Man missing at sea 66 days found by Coast Guard

Information is coming out in dribs and drabs, so it's not possible to get a complete picture of what happened. There seem to be enough comments attibuted to the guy to be sure that he didn't spend 66 days (or a significant part of that time) on an overturned hull - the boat might have rolled (maybe more than once?) but it didn't stay that way.

The discussion on cruisersforum is interesting, but with tons of speculation as to what exactly happened. It took me a bit to find the threads Norseman mentioned - the guy's username over there is liveaboardl, and if you search for that you can see he really had no idea what he was doing as recently as a few months ago.

He really had no idea what he was doing a week ago either.... He didn't get smarter, just bolder.

A small selection of threads he started to give an idea:

-How far out to sea is safe in a hurricane?
-Remove sails for tropical storm?
-Chainplate's isn't mounted right. Is it still ok to sail?
-Bilge pump emptying into the cockpit
-30 amp ext cord to 50 amp outlet jerry-rig
-Help! Too cold, condensation, sick, need info
-Are Liveaboards Unwanted? Disliked? All over Everywhere?

Quite honestly he sounded more like someone pranking the site than real. He stopped posting on November 22.

And the classic post which may tell you all you need to know...."I was rewiring my boat after smoking a little herb and now whenever I run my bilge pump, the bilge water empties into the cockpit"

And now the video interview is available....omg

http://www.13newsnow.com/story/news/2015/04/02/coast-guard-rescue/70849184/

That's GOT to be a prank, no ? I can't imagine admitting that I was THAT inept !

I'm not sure if that's the worst, or the one titled "Help! Too cold, condensation, sick, need info"

He's anchored out (I guess) and it's cold, there's snow on the deck, somehow it's making him sick and he wants advice on how to dry out the interior and even though he knows it's a bad idea he's got a propane heater going full out in a tightly closed-up cabin...

Just watching his video I think he's inhaled a lot of fumes or something.

And this is exactly why I mentioned the encouragement sometimes given those like him to go do "heroic things." He said, and I paraphrase, that on the radio they said the weather was bad but the sky looked ok to him, plus he'd been taught that any good sailor went out in bad weather, that's how you became a good sailor. Besides he wasn't going out of radio capability so he could call for help.

Two of the three times he capsized were when he was asleep.

Not that your point isn't valid, but in this case, on that forum, there doesn't seem to have been any encouragement, and there's a bunch of "you're kidding, right? no one could be that clueless..." comments, e.g. in the thread called How far out to Sea is Safe in a Hurricane?

A sailboat with a keel will right it self if flooded, but it will be on the way to the bottom. There are very few, if any, sailboats with a keel that have enough built in floatation to stay afloat once flooded.

Bob

So the guy is a nut case, a Religous freak and not very bright.
In the land of the free, those guys can buy boats (and guns) and
sail into harms way with no quality control or supervison.
Perfectly legal and the results are not surprising.
(Actually, in this case, he survived, which is surprising but he was good at catching fish)
Moral of the story, you can be stupid and lucky followed by 15 minutes of fame.
Don't try it at home, your mileage may vary.

Not so, fiberglass boat.

Here is the previous owner's description of the vessel:

I don't know what the boat was actually made of, but given this gentleman's previously demonstrated lack of knowledge, I suspect it is possible that by "delamination" he meant "strips of wood separating from each other" along the longest axis. There are a lot of people that only know the noun "laminate" from their experience with flooring. He could also have seen interior plywood coming apart in layers.

At this point, I'm not inclined to put much faith in any of his descriptive language.

SFS:
You are confused, the description of the boat is by the PREVIOUS owner, not the dingbat wanne bee sailor who got lost in the Atlantic and spent 66 days drifting and fishing,

For a more detailed view: This is the listing of the boat, again, before this guy bought it:
http://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/32443

Sorry, I'd seen 1950's vintage / sanding and painting. Still it should have flotation, and air pockets. Bottom line, a boat that "sinks" doesn't necessarily sink.

It didn't sink, but was low in the water, floorboards a wash I think one of the news clips said.
Guess the "sailor" will re-think his new hobby and perhaps do something else.

This comes to mind:

This still does not explain how he floated 200 miles in front of NC for 66 days. The boat should have floated to England in that time span with the current...... Something is REALLY fishy about this fisherman as well as his overall appearance.

Agree, 66 days In the Gulf Stream should take him to Norway.
(3 knots average drift X 66 days, 4752 NM)
Or cut that in half if he was West of the axis, 2375 NM..

You guys are thinking current, but forgetting wind. Also eddy depending where he was when. He could have been floundering in one place for long periods.

Yup, doldrums or some other eddie spinning the boat around and not going anywhere. 66 days however...?

Great blog on this ridiculous story...

http://www.johnvigor.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-black-eye-for-press.html

All questions that have been raised here. Still awaiting answers though. As for the author's disdain for the press, well we all know that their only interest is the attention grabbing headline. We depend on sources like some of the people here who will follow the stories to their conclusion.

Today we are bombarded with so much information that it's impossible to fully investigate everything. And as my dad used to teach me "Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see". Since the development of computers and photo-shop I'd change that to believe nothing until it's proven to your satisfaction. Otherwise it's just entertainment.