The November issue of Soundings magazine presents a five page article on the rescue of the Sean Seamour II crew and a section with early findings on the investigation of the ACR EPIRB, unit that not only ceased to function less than two hours after initiation, but its “unique” hexadecimal code had been duplicated into another ACR EPIRB that mislead the US Coast Guard into believing it was a false alert.
This EPIRB section of the article (not presented here) details the early out-of-date findings and interviews that by nature includes substantial errors, since the journalist’s writing the investigation has advanced by leaps and bounds, for the safety of all I will publish these corrections and findings in the near future.
Extracted from Soundings Magazine, November 2008 issue..
The Crew of a 44-foot cutter narrowly survive a knockdown, a 360-degree roll and, ultimately, the loss of their boat in a fierce Atlantic storm..
By Douglas A. Campbell Senior Writer
There was no conversation in the saloon of the 44-foot cutter Sean Seamour II, where the crew had retreated to ride out the huge storm waves one spring night in 2007. A drogue had been deployed on more than 500 feet of line, and a reefed storm jib was keeping the bow pointing downwind.
Outside, the storm howled, and mountains of water loomed 70 feet above the stern. Inside, only Rudy Snel’s voice occasionally broke through the roar, which had become background noise. Wind speeds were consistently reading above 70 knots. The 62-year-old Snel sat at the chart table and let his new friends know whenever there was a gust of more than 80 knots.
Ben Tye, 31, was sitting in the curved settee behind the oval table to port. Jean Pierre de Lutz, 56, the skipper, a citizen of the united States and France who owned the center cockpit Beneteau, was in one of the cushioned seats to starboard. As seas pounded the port bow with frightening frequency, Snel, a retired school teacher, remained at the nav station long enough to announce a high gust of 85.5 knots. Then he went back to the aft stateroom to nap. His rest would be short-lived; the following near-death experience would be anything but../… go to Death’s Door at
http://www.greenboatbateauvert.com/sean-se...s2/deaths-door/ or
http://artseaprovence.blogharbor.com/blog/...17/3934657.html
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