As a general FYI, and related to the marine survival.

As I understand it, the couple were experienced adventurers, and two weeks into a circumnavigation, their 1 year old daughter developed a fever and rash. The daughter did not respond to any of the medications on board, and they used a sat phone to call for help. Sometime between that call and when the medics from the National Guard parachuted on board (Bravo Zulu guys), they lost steering and most of their commuications gear. Guessing from their blog, they were taking a bit of a pounding from the weather. I'm not enough of a sailor to evaluate it. Every evacuated safely to the USS Vandergrift several days later and the boat (Rebel Heart) was scuttled.

http://fox5sandiego.com/local-news/stories/san-diego-family-rescued-at-sea/#axzz2yEFneaK6

http://www.therebelheart.com/blog/

EDIT: I'd be curious to see what they had on board as far as medical and emregency maintenance. It sounds like they were experienced, but experience and competence are not mutually inclusive.

+1 for Iggy. Just how unprepared were these people? Two weeks in and the boat is taking on water, no comms, can't steer and a baby who recently had salmonella. I don't know about y'all, but I remember about zip from when I was 1. Don't recall age of other kid, but what possible benefit could that toddler derive from the trip. Two very selfish and greedy parents.

Kudos to the PJs tho. As usual, they pulled someone's butt out of a fire and made it look easy.

I don't really understand the risks of a voyage like that, and I don't know what the parents have done to prepare for the risks. Maybe the mom is a pediatrician. Maybe they had really bad luck. So I am unable to pass judgment.

There are people who'd tell you you're a fool for: joining the army; going camping; rock climbing; owning a gun; not owning a gun; riding the bicycle; living in the country; living in New York; etc. The list goes on. People are afraid of risks, and different people are afraid of different kinds of risks.

Me, I've sailed small boats on a lake in good weather. I wouldn't go anywhere near open seas.

I thought about it too but on a bigger boat, nothing under 40' (preferably bigger), rigged for short-handed/solo sailing and able to handle heavy seas. A well built and outfitted boat would not be cheap. I wouldn't consider doing this in a boat I can actually afford

As for partaking in such an adventure with children? Nahh, that would not ever a good idea. But who am I to judge?...

Infuriated beyond words when I saw this.

Actions have consequences. In this case, a sick kid (which, statistically speaking, probably wasn't all that sick). Our country is running out of money fast as can be, and we have to divert an entire frigate (which, BTW, don't have physicians!) to rescue them?? Hope they get a fat bill from Uncle Sam.

CPS needs to be called when they get back to California.

I'm all for family trips, and that seems like a really cool one, but wait til the kid isn't going to fall overboard every time you turn your back.

It's done all the time just fine. No reason for it to be a problem.

There is a subtle difference between "experienced" and "nothing went wrong last time I tried it", and I wonder which side of the line these people were on? Where were their spares, and why didn't they fix the equipment that broke?

Abby Sunderland, 16 y/o girl who tried an around-the-world trip a few year ago, had spares for everything that broke on her trip except the mast, and was able to fix every other failure except the autopilot (and after returning to Cape Town none of the adults were able to fix it or the backup either). In other words, she trained and equipped for the kind of trip she was likely to experience - what kind of trip did this family plan for?

PS. The fact that they used a satellite phone and not a 406 beacon says a lot right there.

The Eric Kaufman in the story was a licensed captain and his boat was equipped with a distress beacon.
His daughter got sick and he phoned for help. In this case the sat phone really does make more sense than using the beacon.

Kids get sick, that is a fact of life no matter where you are.
Although from reading their blogs there might have been some sanitation issues because of diapers being washed and reused there is really no way to know if that was a factor in the illness.
They seem to have been living on their boat since 2007 and they had already been sailing on this trip for one year before their daughter got sick

He decided to evacuate his vessel and scuttle it when his wife and daughters were aboard the rescue ship.

It does not sound like there was a lack of preparedness there. He seems to have been quite handy at doing the repairs that needed to be done. .
Everybody survived, the rescue expense was relatively small.

It turns out that he has a USCG 100 Ton license. Prior to starting on their circumnavigation he worked as a "delivery skipper", which means people paid him to move their expensive boats up and down the west coast. He seems highly experienced. They apparently sold everything and invested in a decent used boat during the downturn, when prices were low. The boat was their home.

