is one thing to be only making 120 miles good for the day's run, quite another to be more or less where you were the day before.  With weather moving in, wouldn't you have rather altered course 18 hours prior rather than finding out your CMG was not what you thought at noon the following day.  With the electronics available, once a watch of four to six hours seems prudent.

I've been giving this some thought for a couple of days.  I'll address what I think are two distinct points from your comment.  Each of my points assumes that you are getting real-time wx info, say from ssb or some other source as well as observing local conditions.

1. How far off course is "relevant" with bad weather coming in.

You make the point that with the set of a strong current, you could be as much as 120 nm off course if you only plot once per day.  True.  I still believe this is small potatoes in the grand scheme of the kind of storm that sank Crusader, and I'll support this belief with three facts. 

First, storm positions are not THAT accurate, and are often 8-12 hours out of date.  Twelve hours for a storm moving 10 kts is 120 nm, but lets say the fix error is 50 miles for the sake of discussion.  Second, the storm's predicted track will have average errors of about 100 miles per day (they can be worse than that; slow moving storms with ill defined steering currents are VERY hard to predict direction).  Third, a cycone's high-wind/rough-sea radius is of the order of 300 miles.  If you put all of these together in a worse-case manner, say 50 miles for the location of the storm, 100 miles on predicted track and let's say 300 miles for storm-force winds, the uncertainty of the location of the dangerous conditions is round 450 miles, or 450% times the worse case error in your position.  With a GPS based fix every 6 hours, you might know YOUR position very precisely, but that really does not mean a whole lot in terms of avoiding bad conditions with a storm lurking "out there."

2. Altering course 18 hours before the storm conditions hit.

Bowditch outlines that if you are within 24 hours of a cylcone, you really cannot sail around it or outrun it.  So, 18 hours is kinda moot by that bit of "conventional wisdom."

Further, given a cyclonic storm moves about 7-20 kts and my boat moves say 6 kts and the track prediction errors and storm radius numbers are so large (compared to the distance I can sail in 18 hours, which is about 108 nm best case), it is completely irrelevant if I alter course 18 hours ahead of a storm bearing down on me.  In the time I can do at most about 100 nm, the storm covers twice (or more) of that; add to that the prediction uncertainty.  If I am that close to begin with, whether I maintain course or try to out maneuver the system, getting "hit" is going to be a matter of luck.

John Vigor commented on this in an interview.  He was asked about the role of boatspeed (modern, faster boats vs. classic slower boats).  He stated that in his opinion this notion of sailing around weather was a myth.  6 vs. 7 kts means only 1 nm per hour of sailing, or in your scenario, 18 nm in 18 hours of sailing.  For a storm with a uncertainty in position of 20-50 nm, an uncertainty in predicted track of about 100 nm and storm-force radius of 120-200 nm, the extra movement of 18 nm in 18 hours is immaterial.

None of this speaks to Barnes prep (or lack thereof).  But I just don't get the criticism of "he should have plotted his position more than once per day."  I don't think that if he HAD plotted every six hours it would have mattered that much.