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Fred Hebard wrote:

> There was a link to a picture posted here not long ago about a boat
> fetched up on an island off Canada due to the great circle/rhumb line
> referred to in other posts here.

Exactly what caused that yacht to be where she was seems a bit unclear,
except that gross incompetence must have been involved. Sable Island and
  the shallow bars extending from each end represent an "obstruction to
sea room" (as the IYRU racing rules used to put it) some 50 miles in
length -- an obstruction which has been well known to mariners voyaging
in the northwest Atlantic for the better part of 500 years. Since the
island lies very close to the Great Circle route from Nantucket Shoals
to the English Channel, it is hardly an obscure feature, tucked well out
of the way.

It isn't so difficult to make a landing on North Beach of Sable, if you
pick your weather. There is even something of an anchorage there, albeit
in an open roadstead, with a degree of shelter from any wind with some
southerly component. However, the yacht in question went ashore on South
Beach and nobody has any business getting any kind of vessel close
inshore there -- save for the old rescue lifeboats which were sent out
from the beach, in days before helicopters, to take off the unfortunate
crews of ships that did run too close in. South Beach faces the open
Atlantic, without even much of the continental shelf outside it to sap
energy from the largest waves. It has a series of shallow bars beyond
the tideline, on which the ocean swells break continuously, even when
the wind is in the north.

A fine playground for the seals, which are plentiful, but no place for
yacht or ship. Whether it was a confusion of Great Circle with rhumb
line or simply a blindness to features clearly shown on the chart,
getting anywhere near that beach was a major blunder.


Trevor Kenchington


--
Trevor J. Kenchington PhD                         Gadus@iStar.ca
Gadus Associates,                                 Office(902) 889-9250
R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour,                     Fax   (902) 889-9251
Nova Scotia  B0J 2L0, CANADA                      Home  (902) 889-3555

                     Science Serving the Fisheries
                      http://home.istar.ca/~gadus

   

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