Just saw this on the TV News. Tragic. He is OK and looked in good spirits..glad to be alive I guess. He ran aground on the Gt Barrier Island off NZ, on his way to Hawaii it says. 4 am in the morning, he was picked up by a rescue helicopter..which had night vision. It is mid winter here so it would have been very dark and very cold.
They had pictures of the yellow boat with rescue red sails, well reefed down, but on it's side. being washed against the rocks. A gut wrenching sight for a fellow sailor. And after all the effort that had gone into the boat .. and the dream. Charlie was 66.
I will post a link when this comes up on NZ news webites. :'(
Wow Bummer... :( Thanks and keep us informed
Scroll down to my "Small boat long distance NZ" post to get links to Charlie.
darn... How bad is it??? I've been reading his columns in SCA over the last year or so...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4593644a11.html
Here is a link to the story. There may be pics later. It broke about mid day here..and I'm sure will be on our evening news. I will post tomorrow after I have seen the news. Maybe if the boat is high and dry they can salvage her. They said on the TV news that the boat had cost 80,000. I presume $NZ. But that is a heck of a lot considering what you could buy 2nd hand for that. What a hard lesson........
Ian
sad...very sad.Charlie put 3 years of his life into this project. 3 years of hard work building dreams into that boat.It must be devestating.My heart goes out to him. Glad he is OK. Certainly qualifies as a 'small boat/long distance' type guy
Sad to hear that. My prayers go out for Charlie tonight, and in the coming days... I can't imagine what he must be feeling.
Here is his email;
deleted
I just sent him a quick note of support.
It wasn't a good address it came back
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10517875
Here is a link with a picture, and a video. I don't know how long it will be up. Far from being high and dry, the boat is awash and being slammed by breaking surf. I doubt there will be anything left by the end of today.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1865287
This is a link to our TV One, also with a video. Charlie got onto the rocks, and was winched to safety from there.
It got a lot of News coverage , I guess because they had some spectacular footage. Those red sails really stand out.
Hope the videos are still up when you guys get online in the morning. Scary stuff. I'm sure Charlie will write us a report of what happened. And I hope we can learn something .....
Ian
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/423466/1865287
Another video with some different footage. This was the evening news. The other was the afternoon news. I think that Charlie had a storm sail up by the look. Bright red. There has been some pretty wild weather over the last few days. :'(
Here's a pic of his boat w/sails up, from his blog (http://tokyowest.typepad.com/). The red sail was his staysail, apparently, although in the vids it looks like he had a red main, too. Maybe a high-vis storm main?
(http://tokyowest.typepad.com/charlies_blog/images/2008/05/17/dayone1372jpg.jpg)
He said he was asleep, woke up, and the island was right there. I wonder if he'd passed out from exhaustion? Lotta questions!
As I mentioned we have had some BAD weather.. and he would have been taking a beating in that little boat. He must have misjudged how fast wind waves and current were driving him shorewards. He had really not gotten very far from his departure harbour. Tho with GPS you would think he would have known his position. Exhaustion may have been a factor.
I can't resist commenting on the picture above. The Resoluton is in Tauranga Harbour, and that is my mothers home town, and I have spent many holidays there as a kid. My mothers father was the Harbor Board Secretary in the 1930s and my mother says that those trees that you see in the background of the boat ..Norflok Pines alternated with Phoenix Palms... were planted on his instructions. They are a feature of the place now.
The family name is Lowe, and about my only claim to yachting fame is that Colin Lowe is my cousin. Colin built his first yacht , a ferro Hartley, before he was 20 and has sailed the world most of his life since. If any of you have read NZ Boating you will know Colin was a regular contributor. Mostly of the "do it yourself on a shoestring budget" type of article. Someone mentioned his article about converting a plywood sailing dingy into a liferaft in a old thread here. That was classic Colin.
We are having a family reunion in Tauranga soon for the 90th birthday of his father..who has lived there all his life..so Colin and I can yarn about boats and crusing the Pacific Is. Another cousin is wealthy and races a sports sailboat on Auckland Harbour. So he can join in. Have not seen many of my cousins for years. My kids have never met most of them..even tho my son now lives in Tauranga.
It still shatters me to think that that brand new handbuilt yacht is gone so soon....
Ian,
Thanks again for alerting us about Charlie's wreck. It was passed on to other boards also and allowed the sailing community know about it long before the other medias would have picked it up.
Tim
I find it strange that he had the electronics to call for help but did not have an off course alarm. I would like to know if his boat could have sailed into the weather or could have changed course down wind to avoid the reef/island in the conditions that he was in.
Quote from: CapnK on June 23, 2008, 08:56:57 AM
... in the vids it looks like he had a red main, too. Maybe a high-vis storm main?
Looks like a storm jib and trysail set, not his staysail... Storm sails are often built from hi-vis orange sailcloth.
