Yachts with a crew???

I have a 60 ft and my insurance won't allow me to curise alone. I have waited for crew (friends, and friends of friends) in the Caribbean for months, it was really hard, not!
Neal

You run up and down the coast in a 70 footer alone? If you have a stroke/heart attack/ or fall and get knocked out what happens?

I drive to and from fuel docks alone on the 65 Donzi without issues. I set up the lines in advance and can get from the helm to the bowlines in less than 5 seconds via the front brow and the same with the aft lines.

I hate paying for a second man, but if I hit one of those moments you describe (or a million others) I'd sign over my house and consider it cheap to have him. I wouldn't run the coast in a 36' without a 2nd. Different strokes.

It's called being experienced and wise. I've seen so many simple things go wrong over the years and with all of the yachts I've run, that I would never chance travelling without a second person. I couldn't count the number of times I've had engines overheat, bow thrusters stop working, large water leaks, etc etc etc......inclement weather and the strataglass starting to peel off of the bridge.

X2....

That can happen right now too, and for the moment there is no one to look after me

Yeah except you're not chancing someone's multi-million dollar asset, nor risking other people's life, limbs, or property. Suppose you get a 75 ton yacht doing 20 knots and it slams into another boat, a bridge with cars on it, or just plain destroys itself un-attended.

A friend of mine, a captain of many years decided to run a 53' Hatteras SF back from Nassau on a calm day. Needless to say he went to go down the bridge ladder to relieve himself, he slipped down the bridge ladder and broke his leg. He then had to hobble up to the flybridge and run the boat back another 6 hours with a broken leg.

About a year or two ago there was a very experienced Captain from Ft. Lauderdale running a brand new 64' Viking SF from Key West to Cancun with it's new owner who knew nothing. The owner went down and took a nap for several hours, owner came up with vessel on autopilot and at cruise, Captain was nowhere to be found and was never found.

I value my life and the yachts that I run, a hell of a lot more then paying a mate $150-200 a day to just be there. If the owner can afford the yacht, he can afford to have it proper crewed. The FAA requires a co-pilot on private jets and above for the same very reasons as stated above.

Can anyone make a valid point as why not to have a second person on board, other then monitary reasons? I think not.

I agree. But if it's your own personal boat then is a slightly different story.

Until it comes time for the insurance company to pay for damage or a loss, which they won't if you read 95% of the policies for yachts over 40' or so.

You and I have had this discussion before. And you can keep spinning it anyway you want.

But you're never going to convince me that it's not unprofessional and arguably irresponsible for a paid captain to be running another persons large boat around single handed. Especially moving up and down the more restricted confines of the ICW.

"as to the heart attack or stroke, well.. i can think of 100 scenario where the consequences would be far worst, like behing the wheel of a car running 65 mph on I95..."

I'm not quite sure how that helps make your case. Just because the consequences might be worse in one situation, doesn't make the other any more acceptable.

"or when i go to the ER, I make sure i take my time, move slowly, and again make sure there is no way the doot will slam shut/jammed on me."

Great. But who is at the helm keeping watch?

I know, I know, like you told me before, you wait for a more open spot along the waterway with no visible traffic to do your engine room checks.

But what happens if you find something that needs your immediate attention that you can't deal with in a hurry?

Or another boat appears out of the blue that you didn't or couldn't have seen and tries to cut in front of you while your in the engine room?

You honestly believe having a second set of eyes, hands and brains on board has no value?

"how many yachts have been found out of control because of a medical situation to the captain?
very very very few..."

Maybe because most all of them had crew on board to take over control in the event of that happening?

Again, not arguing with you. It's just when it's your own boat it's your own problem.

And most of the policies I've read for boats that size do/did allow short handed running. Just with some restrictions.

Interesting timing with that statement. As reported on this morning's news, yesterday a man was seen boarding his sailboat alone (looked like about a 30footer). Later in the day his boat was found adrift in Lloyd Harbor with blood on the deck. No sign of the owner. Yesterday's weather was warm & calm.

It's called the buddy system or safety in numbers. I often move boats alone because the job must get done even if I can't get a second, but I recognize that this is risky and avoid such action whenever possible. As for the 30 footer, obviously this gentleman's family will hense forth say that 30 is too big to be singlehanded. Any boat is. It's just an unsafe practice. Swimming can be done alone. Rock climbing also. Diving, flying, etc., etc. Unless unavoidable it's just adding unnecessary risk not to use the buddy system. As for not wanting the chatter of another person; different strokes. For me, after about 4 hours I'm singing (out of tune) and talking with myself (luckily I win the arguments ). Pascal, I don't doubt your abilities. In fact I've followed a few of your runs via your webcam. I just don't understand why someone would opt to run 2 weeks solo when it's not necessary.

Running solo is adding a ton of risk that could easily be mitigated. There is no argument there. Had the guy in the 30' sailboat had a friend on board, he probably wouldn't be in the newspaper today. Don't forget, the life insurance company won't pay for 7 or10 years if they do not find a body. How is his immediate family sitting right now?

I have had an engine fire (electrical) on a 1 year old boat, at the dock, and the mate sped up the process of getting the fire extinguisher from down the dock, while I ran to the bridge, shut down the engines, generator, and had the fire extinguisher in my hand as we met at the engine room ladder, and I shut the battery switches off and extinguished it. The damage was kept to only the wiring harness on the engine, a minute later the boat would have been an insurance claim.

I lost steering completely on another delivery in the ICW with a narrow channel, and no where to anchor or tie up for 5 miles. I was able to run the boat with just the throttles, while the mate filled up the resevoir, pumped it up, and got us going again. Saving me several hours of clutching it, finally getting to a dock, then fixing the situation, and getting going again, adding a day to the delivery.......

I had another boat where I was only captaining it for the day, where on a seatrial we lost power, on one engine, had to shut down the other, in the ocean and within 1 mile from shore, the anchor chain was not attached to the rope, the windless did not work, and it took 2 of us, to anchor and secure the boat and we did so within a 1/2 mile of the beach.

All of these instances have occured within the last year and are only a few......But I run about 150 different yachts per year (sometimes I run and load 4 different yachts on a freighter in one day) and have never had an insurance claim nor a grounding or anything else in the last 10 years, and do 10,000NM of deliveries minimum a year. I had one propellor that 2 blades got bent on hitting a dead head coming into Provo one time. Eventually something will happen, it's only a matter of odds. But I minimize my odds as much as possible.

Apples to apples would be the owner of the 30' sailboat who is now amongst the missing. He hadn't even uncovered his sail. What kind of trouble can you get into just outside Huntington Harbor in a well protected bay on a 30' sail operating on its motor? Running a boat just doesn't get simpler than that. And yet....

Just to add a little acid into the apples and oranges, my old skipper and I used to move boats about anchorages with just the 2 of us. We had been doing it since we were teenagers on loads of boats.

The last one was a 220 footer.