All a bit sad, but a point was proved, I suppose. Just not the one they were hoping for.
A map showing where a British reiki healer and her Canadian husband’s echo-yacht was last tracked before their bodies were tragically found nearly a month later has been revealed.
Brett Clibbery, 70, and Sarah Justine Packwood, 54, were reported missing a week after setting off from Nova Scotia in Canada for the Azores in their 42ft sailing boat Theros on June 11.
Their bodies were found on July 10 in a life raft washed up on Sable Island – nicknamed the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’. Exactly how they ran into trouble is not yet known but investigators are believed to be pursuing a number of theories.
They were hoping to demonstrate that you can cross the Atlantic without fossil fuels. I’m not sure why because plenty of people have sailed the Atlantic numerous times before them and survived. However the sea is a cruel and unforgiving mistress and demands respect from those who sail her.
A leading hypothesis is that the boat was struck by a much larger vessel shortly after leaving Halifax, but veteran sailors have suggested the extra weight of the batteries – torn from a Nissan Leaf electric car – and solar panels may have made it unstable.
Oh, good grief! So not an eco yacht after all.
The source also said that the amateur nature of the boat’s engine replacement could have presented issues. ‘It was a homemade job,’ they said.
Facepalm. This is almost as bad as the people who went looking for the Titanic in a home made bodge job and expected to survive. Darwin has a knack of sorting these people out and he is doing a grand job.
The Theros was a wind and solar-powered vessel piloted by the pair to show how travel can be done without using fossil fuels .
Well, yes, I guess they did prove a point after all. However, people like Francis Chichester got there a long time ago and came back. If you want to go without using fossil fuels, just use sail like everyone else who has sailed the oceans without using fossil fuels for centuries.
As an ex sailor, quite agree, LR that it’s all been done before. I’d be more concerned about a mindset SuperGreen … no knowing what modifications they made to make the craft unseaworthy. Plus, that’s way to old for him to maintain and oceangoing vessel.
Gypsy Moth IV has a diesel engine.
I stand corrected. However, the Matthew, the Santa Maria, the Mayflower and the Golden Hinde didn’t, so I feel that my substantive point stands.
The point is that, before the advent of engines, ships relying solely on the the wind were very much subject to the vagaries of the weather, hence the loss of numerous ships, including the grounding of the Santa Maria. Although engines have not entirely eliminated maritime losses, they’ve certainly reduced them.
Sir Francis Chichester would have used wind for the overwhelming majority of his trips, but there would have been circumstances where his engine would have been necessary to avoid hazardous situations. Most modern marinas would be difficult to navigate and dock at using anything but an engine.
Solar panels and electric car batteries need fossil fuels to produce them. Was the vessel made of composite plastics? If so the same thing applies. So they have effectively proved nothing. In any case, people sailed all over the world in wooden ships powered by sails before steam power was invented, no fossil fuels required, so what were they proving exactly? So, in summary, people trying to prove that they can do something without fossil fuels prove that they can’t.
Incidentally, if you had a million Nissan Leaf batteries you could theoretically back up the UK National Grid for an hour.
Whatever “point” they were trying to prove, treating – abusing! – something on which you rely for your life in such an obviously cavalier fashion…..
It it tragic, but it essentially self inflicted and very likely completely avoidable.
I don’t doubt the boat was not in the stable condition its designers intended, but there were fireworks – literally – just waiting to go off.
If they took a large lithium-ion battery (more than one?) from a milk float and connected it to some – very likely cheap crap chinese – solar panels – for which they original battery set up is not intended – and then kicked and prodded it into a boat, fixed down cliff knows how.
Then head out into the Atlantic. Rolling all over the place with lashings of ginger beer, sorry, salt water and salt spray (wiring by B&Q?)
Ye gods!
What is it with this lunatic green cult that can override even the most basic instinct for self preservation?!
70 and 54, so hardly naive children.
What is it with this lunatic green cult that can override even the most basic instinct for self preservation?!
I came across a theory, can’t remember where, that humans are made to push boundaries. It’s how we expanded across the planet and achieved success. We want to explore and find the unknown.
Except there isn’t any more unknown, not really. There’s a few islands, maybe, that haven’t been visited. But the planet has no frontiers left, nothing to sake that wanderlust.
So now we look to more extreme boundaries, the boundaries of craziness. The Atlantic has been crossed by boat, by rowing boat, by plane… So you have to do it in a home made bodge job for people to take notice.
Of course, that’s when they get hit in the face with the cold, hard, tempest driven tsunami of reality. That the earth, and nature, literally do not give a fuck about us. Nature doesn’t care if we live another hundred million years or disappear tomorrow in a self made nuclear hell fire. Life will return to the planet and carry on.
It’s only arrogance that makes people think we need to save the planet
These people were exactly that arrogant type. Not only were they going to save the planet, they were going to show all us lesser plebs how it’s done in their magnificence.
And they met the tsunami of reality…
But the planet has no frontiers left, nothing to sake that wanderlust
The universe, however, is still out there. The only reason nobody can explore beyond this one tiny planet orbiting one star among hundreds of billions in one rather commonplace galaxy is our own perversity. There are designs for nuclear rockets that could reach orbit relatively cheaply, but no-one dares develop and use them presumably for fear of the anti nuclear mob. The costs are driven up further by pernicious safetyism.
Of course it will be difficult, and people will need to take risks. Some of them will die, but at least they will die doing something significant instead of trying to fill in one more tiny corner of “things not done yet”.
There would be a lot less effort wasted on this save-the-planet drivel if there was something real to achieve, as well.
“It’s only arrogance that makes people think we need to save the planet”
My view, when people say we need to save the planet, they mean we need to save the planet for humans. Essentially selfish.
“their bodies were tragically found”
I don’t understand. Why is it tragic their bodies were found? Would it would have been preferable if their bodies had not been found?
No more unknowns?
The exact extent of human stupidity?
Einstein is reputed to have phrased it differently.
Darwin strikes again.