What a sad sight, watching that video of the boat surging against the rocks... it's gotta break any sailor's heart.
Here's Charlie's article (http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/reports/resolution/index.htm) about what happened.
Reading this makes me more then sad, it makes my heart hurt.
QuoteResolution lay low in the water, listed to port, decks white in the early morning light and sails aglow in Storm Orange. At the peak of her mast, the navigation tricolor light still burned. I am a ship, it said. Green to starboard, red to port. I live. I live. I am not dead. I am not . . . .
I am glad you made it, and very sorry Charlie, for your loss.
Thanks for the link to Charlie's account of the wreck. darn shame.
Wow. Ditto what Craig/Faith said, Charlie.
hay did Charlie say how or if he was coming home and start over again? if he is interested, maybe I can find a cheap boat in the boat and we can help him get her fixed up...just a thought. I saw a couple of boats that were actualy free, as long as you paid the fees for getting her registered and in your name.
Bill
maybe we can all chip in and see if we can come up with $2500 for this..(35' Choey lee) ..http://richmond.craigslist.org/boa/731685927.html (http://richmond.craigslist.org/boa/731685927.html)
here is a smaller cheaper and easier to get in to ship shape deal.72 Westerly Cirrus..
http://richmond.craigslist.org/boa/735889571.html (http://richmond.craigslist.org/boa/735889571.html)
or how about this one?
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/for/737639618.html (http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/for/737639618.html)
Edit by CapnK: fixed URL link :)
http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=163&t=0&id=22924
Hate to be such a gloomy poster but here is another sad story, and a little bit about Charlie. I did not know that he had actually turned back.. if the report is correct. This lost yacht was found in the same area that Resolution was lost....but it had drifted there.
I was looking at a really cheap boat http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=162575272 this is on Trademe..the local clone of ebay. Where I buy most of my boats and boating gear.. ;)...and is on the water and probably could be sailed away. I couldn't interest a friend of mine.... ::) Its a typical NZ homebuilt type of boat. Rough and basic.. but CHEAP. It is becoming a buyers market here too as the worldwide recession bites. Every now and then you get this...as with the Craiglist boats...please take this boat away. Wives sometimes get a mention... ;D.. ;D If you are on the spot and can find a place for it.. you have a gift...maybe...
I have a 24ft (1/4 Ton) Pelin Prelude on a huge Tandem trailer..shoal keel...which I bought for $1200NZ. It is a 20 yr old unfinished project of someones...built to the stage of needing painting and fitting. Brand new mast and rigging..no sails. Luckily I have a barn to put it in while I figure out what to do. The trailer is worth what I paid for the whole deal. Selling the mast and the lead would give me a nice profit. But when I think of the work that went into her..2000hrs estimate from the designer...wow... :o
The huge advantage of a boat on a trailer is that there is no ongoing cost.. and worry..cf a boat on a mooring. Pelin was the next designer after Hartley to hit the NZ Homebuild scene. Most of his designs were double diagonal plywood. His launch designs were very popular and still sell well.
I think that Charlie wanted to do a trip that would create a book.. as he is a writer. So the idea of actually BUILDING his own unique boat was part of the story. And the way he did it.. actually casting his own bronze fittings , and lead keel, would give him a unique story. I certainly found it interesting.
http://tokyowest.typepad.com/ We await with interest Charies report.
Actually ..duh.. the Duckworks report is up. http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/reports/resolution/index.htm
Can you tell that Charlie is a writer?... :). I still don't quite get why he ran aground..just a miscalculation I guess. Seems that the boat design was good and was handling things well. Just not enough leeway.
Ian
Quote from: Captain Smollett on June 28, 2008, 10:06:12 PM
Here's Charlie's article (http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/reports/resolution/index.htm) about what happened.
Wow. I hate it when things that go bump in the night turn out to be an island.
Seems like his self steering broke....
Charlie mentioned broken tiller... Did it break after he hit the rocks?
This is just terrible... A friend of mine just lost his boat, on the rocks, through overconfidence and misleading information from the locals.... everyone was awake, nice day, and bang, struck a rock for real....
Charlie seems like a guy that can take it, though.... I am sure this is just a temporary set back for him..
It looks like Charlie Wipple is seriously weighing his options. Build a new (much simpler boat) or buy a small good old boat. It doesn't look like the adventure is over.
Boats he's considering to build: Bolger Seabird '86 (http://ca.geocities.com/nohnpages/), Selway-Fisher Pioneer 23 (http://www.selway-fisher.com/Yacht2024.htm#NEER) or a Benford Sourdough 23 (http://www.benford.us/pdf/TabloidYachts.pdf).
Changed the topic line to mention that this is an old story....it's from 2008 and read "Breaking News."
I noticed this was a very popular topic to be read, especially by guests, and thought it was misleading. Still an interesting account, but no longer "Breaking News."