We are all on our own!
Yesterday a cruising acquaintance of ours posted some photos on Facebook of a catamaran that he had come across that had, shortly before then, been dismasted. He wrote on the post that he had contacted the people on board the cat and that they let him know that everyone was OK. He was told that they did not require assistance, and they were making their way to shore under power. A bad situation but good that no one was seriously hurt!
I went on to read a few of the comments on his post and one of them caught my eye. The commenter wrote:
Good reason to sail in groups!!!!!!
I wonder how many people actually believe that?
Not to judge those who prefer to do the buddy boat thing but we have never been part of that crowd. If we have friends traveling in the same direction as us, cool. If not, we sail when and where we wish, and meet up with our friends later on down the road. Or we don’t. Not since our very early days of cruising have we felt that having a boat beside us makes us safer. Could it help to have another vessel nearby to render assistance in the event of an emergency? Of course, but how easy is it for that to occur?
Unless your buddy boat is an exact copy of yours, carrying a similar payload, and with crew of similar sailing skill, the chances are that in a short amount of time, one boat is going to be a significant distance away from the other. The longer the passage, the more this distance will increase. In just a short amount of time you’ll be out of sight of one another, and not long after that, out of VHF radio range. So even if you left at exactly the same time, just how is your buddy boat going to help you?
Some people believe that traveling in a group might even help to prevent the pirate issue that I wrote about. I can’t really guess what the pirates would think about that. Would they avoid a couple of boats in close proximity or would they instead think that they have hit the lottery, that there is more than one vessel to plunder? Assuming the latter, what exactly are you going to do if your buddy boat is being attacked by a group of heavily armed men?
It is a fact that as cruisers, we are all on our own, especially when traveling off the beaten path. Fortunately, most people who have sailed a significant distance to get here already understand that.
Well said, Mike
Thank you, Sir!
Hi Mike, in bear country, it is a well known fact that a .22 caliber pistol can save you from a bear attack. Simply shoot your significant other in the knee and you can make an easy escape. I’m not sure if the same would for a pirate attack but might be worth a try?!?!? 🙂
How true. 🙂
… I mean shoot/disable your buddy boat – not Rebecca!! 🙂
🙂
Definitely always do our own thing, mostly for the same reasons as you have stated, different boats, speeds and performance. Just meet up at the destination eventually or somewhere else down the line. We have seen this with a performance cat and a large heavy mono trying to buddy boat in a day cruising situation. The cat didn’t want to go with wind over 15kn and the mono complained about motoring and rolling all the time, so a waste of time for the mono who was inexperienced. He would have learnt more and had better sails if they had gone in conditions suited to their boat and by themselves.
No doubt.
Agreed, but it’s still prudent to have an idea of who’s also around and keep in touch via SSB nets or email if possible.
This last season crossing the South Pacific, Nirvana Now had a major hull failure about 800 miles from the Galápagos. Via the SSB net they were able to let other boats know of the situation while they kept her afloat but disabled. Some friends on Continuum motorsailed for approximately 40 hrs to windward in quite rough seas to take them off before she sunk.
On many of the sailing routes, you’ll find that a number of cruisers are taking advantage of the same weather ‘windows’ so leave jumping off points close to each other. Yes, even a small speed difference will put you quite a distance apart over a few days, but in a lot of the areas we sail, other cruisers will still be the closest resource in an emergency, so I think it’s prudent to keep in touch if possible both to be able to offer assistance or if we need it. I also think it’s prudent to be as well prepared as possible to handle any situation that comes up on our own.
If help is available, cool. Relying upon outside help is where trouble happens. As I said in the post though, most people who are out here don’t seem to think that way. BoatUS and Seatow are a long way away!
What will the group do when a pirate is sighted? Scatter? Probably. Or do you get drawn into a situation that is even less controlled?
Still, I don’t recall hearing of groups being stopped.
I would either wait until someone sorts out the pirate or take a puddle jumper to Trinidad. I’m good with heights and OK with big waves, but not so much with guns (I had a Klan guy try to explain the way things are to me once, using a gun for emphasis. My sin was promoting a well-qualified black man over him.).
They should scatter, not that running away at 5 knots is going to do much when faced with a pirogue with a 130 HP outboard!