Couple Disappears During Risky Voyage in Modified "Eco-Friendly" Yacht | Clibbery Case Analysis
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
- This video answers the question: Can I analyze case of Brett Clibbery and Sarah Packwood?
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I have a sailboat and have been watching this situation. I've also been watching people remove their diesel engines and put in these electric motors. The reason for a diesel engine is it's very fuel efficient and can claw you off a lee shore for hours on end. I believe their Leaf battery caught on fire and they had to abandon ship so fast they weren't prepared. My they RIP.
Yep only a non sailor would come to the conclusion that power failure was the least likely cause of the disaster. Never sail a lee shore is an ancient rule of sailing, proven thousands of times. Modern combustion engines have changed the rules to some extent, but still the old ways are the safest. Sailing with electric auxiliary with the mindset of a diesel auxiliary is very likely the root cause.
I couldn’t imagine trying to fight a lithium ion fire on a small boat. I agree this is the most likely conclusion. Perhaps the autopsy will show they’ve been exposed to fire recently
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Inference-observation confusion.
It was more likely to be killer whales.
@@timpayne7676 About zero chance it was Orcas.
You trying to be funny?
My father had a trauma surgeon coworker in the 70s who wanted to sail solo around the world. He left from south Florida and on his second night out was run down by a Gulf Oil tanker. He survived with severe injuries, including to his hand which prevented him from continuing as a surgeon. Gulf Oil paid a large settlement, he took a year to heal and bought a new boat to try again. This time be made it several months and all the way to Sydney Australia, where he got deathly ill and was air evacuated to a hospital in California. He survived but was going to have a long recovery so he hired a guy to sail the boat back to the states for him.
That guy got drunk and sank the boat before he even got it out of Sydney harbor.
Wow, I think that's called a sign. He and boats "just don't splice".
The guy that got drunk and sank the boat probably saved the surgeon's life.
Had the surgeon got his boat back and he probably would have tried again to kill himself sailing solo God knows where to.
Luckily for those of us who love the challenge of sailing, new communication and location tech, as well as improved weather forecasting has made it much safer, especially for solo-sailors.
@@SailingWindGypsy you can run all you want, but you can't hide from yourself. There's some trauma associated with such weird "Quests".
There are people who do if for a living, and then there's the rest who I consider need therapy.
@@elim7228 Speak for yourself! 😂😂😂. There are definitely people who are more "thrill seeking" than others. I don't think that represents trauma!
"For example, Christopher Columbus". Please don't ever change Dr Grande!
😂😂😂
i second that 👽
Good old Columbus. Thought he'd found a new way to India, China and Japan but accidentally discovered a new continent.
Don't forget Leif Eriksson as well. He did it first.
😂
I’m glad that they were actually found and weren’t completely lost at sea. It’s easier for loved ones to know, rather than always wondering about their fate. Rest in peace 🕊️❤️
There is that but I would suggest that we need to prepare ourselves mentally for the possibility that loved ones may not be found and to come to peace with that possibility. Being "hopeful" that bodies will be found will only worsen grief in the event that bodies are not recovered. In life, as in death, the depths we can descend increase with the height of Mt Hope down into the Valley of Grief. The more hope, the greater the fall. We can not control the chances of recovery. We can control the effect of the uncontrollable will have on us.
@@coweatsmanWhat? They were recovered…you got that right? No need to prepare for not knowing where they ended up…
@postiebren apparently you can read but can't comprehend
@@Jordan-sy7my lol
Such a shame it took 5 days for rescuers to start looking 🛟 😢
The shirt Dr. Grande....the shirt!⛵
He's well anchored.
What is wrong with his shirt?
@@PhillyAnthonyD Nothing.
@@PhillyAnthonyD Nothing! It's awesome...as always!!
@@PhillyAnthonyD- he’s talking about sailing and his shirt has anchors on it. 😊
It is sad when people are truly trying to share and enjoy their lives when it is cut so tragically short. They seemed like a lovely couple.
Being stupid comes at a high price.
This is what happens when your hippie ideas get in the way of common sense
when you get old, don't spend your time with people who believe in reiki; you can't count on people like that when you need help. Unless.... are YOU the reiki person? You always want to make sure you aren't the one being the reiki person
@@Mike-tu7uw They looked so alike, but sadly he was.... Canadian. That explains a lot.
@@MsMesemwhat does it explain?
Trapped on a boat with an EV battery in thermal runaway would be terrifying.
But you would still be Eco Friendly. 😆
Also trapped on a boat with a diesel runaway, just as frightening.
EV fires produce deadly smoke. There are stories of firemen being permanently disabled while fighting car fires.
@@Harry-q2q6y I think it's more terrifying to realize you will die of dehydration on the 'life' raft.
And a boat with a diesel tank on fire would be calming? I think any large fire on board, particularly offshore is going to cause significant panic.
Nothing says, "eco" like driving your suv across Canada.
I thought of that too
Maybe they had a
FU€K TRUDEAU bumper sticker!🤣
🖕🏼🫵🏻 TURDEAU!🤣
😭😭😭😂
Just you're typical hypocritical tree hugging libs
“It’s never eco friendly to leave a vessel at the bottom of the ocean”
😐😂
well atleast it didn't have oil in it's tanks.
Exactly!
Sometimes it is. Shipwrecks can become habitats and shelter for sea life.
@@Heather_T🤔
@@jarigustafsson7620🤔🤔 Yeah.
RIP Brett & Sarah 🙏
Rest In the Pacific?