Long distance cruising is actually generally a fairly safe activity. Lots of people do it. Quite a few of them do it with young children aboard. It is only when something bad like this happens that it makes the news. I suspect they just got caught by a string of bad luck. It is easy to ask, sitting shore side "...why didn't they fix the equipment that broke?", but in bad weather it can be very difficult to impossible at sea, even when you have the spares. Given half a break with the weather he probably could have fixed it and we wouldn't be having this thread.

So far the only real information is what has been in the mainstream press. I think we all know how accurate that is likely to be? Until we get a lot more info, I think people are going a bit over the top in condemning these people.

Thanks AKSAR for your reply before I jumped in on the bandwagon. Around the world voyaging is done all the time with small kids (some born enroute). The boat they owned is a capable world cruiser and has done it plenty of times. 36 feet is not TOO small and some cruisers would say that it it too big (Google Lynn and Larry Pardy). The boat has to be the right size for you, but not too big to handle single handed. It did look from the pictures as though it was rigged properly (and should be for a two person crew). The sat phone was the proper response since they (in all likelihood) were talking to an MD stateside for remote assistance, not making a MADAY call. Things can and do spiral out of control. As for scuttling the boat, remember they just lost everything, nobody tows from 900 miles out, and it would have been a hazard to navigation. Correct, but very hard call to make.

Regards,
Bill

Oh, yeah, my two hour commute up I 95 here in northern VA was a hell of a lot more dangerous than what they were doing. That sail to the Marquesas is normally a quiet, 30 day, downwind easy ride.

Cloth diapers can be washed and reused safely, almost indefinitely. We cloth diapered our three kids. Unless they did something pretty foolish with how they were washed, I doubt cloth diapering could have had any negative impact on the child's well-being.

+1 AKSAR

I have not read anything yet to make me think these parents were negligent or reckless.

you have a one year old - that's endangerment. They can't walk without falling on level, stable ground. A rocking boat that typically has only guy lines on the edges isn't exactly a safe environment for them. Anyone that's watched a kid that young could tell you how fast they move or roll or fall. Even worse would be if they were confining the kid to the interior only.

I could care less if the kid was, say, 5.

As for reckless .... arguable. If the only experience they have is running ships up and down the coast doing deliveries, I'd be tempted to say they aren't experienced enough for the open ocean. Book smarts and passing USCG tests doesn't make you a master sailor. It just makes you a qualified one.

Do you know how their boat was set up? Would you know a properly set up boat if you saw it? (Hint: they aren't called "guy lines", the proper term is "life lines".)

People I've known who have taken kids sailing almost invariably rig extra netting inside the life lines to insure the kid doesn't fall overboard. They keep also keep the kid in a PFD with a tether when in the cockpit. To just assume that taking a one year old on a sailboat is automatically "endangerment" is bullsh*t.


Again, I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about regarding what is involved delivering small boats offshore up and down the west coast, let alone the license requirements for a 100 Ton captain:
From: http://maritimeinstitute.com/license_requirements.html

Similiar experience here. I've never sailed anything bigger then a J/24, I've never gone outside of the harbor, and I've only sailed in whitecaps once (Victory 21 under main only).

It sounds like there are a couple of people here with blue water experience, so I'm going to defer to them on what is/is not prudent.

My experience is limited to 34' daysailing -- nice pleasant days and nothing close to the sea state described in the article. For me (not necessarily for this family) I'd like a bigger boat; hull speed generally increases with waterline length and they are usually more comfortable (in general, many parameters go towards calculating "comfort"). That said, smaller boats are easier to sail so it's a trade-off. Many boats smaller than Rebel Heart have sailed in the shorthand Transpac races between the West Coast and Hawaii, so 34' is not too small to go off-shore, but not with me. In the 2008 Transpac a Cal 20 finished but an Open 60 won.

This year's racers include 11 boats 30' and less. But that to me would not be a pleasant sailing experience. I s'pose it goes back to a time when ships were wood and men were steel.

I won't speak re taking children sailing other than to say ... nothing really comes to mind. I wouldn't take kids, but I don't have kids so that's why I can say that.

One of these years I may start looking at boats seriously again and when I do it will be with shorthanded sailing in mind. Right now it's not on the horizon.

So you're proposing to either A) tether a child, or B) wrap them in a life vest for a multi-month journey? I don't care how much netting you have, it's still a dangerous environment. How many sailors do the USCG and USN lose annually? They're adults, professional sailors, in relatively stable vessels.

