Well a few things:

1. The boat was not really an offshore boat. I have sailed a slightly larger cat offshore for lots of miles, and I can tell you our rudder set up is very, very robust and that simply would never happen. If it did we could affect steering with our motors, or at worst with a drogue. Also the fact that it was leaking around those silly large European styled windows shows that it was a lagoon boat.


2. They left to late and chose a hard path down south. They should have sailed in November for Bermuda than south. They chose to beat in the Gulf stream which is stupid.

I was in poor conditions off Curacao, we got up to at least 13 knots going down waves and we measured them by looking up, 15ft at night maybe? They were abeam which was challenging at night because you had to helm by feel, ie if the hole felt huge you had to steer into it. Our Voyage 440 did fine, and was more than up to the conditions. Just looking at the pictures of that boats tillers they are a light weight joke compared to the Voyage's steering gear.

We also had charging problems coming back from Cuba which happens. We left both Yanmar diesels running all night as a result. Those are very durable motors, once they start if you give them fuel they won't shut down.

They ran into the similar problems to guys who try to sail light duty bay boats off shore, like Beneteau's or other assorted flexible flyers. We were in port with a French guy who had the gooseneck on his Jeanneau 52 blow apart because it couldn't handle the pressure of the winds offshore.

This is a good example of what happens when you take a lightly built coastal boat offshore at a poor time of year. This boat should have went down the ICW in August, not done this.

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