@@seymourbutz6951 You're a class act.
“Less than optimal sailing experience”
😁😁😁
Doc is a master of understatement 😅
yes i pictured the Jaws 2 water skiing and speed boat scene. but thats just my darkness.
A basic internet search would have warned them that lithium batteries don't like water.
@@patrickoguinn4553
I'm a retired blue water sailor.
ANYTHING can happen out there!
It's a big ocean.
These batteries aren't much better for the environment 👀
I was congratulating someone once for helping save the world through electric cars etc. The person told me that their work with semiconductors was the most toxic process in history for manufacturing and was destroying the world 1 electric car and battery at a time. It sucks being wrong all the time. It's nice when someone sets me straight, though, even if it's brutal honesty.
@jd3666 yeah, and unfortunately battery powered cars get their electricity from the power grid...
Which is powered by coal plants or other "dirty" sources.
I say "unfortunately" because people don't think about that when they buy an electric car.
@@DamePiglet a very intelligent friend of mine told me that the future was to build nuclear plants and then ship the waste to outer space creating low orbit dirty bombs. My friend does not have any sort of degree in physics or doesn't really understand how utilities work or if I suppose space travel but these are generally accepted concepts for the Elon musk huffing elite
@@jd3666cool story bro. Ever hear of ETHYL think that does more damage than monimg and strong acids.
I watched a few of their videos and they seemed like lovely people who truly loved each other and lived life to its fullest. I hope they did not suffer
Being adrift at sea, exposed to the elements with no food or water...they suffered
They probably suffered for a while, then fell into unconsciousness.
@@johndonaldson3619 Yeah they did No kind-hearted pirate needed to take their lives; just a couple of dumb-ass green sailors That's all she wrote
Oh they did suffer.
he waa found with his teeth sunk into her jugular vein.She was found exsanguated.
Shit happens.
Our lives must end somehow somewhere. They were happy for a long while. Unlike some of us.
Lithium batteries are extremely explosive when punctured. They resemble fireworks with red hot molten metal.
Ideally on boats you use lithium ion phosphate or liquid medium batteries in modern boats no idea what they had the mention of using electric car batteries is possibly concerning if they were trying to do it on the cheap, of coarse there's "good" old lead acid no matter what it was a ridiculous to go long range cruising and divesting yourself of your options and backups, electrical systems have come along way in the last 10 years but to give up what is still the main way of generating power (your engine) on a boat where many of their ancillary systems where dependent on it not necessary so many better ways of doing it without the risk
Lithium batteries act more like flamethrowers than bombs.
Why I won't get a tesla or e-bike
Yep, and there's nothing eco friendly about lithium batteries. Lithium is also highly toxic and child labor is used to mine it and the scars left on the land where it's mined ruin that landscape forever, not to mention the costs for disposal after the batteries are worn out.
I’m 61, I was riding my e-bike down a paved bike path, I heard a pop turned my head and there was a 1 meter high flame shooting from the lithium ion battery, within minutes flame went to 2 meters high, my bike was a complete right off. If the lithium battery caught fire in there boat they would have been lucky to have got onto the life raft.
Anchor shirt nice touch
it’s kinda morbid but I dig it
Yeah, Doc is a card.
😂😂
@World_wide_music-same!
I’m inclined to lean more toward the battery fire scenario. LiON battery fires are intense and it makes sense they would have had limited time to take much with them as they abandoned their ship. This couple has sailed all over without incident. THEN the first sail after the conversion this happens. Most likely fire IMO.
There is no fire suppression system for lithium batteries!
Let's all buy them cars though🤓
@@Listening-Lynnie You mean the cars that catch fire at 1/10 the rate of combustion cars? Those?
@@OtisFlint A fire occurring with a combustion engine can be easily put out by its owner... Not so much with an EV. RUN.!!!!!
@@OtisFlint False. This 1 to 10 ratio is a scam forgetting that it has tens of millions more combustion engine cars around the world. Anyhow, these dangerous batteries are definitely not fit for a salty environment. And as a sailor, I can tell you that salt does not come from a leak in the boat. The surrounding air is filled with salt and constantly deposit on all surfaces outside and inside as well. In this case, dramatic fire on board is more than probable.
A new level of insanity. Unreliable trips into the open ocean using unreliable sources of power.
They had sails for gods sake. Those can take you anywhere you want.
Their problem was inexperience
@@NotASeriousMoose Their problem was stupidity.
Oceans eco neutral Gate
@@NotASeriousMoose Inexperience? They had logged thousands of miles.
@@SOLDOZER doesn't take long to rack up thousands of miles on the ocean.
Engineering inexperience. Old tight codger stoopidity. God Bless these Salty Fools
If they were on deck when a battery fire broke out, the entire cabin could be filled with noxious and potentially explosive fumes, preventing them from accessing their emergency equipment. Their only option would be to immediately abandon ship.
The man left the yacht club to come make this video for us...we don't deserve him
They selected the worst EV battery pack that currently exists. The Nissan Leaf has a terrible battery failure record.
And that's on dry land, without any risk (in normal circumstances) of salt water getting into it.
I own a Chevy Bolt. All it took were two very rare manufacturing defects, in combination, to start about 10 battery fires. GM had to replace a hundred thousand of them. I can't imagine these in a sail boat.
@@MattPSU02 I'm thinking it was a Deathwish. A little internet time or just passing this insanity by an experienced sailor would set them straight. There are probably twenty sailors that explained the seventy reasons you wouldn't want to do any of this.
