For SFC and FZ

[SciFi Chick]

Question- how does one get a hole in the middle of the ocean? Not like there are any rocks to hit. Is it just random debris or similar, and is it that big an issue these days or truly a freak occurrence?

The hole came when they breached - i.e., fell over in the water, a common occurrence with monohulls. Sometimes they self right, but there are things you can do to right it. Something weakened on their mast during this experience, and that's where the leak came from.

The leak wasn't a big deal. They could have continued sailing just fine. They were only taking on 60 gallons a day. That's nothing to a boat that size and can be pumped out within ten minutes.

They called it because their daughter was sick and their satellite phone quit working. Also, the leak was over the battery compartment and they weren't sure if their radio was working because they couldn't contact anyone.

The satellite phone quit working because the satellite company decided to change out all the sims. They sent them out in the mail, and a week later deactivated all the old sim cards. Completely incompetent.

[FZR1KG]

They claim that the hull was breached when the boat broached (turned sideways near 90 degrees) and the boom hit the water.
I still can't fathom how that would breach the hull though.
The boom is attached to the mast via a large bolt/pin and the other end towards the stern is attached to the top of the boat via a rope (called the main sheet) to a traveler, basically a long metal railroad track on which is mounted a wheeled carrier so you can change the angle of the boom relative to the wind.
Worst comes to worst the traveler or the car would get ripped out, or if their main sheet was in poor condition it would break. The latter being highly unlikely since you make them large so it's easy to handle and they are on a block and tackle arrangement so the leverage is about 4:1.
On ours which is a smaller boat the main sheet is /2 of an inch thick.

I also looked at the boat specs and its made in Taiwan based on a pretty good design but quality varied.
The hulls were 3/8 fiberglass, inside and out sandwiching 3/4 inch ply. Near bullet proof.

Though as the guy said, they were taking 60 gallons a day, which is nothing to a boat. It takes about 10 minutes to pump that out so the vessel was in no danger of sinking.
They made the decision to abandon ship purely because the baby was sick and they couldn't talk with the doctors since their satellite phone company changed SIM cards a week after they left port. They did ship them the new SIM card then cancelled their one a week after sending it. Pretty pathetic considering that people with a sat phone get them because they need phone access while in remote areas. In their case they were hundreds of miles off shore when the sat company stopped their service and expected them to use the new SIM card they sent out.

Really pathetic.

[Rommie]

Ok that makes a lot more sense. And yeah, hard to believe with the satellite phone- surely that affected many other people too in the world. Glad to hear you guys aren't relying on one.