Lucky to be alive.

[windsors03cobra]

I'm not going to talk about population control, darwin awards or even natural selection but will say these guys used a little common sense, some serious patience and they saved their lives IMO.

After their boat took on water and capsized and a week of eating sparsely rationed gum, crackers and sucking nasty water out of the capsized boats wash down tank three Texas fishermen were spotted and pulled out of the water by a passing cruise type ship it sounds like, 180 freakin miles from land on a 23' catamaran.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeQj2BGP7c
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6593872.html

 

[highN'dry]

Re: Lucky to be alive.

They were 70 miles out, after the malfunction they drifted farther offshore. People run such boats that distance routinely but if doing so they should have had a PLB. Then there would have been little drama.

Also, size unrelated, I prefer to go offshore in boats that cannot sink there is a leak in some piece of equipment. This is my offshore boat test, pull the plug on the boat and load it with equipment, if it takes on water and rolls over, get something different that will not.

 

[werthert]

Re: Lucky to be alive.

I wonder what made the boat take on water?
Lesson for me is check the pumps before a trip like that. I can't count the posts I've read where pumps just haven't worked, whether manual or automatic. Seems like an important part that routinely turns into a paper weight.

 

[26aftcab454]

Re: Lucky to be alive.

They are lucky to be alive- I've been reading about this for the past week and thought they were toast. I've been out there 140 miles of the Texas coast and cannot imagine being stuck out there for a week on a capsized boat.The Gulf can get real bad real quick. the 23ft cat is on the small side IMO for 70 miles out but people do it all the time.
Lucky they stayed with the boat and had water. i would think they must be sun burned.makes you want to go out and buy an emergency transponder system.A few hunderd dollars could be the differnce between life & death.Glad the made it!