I've sailed on several vessels on day trips and multi-day trips. Yes, I'm aware of the difference between guy and life lines. No, my experiences weren't including rough weather.
Edit: I see where I wrote "guy lines," and you're correct, I used the wrong terminology. Mea culpa.

As for the requirements, I have a cousin that has the same license. We spoke about it on a few occasions, so I know, roughly, what it entails. Like I said though, near-shore isn't the same as open-water experience. For example, most folks aren't going to try and weather a hurricane 10 miles off the coast, whereas they probably won't have a choice in the ocean. Ergo, they won't have experience in that environment.

Were this actually a hard problem we'd be hearing constant reports of kids overboard. And yet we don't. The problem clearly needs attention but past results show it's not insolvable.


Part of Abby Sunderland's 3-year training for her trip was disassembling and fixing each major piece of equipment, or installing a spare, at sea and in bad weather. Bad weather is part of an around-the-world trip, not a surprise part. That was what I meant: if you're going to undertake certain activities you've got to prepare to deal with even the difficult scenarios.

As for a 406 beacon vs. satellite phone, what do you do with a sat phone? Ask someone back home to dial 911? Even if I had a sat phone link and a doctor said we'd have to evac the kid I'd use the 406 beacon so that all SAR teams got the right assignments, etc, and for the beacon's homing signal.

Apparently with a satellite phone you can report the conditions to the Coast Guard so Navy, Air National Guard, and Medical teams can be dispatched to your actual location with what is needed, which is exactly what Eric Kaufman did.

Beacons do have uses, but in this case the phone was the better tool.

Also steering on a sailing vessel can be accomplished even without a rudder, so I am not sure how much trouble he was actually in regarding the soundness of his vessel.

Just a historical footnote. In the late nineteenth century, it was not at all unusual for sailing captains to voyage with their families aboard, including very young children. I interviewed a lady who had spent her early years aboard her father's lumber schooner.

As I understand it, the trickiest parts of any voyage are those around land - reefs and shoals, and all of that. Once you are well away, your priorities change and you can relax to some degree. Coastal voyages aren't trivial and there are shipwrecks aplenty to prove it.

MDinana,
You might want to read Raising a Child Dangerously: Adventure s... how to parent.

It is a frank discussion of the pros and cons, risks and rewards, of taking children on long sailing voyages. Also some info about how many people are actually doing it (quite a few, it seems).

Yet it remains true that there are problems at sea that even Abby might not be able to fix, superwomen though she may be. Likewise, it is simply not possible to carry spares on a 36 ftoot boat for every possible thing that might break.

In any case, at this point we don't know anything about what issues the boat had, other than what little has been said in the mainstream media (who almost always get things wrong). Hence it is rather pointless to speculate whether the captain could or could not have fixed it. Or, whether in the same situation Abby might have been able to do better.

You apparently don't grasp the advantages of having a sat phone in this kind of situation. No, you would not want to "Ask someone back home to dial 911?" You would call the appropriate U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centers (RCC). In this case that would be RCC Alameda at (510)437-3700. The RCCs are responsible for coordinating all marine rescue activities in their assigned regions. If you read the accounts of the Rebel Heart rescue closely, you would have noted that the agencies credited with the rescue were the California ANG PJs, the US Navy ship, and the USCG. The Alameda RCC undoubtedly coordinated the whole show.

Note: for Canadian RCCs, see Canadian Coast Guard Rescue Centres. If you mistakenly call the wrong RCC (US or Canadian), don't worry. They work closely together, and will make sure your distress message goes to the most appropriate assets. Likewise for other international areas.

Sat phones and EPIRBs each have their advantages, and are highly complimentary. The advantage of the EPIRB is it's simplicity. In an emergency you just activate it and in continuously sends out a distress message with your position and vessel identification. The simplicity is also it's disadvantage, in that there is no other info regarding the nature of your emergency.

The huge advantage of a sat phone is that it allows two way communication. You can explain your problem in detail, which can greatly aid whoever the RCC assigns to help you.

In a medical emergency such as this, with a sat phone you can talk to an MD ashore, who may be able to advise you of the best way to deal with the illness or injury. They may even be able to help you sort out whether it is really an emergency at all. There have been many instances of dangerous, complex, and expensive rescues launched for what turned out to be non-emergency medical situations.

In non medical situations, a sat phone can enable you to communicate the severity of your emergency. Do you need help right this instant? Or are things stable enough to wait until daylight or better weather, when the rescue will be much safer for all concerned?

