Posted on 01/29/2007 7:41:32 PM PST by LurkedLongEnough
Can't even find the boat? Sounds like he defected.
This guy was good at computer science. I followed his career when he started on System R at IBM. We were building a similar system for Honeywell mainframes at the same time.
He wrote a super book on transaction processing.
something ain't right if the boat is lost as well.
A boatload of money is pretty worthless as a flotation device...
It can be a dangerous ocean between large waves and floating containers that have been washed off their ships. The Pacific moreso than the Atlantic. Let's hope all is well.
We were enroute Australia back in 1989, and came upon a sailboat steering one course with no one on deck. We tried to raise the vessel on VHF with no response. The cockpit was open, and so we sent a small boat to see if anyone was aboard.
We found no one. The iron mike was on, so we figured this guy fell overboard, had no tether or epirb, so the sailboat sailed off without its captain.
We called in another unit to tow her back. Eerie.
ping
I hope they find him. Lord knows the database field can use all the help it can get.
Lots of large Great Whites hang out at the Farollans.
Hmmm...there's no 'quick trip' to the Farallones in a sailboat. It's about a 60 mile round trip from the Golden Gate and a sailboat under sail, with the prevailing winds we've had lately (westerlies), would have to make at least a few tacks to get there. That adds even more to the mileage. Plus add in tidal and current influences...
Even under power averaging around 6 knots and a straight-line course, it's still a good bet that the round trip will take at least 12 to 14 hours, probably more.
Wave height for the last few days has been 4 to 6 feet and has been characterized by NOAA as swell.
For a boat to disappear like this, in these conditions, it has to be on the bottom. And it went there quickly. This is the classic 'ramming at sea' scenario. Big ship, little boat, inadequate look-out.
You're right. Spooky. The sea is still the sea, and it is both beautiful and deadly.
I've sailed this area for years. This guy went out during daylight, the sea was good, as was visibility. Even a collision, however unlikely, would have left some remnant of the boat. BTW, the Farallons are not at all that far from the SF bay inlet, so the search area was fairly well designated. I've never seen a floating container in this area.
Not finding the boat indicates he took the boat elsewhere.
Dangerous waters, plenty of sharks. Doesn't sound good.
The westerly wind prevails, as you said, and tacking is a routine procedure for sailing to the Farallons. But, this guy had good visibility and could easily see an oncoming freighter. If he wasn't keeping watch, he's a dead fool.
When under sail, the consistent and stiff westerly wind in this area will heel the boat to the gunwales. With good trim and the Genoa unfurled, 14-17 knots are typical. I've done a round trip in 10.5 hrs. Not tacking, of course, on the return. We would run the spinnaker, and the mainsail as a staysail, on the return. The boat did 12-14 knots and the breeze for the crew was dead.
The scientific journals have been recently grumbling about free scientific information available on the Internet. Hmmmmm.....
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