@timewa851 Gone with the Wynns YT channel detailed the painstaking process to build their hybrid sailing yacht. It uses batteries to hold a charge, run electric stuff on the boat, and power a motor. But it was well thought out by engineers who know what they're doing. And I don't believe that they're lithium, but I might be wrong. Regardless, not a DIY thing at all.
@@MattPSU02 how well thought out do you think it was? It was designed and made in China. Tofu-dregs.
The fact that they were in the life raft means the boat went down.
No it doesn't.
It's the most likely scenario as they did not have communication devices or water when found, so whatever happened, it was fast.
@@davidlynch9049 Not necessarily either. They could have been cut off from cabin interior by fire, but still had a bit of time
Likely, but there are other possible scenarios.
Since they were cruising offshore, they'd have to have some reason to deploy the life raft at sea. (They wouldn't have been going ashore for water, for example, and you don't tow a life raft except when planning to go ashore. So much for the most likely reasons to break out the raft under ordinary conditions.)
Other common reasons to have the life raft overboard at sea (apart from abandoning ship of course) are to effect repairs, to rescue someone who has fallen overboard, and to have the bright idea to photograph the ship under sail.
Repairs at sea are not uncommon, but there would probably be some evidence left on the raft such as tools and repair materials. But you wouldn't think to carry emergency rations or an EPIRB, so that much at least isn't contradicted by the evidence.
Still, as a routine precaution, you wouldn't leave the ship uncrewed unless it were absolutely necessary. Also as a precaution, you'd pay out the stern line and make the raft fast to it, rather than risk any possibility of the vessels becoming separated.
Still, it could conceivably happen that repairs had to be made requiring both crew, or some unbelievable photo op arose, that put everyone in an untethered life raft "for just a minute while we're hove to." Then away drifts the ship at half a knot while "oh, we forgot the oars." It's surprising how often a minor lapse of judgment escalates into serious trouble at sea. That's how we learn to take these routine precautions - those of us who learn in time.
The first thought would still have to be that the ship went down, and that could have been from any of the usual causes, plus the really egregious one of having installed lithium ion batteries rather than the proper LiFePO type for marine use. The TSB is investigating this tragedy. I'm sure they'll be looking for evidence of chemical burns, contamination from lithium salts, other possible causes.
@@SuperDirk1965 you’re right, I forgot about the Somali pirates in the area….. of course the boat sank.
Never let ideology overrule practicality. Replacing a reliable, efficient, non-flammable diesel engine with a potentially explosive EV battery just to say your shit don’t stink was a dumb idea.
Yeap, regardless of their good will, they lacked wisdom, and when you make serious decisions based on emotions... be prepared to reap the consequences of those decisions good or bad... I would not even call this a calculated risk, this for sure was completely emotional and thus the result... Natural Selection as some say... I don't know.. don't want to be harsh, but just can't understand why an "engineer" would do such a thing to the boat, knowing that the vessel was engineered to a specific spec.... but as I have told people.. intelligence does not equal and never will equal to wisdom....
I do know that they should have tried shorter trips first, and provisioned the life raft with emergency gear before sailing.
@@adotintheshark4848 a wise man would have done that for sure
Words of wisdom, bro. We're definitely running low on this item in our ideology-driven world..
LFP batteries would have been fine, but they used the flammable ones. Some engineer...
Ships powered by the wind. What a time to be alive!
Hahaha!
And how do you suppose one harness the energy of this wind you speak of?
It's a shame Reiki can't treat dehydration, starvation, or other real medical issues.
If they're imaginary or hysterical in origin, though, Reiki would be most efficatious.
"Quick! Use your summon fresh water spell!"
If they had been homeopaths they could have simply put a molecule of everything into the ocean beforehand.
@@Demo-critus😂😂😂😂😂😂
Their boat was equipped with AIS and radar, so a collision was extremely unlikely. In the event of a collision, it’s unlikely that the life raft would have emerged unscathed, and automatically deployed with its hydrostatic release. It’s also unlikely that the couple would have survived a collision.
There are only two probable scenarios: a fire, or the keel. A fire would have necessitated a hasty escape, but not so hasty that they wouldn’t have had time to deploy their life raft, and they would have been able to grab a few survival necessities in that time.
The keel bolts on some older sailboats are prone to fail. In this situation, the boat would have sunk almost immediately, and the hydrostatic release on the life raft would have been triggered. There would have been no warning, and no time to grab anything for your survival.
I’m thinking that of all the scenarios, the latter as the most likely.
I believe there was a thermal runaway within the used Nissan Leaf EV battery they'd installed. A boat is no place for this type of battery. LiFePO4 battery is much safer in marine applications
I think Keel Failure makes sense. Stress on the keel can be caused by various stresses on a boats structure. Placing extremely heavy batteries in the boat could have caused stresses which may have overloaded the keel. In the case of keel failure, there are many cases of death for those onboard.
Could be, but I'm thinking pirates.
This boat had an enclosed keel. No bolts to break.
@@sheilagravely5621 Halifax does have a rich history of piracy, but there hasn't been any pirates or privateers around here since the 1800s. I live in the city and sail out of the harbour regularly.
Eco yacht aside, there is zero reason for them to have died of exposure on a liferaft in freaking 2024, with the lifesaving technology available.
I am currently on a cross country bicycle trip, and I have a gps beacon attached to my helmet at all times. Not to my bike, to my helmet. Because if my bike and I become separated, it’s me that’s gonna need saving, not the bike. For less than the cost of one of their yacht batteries, they could have bought an extra gps beacon and attached it to one of their belt loops. It’s only $15 a month for gps beacon service. Moreover, the gps beacons can be set to share one’s position with a trusted friend/colleague every so often (5 minutes, 30 minutes, hour). Why was this not done? It’s such a basic precaution. They could have started the search within hours of the gps beacon going dead, which almost certainly would have resulted in their rescue. I learned when I was alone in the desert on US 50, AKA the loneliest road in America, that nature doesn’t care if you live or die. It doesn’t care if you were summa cum laude or how many degrees you have or in what. We want to believe that we are super competent and can McGyver our way out of any situation, but the reality is there is no substitute for having emergency equipment setup, regularly communicating when you are in an exposed situation (either via gps beacon signal or some other method) and having contingency plans. These people need not have died, I’m not saying this to blame them, but just pointing out so that anyone trying something like this can be more prepared than they were.
Being hundreds of nautical miles out on the Atlantic isn’t the same as going for a bicycle ride on a highway. The keel of a sailboat weighs a ton, so if your hull is breached in the middle of the night, you have minutes before your boat disappears. Life rafts have a hydrostatic release for this reason (they deploy automatically once the vessel is submerged). Most boats have hydrostatically released GPS as well (EPIRB). A small, active GPS many hundreds of nautical miles offshore will expend its power long before maritime services will be able to get a good fix on its position. Even with a good fix, visually locating someone on an ocean is an incredible challenge even in optimal conditions. In that time, if you’re in a life raft, you are being exposed to the elements like mad. In a best case scenario, a person can go three days without water. Exposed to the blazing sun, we’re talking hours before death occurs. There’s far more ocean than land, mate, and having every GPS beacon under the sun doesn’t mean that you’ll survive if you’re in the middle of the ocean when the shit hits the fan. Even massive cargo ships just routinely disappear, never to be seen again.
@@mangore623 That’s why I said hook a small beacon to your belt loop. The company SPOT sells the beacons and they work everywhere on planet earth except certain parts of the Pacific, as long as you have a good view of the sky, which you sure as heck would in the middle of the ocean. The beacon doesn’t care if you’re on a bike in Nevada or in the middle of the ocean, it will talk to the satellites as long as you have it activated and it can see the sky. My Spot Gen 3 lasts for several days on 4 NiMH batteries, sending out my position every 5 minutes. You could have 100 spare AAA batteries on the liferaft, which would run a Spot beacon for half a year, for negligible weight gain. I won’t contest that the GPS will not definitely result in a rescue, but it’s a sight better starting a search within a day of your disappearance than 6 days later, much smaller possible search radius to start with for one.
@@mangore623 great response
smartypants
@@doctorshawzy6477Hahah :)
No evidence of glaring mistakes? You outlined most of them, including the issue of stability! They went cheap with their communication equipment and didn’t buy the one thing that could have saved them, a self powered emergency locating beacon (EPIRB.). As in most undertakings labelled “green” this adventure never was green in the first place and the huge amounts of energy expended in the search and recovery could have funded several Atlantic crossings on a normal boat. By the way, batteries, solar panels and sails are not free and their lifecycle costs in energy are significant.
Yeah not like trucking fossil fuels all over that stuff is free
@@jhoughjr1exactly, and to complain about the energy costs of freaking cloth compared to fossil fuels is quite priceless!
The way the solar panels were setup it looks like wind could possibly get underneath them too and not be very stable in a crosswind. Each one of the panels is basically a small sail catching wind so a bunch of them together seems like it would catch a lot of wind.
How do you know they did not buy EPIRBs? You sound like a couch surfer.
I read somewhere that it's half a mega watt hour of energy to make a 200 watt solar panel that's not including the battery.
This often results in a less than optimal sailing experience 😂😂😂
There’s a documentary series called “I shouldn’t be alive”. One episode is about a yacht with a family that hit a reef in the middle of the pacific. Worth watching. Similar to this. Another where’s solo sailor survived in his raft for 70 odd days, just.
Adrift was a book about that. His boat was the Napolean Solo. Read it in 6th geade back in 91.
There is also one where a tri hull sailboat was flipped upside down by a rogue wave and three guys had to live on an upside down boat for a long time. Also one where a group of young people were at sea on a sailboat and all of em jumped off to swim and none could get back on as they had no latter, I think they were eaten by sharks.
I don't know if these two are the same show but are good sailing disaster stories. I love the show your talking about and have seen all of the episodes.
@@jhoughjr1 oh ok it was that long ago hey. Was excruciatingly painful to watch.
I used to love that show. I thought it was well done.
The anchors on the shirt were a nice touch
This poor couple. The idea was good but clearly needed more research. Very sad. But awesome shirt, Dr G!
Pay attention, You can't research a collision....
@@johndonaldson3619 if that's what it was. don't be so judgy and rude
Their idea was profoundly stupid. When your life is on the line, you need proven equipment.
@@FroggyBarnett How about you don't be so flakey and stupid. Think you could you manage that for me?
This is a terrible idea also batteries way much more than a diesel engine then they had a backup their solar panel with gas anyways. ..
Considering how bad the Nissan Leaf is. Sounds like dubious choice of auxiliary propulsion powerplant.
salt water and lithium ion batteries equals a fire that sank the boat.
They were actually living out a dream after the equally great story of their meeting by chance. I was so sorry to hear about the final part of their story. I admire them for many reasons. Instead of sitting in front of a screen watching the life’s of others…they made their own life an adventure and lived more of it in a short span of time than most of us do in a lifetime. Thanks for covering this one Todd.
Ignorance is bliss, until your boat sinks!
Love the anchors on Dr.Grande's shirt...totally on theme . A bright spot in a sad story
Christopher Columbus remark got me, Grande😂
Hello from Nova Scotia.... I swear not every visit here is so deadly
As an Australian, currently watching this, I believe you.
The mushroom person of Nova Scotia, Hello! (South Park reference)
Having grown up there, I can say that is true.
@@Crystal.CMJ2024 *says yup exclusively with breathe*
Being a close cousin(but never met them) was saddened to hear this…they were a lovely & extremely adventurous couple!
A have a beautiful picture of them taking their vows at Stonehenge! They were always on another adventure but he made time for others, like his sister GloryAnn because of her diabetes he gave her his kidney(unfortunately she died not long ago)… This is so sad, but he lived a full life,RIP
What a nice couple. I love their meeting story. Tragic.
It was very naughty-cal of you to match the shirt to your story. You've set a new precedent for all us shirt watchers 😅
Also the risk of heart attack/health crisis with no access to emergency services. These adventures are risky enough for young, strong sailors, even more so for a 54 & 70 yr old.
The fact that a person is up in age doesn't mean that a person is sick. You have bought into the brainwashing that a proper so-called old person must have a range of health problems and must have access to the drug pushing and surgery prescribing doctors. You are absolutely wrong. There are tons of old people, mainly outside the Western world, who die of old age. The US, on the other hand - people at young age are sick and dependant in the medical system.
With one kidney...
Oh brother, landlubbers. You are more at risk of dying driving to work every morning than you are sailing across the Atlantic. You are more prone to injury or death in your home than you are sailing across the Atlantic. Your risk of injury or death increases with greater exposure to people and industrialized civilizations than otherwise.
Pfft. Piss off. What a stupid comment. By your logic, we should wrap up everyone over 40 to protect them against themselves and only let young people outdoors. Absolute nonsense.
Many people sail their yachts well in to their 80's.
Some people sail in old age not planning to return
Sailing always has its risks. I’m a land lover, thank you very much….
I faithfully watch every episode doctor grande puts out ❤
Omg Dr. Grande...that shirt...you are a very funny but slightly naughty boy 😊
I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have ‘practiced’, locally, within sight of land, for a year or two. This was a huge risk. Christopher Columbus didn’t have to put out electrical fires. He didn’t have to dodge gargantuan ocean freighters. And of course, all sailors can be at risk of rogue waves. These senior citizens shouldn’t have been so relaxed about the possible dangers.
Boomers gonna boomer
They were very experienced sailors, with appropriate safety equipment.
Ol' Chris and crew got scurvy
@@adotintheshark4848 And were cooking their food with fire, on a wooden boat.
The guy was cheap, it had nothing to do with eco-friendly. He bought a used automotive lithium battery, trying to get “free” energy, and used it to replace a safe and reliable diesel engine.
In general his boat didn’t even appear seaworthy.
I blame him 100%. He didn’t do his homework at all.
Overly confident retired engineer. Just because he has expertise in one area, doesn't mean he understands everything technical. Over-confidence can get you killed. Absolutely no reason to remove a perfectly good diesel engine, except to stroke his own ego by tinkering with a lithium battery.
Maybe it was “pirated” and they were forced into the raft ..🤔🤔🤔
@@NLR759 "Overly confident retired engineer. "
He was a locomotive engineer, he drove trains.
Overconfident, yes, with no expertise .
@@bobbipearcey2059 it's possible, but does that actually even happen in the north Atlantic?
Cheap out DIY kills again.
RIP. They seemed like a lovely couple.
Guy spent a million dollars and two years converting the boat to electric but forgot to put $20 gasoline in the outboard motor for the raft.
Or did once and it went bad
But gas is bad! 😂
Firstly life rafts do not have engines, although I believe they were found in their tender. And anyway you won’t get very far using a tender engine without a large quantity of fuel.
Was it their dinghy or a life raft? I’ve read conflicting reports about which it was.
Why do you think he spent millions of dollars ? Few tens of thousands at most
Delusional that they thought they could charge an electric car battery with solar panels. I regularly charge large batteries using solar AND a small wind turbine and it's absurd to think you'd get enough power to move a boat that size through open water. Their plan is what I'd expect a child would come up with... I'm shook by the audacity of this plan.
They obviously would have needed to keep stopping periodically to let the batteries recharge and during recharging the boat is just going to drift. Then during nighttime and bad weather the batteries are going to get depleted. The weather is a huge variable, because it could be several days before you can start charging again. Overall, not a very good idea. I don't think these folks had the expertise to do this.
It would be "delusional" (or perhaps more likely, a sign of inability to do rough engineering calculations) to believe such a system could power a vessel **continuously**. However, that is not the philosophy with these conversions. The goal is to use sails pretty much all the time except when maneuvering to and from a dock or for a quick emergency escape. With this philosophy, it doesn't matter if recharging takes a week. Is it a GOOD idea? Ehh.
@@jessicav2031 Id love to know the draw of the motor they powered off that battery. I charge my electric golf cart using 4 panels and a small wind turbine, it takes a week of decent conditions to go from low to full charge. A boat is floating around and being pushed by the wind, u cruise east all day and then the battery dies, then the wind pushes u west for a week while u charge up...yikes
@@alwaysrecycles365 They use propeller regeneration while under sail. Sails provide a huge amount of force; you can even get kW from such a system. Also note that a sailboat can sail into the wind (though not DIRECTLY, within a small angle of it), because many sails act as wings, not parachutes. This results in the strategy known as tacking, traveling at an angle towards the wind and switching back and forth which side the wind is on.
@@jessicav2031 I don't question the well established practices of sailing, obviously man traveled the worlds oceans without motorized propulsion before, but think about how much gas it takes to just drive a speedboat around a lake. You can burn through a huge tank without traveling 10 miles on the water bc it takes so much power to generate propulsion in water. The Nissan leaf battery could do 226 miles on the road in best conditions. A comparable size car that's NOT electric is around 35 mpg, so a full battery on the Nissan leaf gets you as far as about 6.5 gallons of gas. A boat that size will use over 6.5 gallons to travel only 1 nautical mile. This is not a perfect comparison bc we're comparing an electric car to a gas car, then a gas car to a gas boat, but you can see what I'm getting at here...they basically would have needed 35 hours minimum if they're generating CONSISTENT 110v from their solar and wind. If it's not consistent then the converter won't be able to function, which is needed unless he converted it to charge off DC. Since the sun is only up part of the day it would take longer than 35 hours bc u have to wait out the night... I question if that battery moved them much at all, seems like it was basically an expensive and heavy decoration for the boat
Dr. Grande, I really loved how you included a lot of footage from the couples' channel interspersed with your commentary. Makes it all the more riveting to see the story unfold as you tell it 👍👍
Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the earth with only wind .
He started with five ships, died in the Phillipines, and ,if my memory serves, only one ship returned to Spain. Might have been three, but one makes a better story
@@kenandrews4634 Yes. Thousands of ships were lost in that era. No auxiliary power was part of the reason.
Whatever happened it happened fast. My hypothesis is that the battery pack suffered a thermal runaway and quickly filled the confined space below deck with poisonous smoke. They had just enough time to escape the cabin without any equipment or supplies. The possibility of being run down by a freighter is remote since yachts are equipped with AIS for collision avoidance but it’s not infallible.
Nothing says "eco-friendly" like driving across country in a gas-powered car to launch a boat.
He drove his Nissan EV across Canada.
One big lesson here is don't try and sail across an ocean without a functioning EPIRB. If the couple had that it would have been a 30 minute helicopter ride back to Nova Scotia instead of a week starving to death in their dingy.
This seems crazy that they didnt have it! This seems weird
Dehydration .... and still they should have known about sea weeds.
Of course they had an EPIRB but it incinerated before it hit the water which would have activated it.This is the best argument for the runaway battery fire accident scenario.
@@janlaan7236 That's PURE speculation and while it is one possibility, there are plenty of other scenarios that are just as, or even more likely. The story said NOTHING about whether they had an EPIRB or not. If it was known that they did have one and it didn't work, that would have been highly newsworthy and mentioned.
You’re speculating that whether they had an Epirb or not would have been highly newsworthy.
The overwhelming majority of ocean goers would carry an Epirb and there is no doubt about that.
It was eco-friendly. That's the most important part.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
They completely eliminated their carbon footprint.
@@Kyle-sr6jm
They seemed like positive people, found love late in life, worked hard, played hard, lived out their dreams...I'm sure a huge loss to the folk close to them. Rest in peace.
Thank you, Dr. Grande!
My condolences to their families and friends!
Great shirt choice!
Very nautical and on-theme
Yeah a classic shirt. it matches the Mayors sports jacket in Jaws!
What did sailors fear most? Fire. Putting a honking great fire-bomb on a small boat is madness.
Unless you intend to sail it into the Spanish armada
I'd go for the battery fire. Especially the Leaf. Their batteries are known to catch fire. Not a nice way to die that. 😢
Theres a reason it was on the uawd market too
If your vessel has a weakness or a fault, the Ocean will surely expose it.
I made similar assumptions about their exit from the yacht. I was required to completed an industrial survival course for workers on offshore platforms some years ago, and our groups' first class revolved around a large and partly deflated liferaft. We were told that that eleven men had died in this liferaft, and were only in it for several hours before rescue efforts reached them. All of the necessary protocols for maintaining and onboard protocols were failed, the craft was underinflated, no nourishment, had been allowed to partly fill with water, etc. There were others I can no longer recall, but certainly remembered when on my own yacht in the Mediterranean. Lifesaving protocols are in place for a reason, and it's very likely the absence of one or more cost this couple their lives. We'll never fully know of course, but I hope it will be a cautionary tale for some. And car batteries on sea going boats should be internationally banned.
How is installing solar panels and batteries more efficient or better for the environment than just using an engine? They seem to be victims of climate propaganda.
Yes, I agree!
Maybe they heard Greta Doomsberg yell at them ''HOW DARE YOU!''
Well if not done by fools you wouldnt need gas or oil for the engine. No maintainance.
But 600W is woefully undersized to charge that battery.
The used battery.
@@jhoughjr1 Boats were my hobby for 40+ years. Solar panels, LFP batteries, MPPT charge controllers, combiner boxes, split phase inverters keep me busy in retirement years. I still have 2 diesel boats in a marina. I would NEVER remove a diesel main engine or generator and rely solely on solar and batteries, especially used Nissan Leaf units. In my experience on the ocean, we had dim overcast days, rainy days, and November through February low sun angle and short days. I'm a diesel fan.
Actually, their boat had sails, so with optimal weather they might have never had to start up the diesel engine anyway.
Fun fact about sable island, some of the original shipwrecks left horses on the island where they thrived off the grasses. Not enough for humans too survive. So now thier are a herd of wild horses that have become genetically distinct from the ones on the mainland. It’s very rare too see the horses as only a few zoos have the unique sable island wild horse.
I noticed that their choice of battery was a car battery from a Nissan Leaf.
The battery might have developed a leak that let seawater and salt in among the cells, and following corrosion might have
caused cells to overheat and start a battery fire.
I do not believe that such batteries are resistant to corrosion due to salt and water, and the video did not mention what - if anyting - was done to secure the batterypack against the salt water.
Such battery fires, as we now know all too well, are notoriously hard to put out, and it may have developed so much heat and gases, that extinguishing could become impossible in the confined space of the cabin.
The battery may have melted - or set fire to - the polyester in the hull, and burnt a hole that could not be patched up.
The short time of such a fire and the toxic gases might have left the couple with no choice other than what they ende up doing.
EV batteries aren't intended for marine applications. They are proving to have a high risk of catastrophic fires, should there be punctures, exposure to water etc. even on land, in their intended vehicles. I think your theory of a battery fire is the most probable cause of the outcome discussed in the video.
When the water rose during a hurricane recently, there were many Teslas that spontaneously went up in flames.
Bingo
Battery fires can be very quick .. they probably didnt have time when the battery went up tbh
So sad for this couple. 😢 they seemed lovely.
What makes people do dumb things? We will never know.
They suffered from White Savior Syndrome....
Sailors Sail in their Boats. It's done by a few experienced people all the time.
So that we have videos to watch.
😂🤣
@@sanfranciscobay >>S.S. DeathTrap.
By the way, Dr. Grande, thank for doing your video on Bob Newhart. Well done. He was just brilliant, and very unique. I enjoyed The Bob Newhart show as a kid growing up, and especially like his appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Why did their raft not have a radio? It seems to me to be a basic necessity if you're going to go out in the ocean.
Radio won't help you unless there is a ship nearby, within perhaps 50 km, since all you can have on a raft is VHF with has basically a line of sight range
At least, dispite the tragic ending, this is a story of two people who had an amazing relationship, as far as we could see. So sad. R.I.P.
I mean not trying to be ugly but you're absolutely right. People had been crossing the Atlantic without fossil fuels for some time. Not to mention the Polynesians in the Pacific. They've been crossing oceans without fossil fuels for even longer.
it's really a question of packing God's Road Flare within your hull. Not the history of sail power. Clearly there was insanity involved in this. Perhaps dementia or general feeble-mindedness?
@@timewa851"God's road flare" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Well, they proved something.
I was expecting a bunch of buffoons who died from a hubris that was years in the making. But instead they seemed like a lovely couple who should of met years earlier. The fellow seemed to know what he was doing and followed his passion. It's comforting to know he held onto her till the end.
Never, Ever, leave sight of land in a small boat.
My thoughts too. 😅
the Santa Maria was 62 ft ! No propellor , no maps, no sat nav, no rescue services .
never ever leave house without sight of said house!
@@ursodermatt8809 well I mean if something goes wrong on land you’re on land. If something goes wrong in your small boat and you have no idea where land is… then you’re dead.
@@Planetside223
if you are talking about a rowing boat ....
this people did quite some sailing before.
besides crossing the atlantic requires losing sight of land. like if you go to work you are very likely losing sight of your house.
like losing sight of your house does not invite trucks squashing your car.
The truth is we may never know all the facts that lead to this tragedy. One thing for absolutely sure is that a fire onboard is the most likely cause of having to abandon ship rapidly . RIP.
I have lived on an all electric sailboat for a few years now. No major issues. It was built as an all electric sailboat in 2007. Since then no major issues. It has been sailed well over 10,000 nautical miles.
I'm a little uncomfortable with Dr Grande's pirate knowledge
I thought so too. Those anchors on his shirt was a dead giveaway. 😂
Could be a Closet Pirate?
Better the pirate you know..
The second w in Warwickshire is silent, Dr......not that you'll ever need that information again.
😂
as is the 2nd L in Liverpool.
@meisterlymanu5214 The liver does release bile salts into the stool, giving it a brown sheen. Scientifically, one does contribute to the other.
As soon as I heard Reiki healer come out of your mouth I knew something stupid was on the cards.
Only slightly better than voodoo.
@@gingerjessy kewl dolls though..... in voodoo.
My wild guess is that salt water entered the area where the batteries were mounted. This caused the chemical reaction to them that creates a thermal overload, resulting in a fire that is not going out even if the batteries are fully submerged in water. When these types of batteries ignite, they provide all the necessary components to sustain the fire. Large amounts of fresh water won't put the fire out, and salt water is more conductive than fresh so it won't work either. And then they get hot enough to explode, which would definitely compromise the hull of the boat. If the whole thing started while they were sleeping, by the time they woke up it was too late to do anything but abandon ship.
Solo Ocean sailor and marine engineer here. Marine diesel output is measured in kW, so using 600w of solar panels would obviously not work. Not that that played an issue here, I sailed solo across the Atlantic in a 36' boat with no engine. However, it does suggest that he was not very intelligent, so any number of issues could have arose from that.
Not even a hair dryers worth of wattage lol
A 36' solo crossing of the Atlantic. God bless you. Sounds absolutely terrifying in such a small vessel.
If they sailed mostly on wind-power, then the 600watts of solar panels would charge the batteries over days and weeks. But lithium batteries are very explosive if water seeps in.
They accidentally watched a video from the TH-cam flannel guy with the backwards ball cap, and they decided to end it all and scuttle the boat.....
Mr. Ballen??? Say it ain't so 😂
This story is sad but not better than being in a submersible visiting the Titanic where the end was in a millisecond. The couple suffered a lingering and likely painful death. I can’t imagine the despair they felt on the life raft. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Why wasn't there an automatic signal beacon permanently in the raft?
Never buy an all electric vehicle! Those poor folks. What a beautiful couple.
There IS NO adequate fire suppression equipment for an electric battery fire especially at sea (if that was the case). In any case that battery is contaminating the marine environment anyway.
Hybrids make a lot of sense. Just sont buy a used 2004 Prius like my moron mother did
@@jhoughjr1 😆
@@jhoughjr1
I’m a sailor and last year between Tahiti and Fiji our engine broke down. It was not a major problem as we relied on our sails for propulsion and solar panels for charging. Almost all sailboats have batteries on board and increasingly lithium batteries. Generally they are LFP batteries which are considered safe. Fire is one of the top hazards but is more likely to originate from the engine room or from an LPG leak. Another hazard not mentioned is the keel separating from the hull which would be catastrophic.
Remember the vegan couple who climbed Everestt to prove vegans weren't weak? She died. But at least they could tell everyone they were vegan, at the top of the world.
The beans and vegetables are only meant for ground level living.
Not Diagnosing Just Speculating For Dummies by Dr. Grande.
Well, you are watching.
@@arnaldobellucci9033it was a sarcastic nod to a series of books called “For Dummies”… 🙃
Why don't you post your childish dribble for dummies ray
Having completed a Transarlantic crossing from Cape Town to Barbados last year myself, I doubt the collision theory. I assume they did have AIS and it is mandatory for commercial vessels to have them too and switched on, they would have seen any conflicting traffic way before they could see them with the naked eye. Plus, a constant lookout is required by the rules on top. Such a collision would have been very violent as these commercial carriers travel between 10 and 15 knots. I doubt that you transfer to a dinghi after such an impact. An uncontained fire is the most likely cause IMO.
So let me get this straight... they had a sailboat and the attempted to make it "eco friendly" by adding batteries, solar panels, electronics, and motors? it doesn't get any more eco friendly than a wind powered yatch. The diesel engine is just for backup! smh
"Eco friendly yatch" sounds like an oxymoron.
Yes ... a sailboat is very traditional !!
@@j3suisd3 Sail assisted big difference from a small sailboat.
Yatch lol
I don't see how they would have survived being hit by a larger vessel. We don't know what they had with them in the life boat - but that they had time to get into a life boat suggests they had plenty of time to get off the main vessel. Piracy souunds unlikely for that part of the world, but not completely impossible. We don't know yet how they died either - were they dead when they were put in the life boat?
They had radar, and AIS, so a collision is extremely unlikely, as all deep sea sailors maintain a high vigilance for commercial traffic, understanding that the commercial traffic rarely sees them first.
"life life" - is what unknowing media is calling it. I have also seen reports of a 10 foot inflatable BOAT!
Life rafts carried by sailors are designated by person capacity and not length. Most of them are square or octagonal in shape too.
I haven't read anything definitive by someone who KNOWS something about equipment that should be on a sailboat. Just ignorant speculation. A 10 foot inflatable is a RIB that most sailors use as their ship-to-shore dingy with a small gasoline outboard on then. RIB. Rigid Inflatable. A rigid hull of either aluminum or fiberglass and inflated tubes on the front and sides. Minimum of three separate ones. These are either hung on davits from the stern of the sailboat or stored on the foredeck during long passages. An actual LIFE RAFT is in a rectangular box and it is inflated via a pull on a lanyard that opens a CO2 cartridge and inflates the raft within a minute or less.
My take is that they couldn't get this open (did they have one?) and took to their dingy instead. On passage, the outboard would have been secured to the aft rail somewhere on not mounted on the dingy transom either.
Sailors should have a GO BAG to take into their life raft. The life raft will already contain some emergency rations and water and signaling devices including a VHS radio and an EPIRB.
I highly doubt that they made it into any Life Raft! And with no GO BAG in the dingy... they either didn't have one (BAD!) or didn't have time to grab it. And no propulsion method in the dingy either.
Again, unless this is analyzed by someone who ACTUALLY KNOWS what they had on board and SHOULD have had on board, Todd G has no business saying anything. HE does NOT KNOW.
Probably died of exposure...
It is never ecofriendly to leave a vessel on the bottom of the ocean. Words for the "green" to live by.
An autopsie might reveal whether they inhaled toxic lithium + catalytic stuff.
These fires are absolutely nasty, they will prevent access to the cabin in seconds, and torch everything around them.
Li-Ion car battery designer here.
I’m sure the doc would agree that Duning-Kruger Effect is a real possibility here….they were overconfident in their abilities…..also, an actual marine surveyor might have opined that they modified their sailboat to the point of making it unseaworthy.
They took out the diesel and might as well have replaced it with 600 lbs of thermite.
As pilots, we always have redundancy so would keep the diesel and sails. Plus it's normal to do some short shakedown cruises close to safety before embarking on a cross ocean trip.
'don't sail away from vision with the shoreline' - a guy who knows this is a Bad Idea.
Thank you, Dr. Grande!
May you always be healthy and happy!!