An EPIRB is all or nothing. A sat phone allows nuance. Smart sailors carry both.

Someone once said "It isn't so much the ocean that is dangerous...rather it's all the hard bits around the edges!"

Lost shipping containers are becoming a bit of an offshore hazard.
Some of them can float for a long time and can be hard to see.
You really don't want to sink your boat hitting a huge steel box with sharp corners which is drifting in the ocean.

Edit
Sorry, I went slightly offthread here.

Several years ago I was helping a friend move his newly purchased sailboat from the Boston area to Newport RI. Its not an off-shore trip by any means; mainly a coastal adventure. Despite this fact, we had weather early on and my friend got seasick and was useless for the first day. Second day he recovered but the engine on the sailboat crapped out and - of course - there was no wind so we were drifting and dreaming for almost a full day. Stayed over a night to get the engine fixed and now on day 4 we made an approach to Newport. In an attempt to shave some minutes - minutes not hours - my friend - who - by the way - was a decent sailor and navigator and was familiar with the area - "cut the buoys" that mark the Brenton Reef off Newport. In any case, as we were sailing thru "the dumplings" and I could see the jagged rocks just below the surface of the water I thought to myself... I can teach someone just about anything except GOOD JUDGEMENT ...

It's curious that we so quickly began to blame or defend the parties in the disaster even without all the facts. Why is that? Is it because we think they've wasted our tax dollars? they were bad parents?

I suppose one issue here is different levels of acceptable risk. Some people wouldn't take a baby on a long boat trip. Some people wouldn't take a baby on a boat. Some people wouldn't get on a boat. I know one person who refuses to drive because it's too scary and dangerous. Where do we draw the line?

The story seems to have faded from the public view. The PJs who actually did the rescue held a press conference. It is available on-line at Video: Guardian Angels from the Rebel Heart Search. It has recieved surprisingly little attention. Probably because it does not reinforce the "call CPS" meme.

It is interesting to listen to the whole thing. The PJs, flight crew and consulting physician are overall quite complimentary regarding the family and their preps for the voyage. The press often seem to be asking leading questions, looking for some dirt. They don't get any. Perhaps that is why press conference has not been more publicized, and the whole story has faded?

The rescue crew also make the point that they use these missions as training for their real role, which is combat SAR. One makes the point that they would spend the same budget if they were doing training missions in Monteray Bay. They also note that this is not the furthest out to sea that they have rescued people. But the other cases have been mostly foreign sailors off of large ships. One comments that "it is nice to rescue an American".

Meanwhile, over on Cruiser's Forum (a hangout for serious sailors) they've started a tongue in cheek thread on Reasons to Ban Children From Cruising. It is well worth a look. Other threads on Cruisers Forum have been largely (though not entirely) supportive, though being serious sailors they've already started to analyze in minute detail every aspect of the voyage.

Eric and Charlotte have promised to tell the whole story, once they've had a chance to rest a bit. They've made a couple of comments on their blog. The recent entry on Charlottes Blog shows an example of the kind of disgusting comments that some people have chosen to send them.

When I was doing SAR, we frequently called upon helos flying out of Davis Monathans AFB in Tucson,who normally flew routine missions out to the numerous missile silos ringing Tucson-pretty routine stuff. They relished, and enjoyed, the challenges of a night hoist operation out of a rocky canyon, and, yes, it was all chargeable to training.

I wonder what the sea time of many of the vociferous critics amounts to? I have just enough experience to realize that life at sea differs from land based routines. Land lubbers should sit quietly and learn.

The press,looking for dirt? Shocked, shocked,I tell you....

Interesting read, but even she waited til the kid was 3 before doing long trips.

Well, here's an interesting update to the story. The family is suing the sat phone company for cutting off their service at the time of the rescue, despite the bill having been paid up.

The part that makes me chuckle is that the sat phone company is named "Whenever Communications LLC". That name just doesn't sound like a Johnny-on-the-spot kind of crew. Kind of like getting an AED from "We'll Get Around To It When We Can, Inc.".

Very interesting to see how this pans out since the sat phone company, Whenever Communications LLC, isn't the service provider, just the reseller. http://www.satellitephonestore.com/

There is some case law involving negligence that might be relevant, but IANAL, so I'm not sure how this is going to turn out.
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Mor-Off/Negligence.html

FWIW, I've had a number of pager companies go belly up on me and the reseller never notified me, so it may be industry practice for the resellers not to notify the end user that they no longer have service.