Looks like they were run down after midnight by a freighter or other "large vessel".

RIP

Here's the link:

[URL="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/yacht-may-have-been-hit-by..."]http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/yacht-may-have-been-hit-by...

-RIP sailors.

I was in Nashville Tennessee when I saw this on the news.
The following day I read this update on Lektronic Latitude.

TheUPDATE: Michael Lawler, a crewmember aboard the Newport Beach-based Choate 48 Amante, reports having a close encounter with a freighter in the same vicinity and time as Aegean's tracker stopped working. "We were farther offshore, about 10-12 miles west of the Coronados," says Lawler. "Around 1:30 a.m., I went on watch and saw a freighter bearing down on us at what was probably 20 knots. His range lights were lined up and I could see both red and green bow lights. I didn't have time to get on the radio, so I grabbed my two million-candlepower spotlight and aimed it at the ship. That caught his attention and he took a hard left turn to take our stern. He passed about 1/4 mile behind us." Lawler, who circumnavigated aboard his North Wind 47 Traveller, says the wind was light, the seas were a little lumpy, and visibility was good.

After reading this my first thought was of being out at sea and watching a ship in the distance at a steady range and bearing suddenly shifting course and coming right at me. Could the course change of the ship generated by Amante have set up this incendent? The ship in a fast maneuver may have struck the unsuspecting Hunter, while the Hunter expected the ship to maintain its course.
The ship likely never noticed the Hunter concentrating on the Light from Amante.

Just some armchair speculation. I have thought an AIS reciever may be a great investment off shore, never gave much thought to a transmitter and reciever. This could make me rethink that.

I believe that one of the conclusions from the investigation of this tragedy will be that AIS-B will become mandated for offshore racing. AIS-B is so inexpensive nowadays, at least for racing budgets, that it is a small price to pay for a huge advancement in safety (and with the side benefit of racing vessel tracking).

I just bought a new em-trak B-100 AIS-B, a smidge over $500 at West Marine using our Portland Yacht Club discount. I'll be installing it in the next couple months and will write up the installation for the C36IA Technical-Upgrades library. I have a 5-year old Standard Horizon chartplotter, about a 5-inch display, that is AIS-compatible that I'll use for the display. My 10-year old Raymarine chartplotter can't be upgraded because the manufacturer wants to drive sales of new systems, so I'll put the SH plotter on a curly cord and then I can have it at the nav table or in the cockpit as I desire.

Until AIS-B arrives, everyone should have their radar reflectors permanently mounted. The junction of the C36 split backstay is an ideal permanent location for a reflector.

It is little comfort knowing that the Navigation Rules prohibit any vessel running over you, whether in clear or restricted visibility. But the fact is that in a collision with a significant vessel (you can get killed colliding with a Tolly 42, just as dead as encountering a freighter) you are the loser of the match whether you're on the right side of the Nav Rules or not.

As a footnote, my boss at Starpath Navigation says that in almost every collision at least one Navigation Rule has been violated by BOTH vessels.

Per the old Hill Street Blues...let's be careful out there. OK?

Here's a clue, and a good one.

[url]http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_20525873/gps-device-shows-yacht-ended...

One wonders how this could possibly happen if experienced people were on watch. Of course, this isn’t the final word on the tragedy.

Doesn't sound like a freighter now - the boat's SPOT tracker shows them powering in a straight line for some time before plowing straight into the end of North Coronado island. An unforgiving place.

By my math we are at 9 dead sailboat racers in CA in the last 3 weeks, and unfortunately it is looking more and more to me like both incidents can be chalked up to operator error. Truly sad. I've put about 250 racing miles in just in the last month and it hits close to home.

[QUOTE=Nimue;12871]Doesn't sound like a freighter now[/QUOTE]

I'm not so sure. In the full interview posted in U.S. News with Eric Lamb who was first on the scene, Lamb also said that there were very few pieces of the wreckage which were larger than 6 inches in size. Although wind conditions were reported as "light", even if they hit the island at 10 knots, it doesn't explain pieces of wreckage that small covering 2 square miles in open sea. I would be more suspect of the Spot readings, but we may never know.

Mike

I too question the idea of them hitting the island for the same reason, though I am have no local knowledge of the area and am not on site. I can accept the washing machine suggestion on the rocks, if they find a Yanmar and other metal bits in the surf I will find the scenario more acceptable.

From “Lectronic Lattitude”

[INDENT]“A few people have clung to the 'hit by a ship' theory based on that fact that Low Speed Chase, which went onto the rocky shore of the Farallones during the huge surf of the Full Crew Farallones Race on April 14, remained intact enough to be removed from the island by helicopter, while Aegean, in much smaller four-foot swells, appears to have been broken into small pieces. It doesn't seem curious to us, as Low Speed Chase appeared to have been washed up on a ledge, while Aegean mostly likely was repeatedly slammed against a steep and jagged shore. It was something like six hours between the time her GPS signal was lost and the first bits of her were discovered near the island by Eric Lamb of Vessel Assist. Given a sufficiently jagged shore, that's plenty of time for a fiberglass boat to be left in little pieces.”[/INDENT]

Maybe I’m wrong but I recall some Hunter’s have extensive foam coring. I’m not positive Aegean was such a boat but if it were, then it’s plausible that after Aegean ran aground, large parts of the wreck would stay afloat only to be ground to pieces. As Steve mentioned, it would be interesting to know if the keel is ever located near the area where it’s assumed they ran aground. If so, then I suppose that should settle the main cause of impact. But then, regardless of the scenario, there are what I’d call the secondary factors: some or most of the crew being lost, the rig collapsing, or catastrophic flooding, some or all occurring immediately upon impact. All further compounded by a fowled propeller and engine failure.

Perhaps some would say it’s a bit morbid to imagine in mind’s eye what the last few minutes of the Aegean were like. Not me. I think about it a lot because I know that through my own negligence or through no fault of my own, my family and I could share Aegean’s crew’s fate. Either scenario, being run down by a freighter or a collision with the vertical face of, in my case, Anacapa Is. is entirely possible and does occur from time to time in the Santa Barbara Channel (& the Bay area for that matter) so yea, I think about it.

Even though it’s too early to draw final conclusions, I think there’s a lesson to be learned: whether they ran aground or were run down, inadequate watch keeping likely played a part in the tragedy.

The thing I can't figure out is this. The boat hits the island and gets pounded on the rocks for 6 hours reducing the boat to small pieces. THEN, the entire debris field heads out to sea and is found in open water.:confused: