I know that Eric dramatizes a bit.
But, he has to put some life into his videos. Although his photography is great.
In this one he is being interviewed and keeps the explanation simple and rawer.
PS; He speaks Norwegian really well.!!!!

: "the waves were the most amazing thing I've seen in my life"

Chris: "you should try the southern ocean mate, you'd love it"

Gotta say, Eric did a video about grounding his boat and it speaks volumes about his character. Many people would bury an incident like that but he's totally transparent about it.

That's not dramatising, that's BS. In the top video he's talking about how scary it is but the hull is visible at all times, not being hidden behind swells. That shows clearly that it's just a heavy chop,

I don't see why it's considered OK to do a passage and then make it seem as if you're an ironclad superhero who conquers vast storms every time.

I think its a bit more than heavy chop, he mentioned 3 to 4 metre waves, seems very plausible from the video. Look at the wave at 3.16 that's clearly quite large, video always makes it look way less.

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JonE said..

: "the waves were the most amazing thing I've seen in my life"

Chris: "you should try the southern ocean mate, you'd love it"

Pretty easy to cast everything around 35 footers as dangerous little boats in rough weather when you sail an 85 footer worth heaven knows what.

Fact is plenty of people have circumnavigated solo including thousands of miles in the southern ocean in such boats.

Furthermore it is sensible to purposely go out in very rough conditions in your home area if you ever plan to do longer trips in order to learn the handling of your boat and yourself in preparation for the day when you will be thrust into such conditions with no other option.

I for one can recall taking my Hutton 28 out on a crazy day after a crazy few weather days when I was in my early twenties just to see what the issues might be plus get a bit of adrenaline flowing around my invincible young body.

I certainly got my money's worth down more than a couple of waves coming back towards Lion Island. Lost my nerve rocketing down one for fear of burying the bow (too much prior cat experience) and pitch polling so tried to pull out and laid her flat. Very lucky she didn't roll right over. Excellent learning experience!

To be fair, Chris's life's purpose appears to have been getting other people sailing and he devotes hours to producing videos focussed on how to sail safely. His open 60 was a ****box that had sat rotting in France for 10 years and he basically fixed it up himself with the experience of 1000's hours at the coal face, sailing, fixing engines etc. So by any measure he has earned the right to comment.

Now Eric has produced some short movies that are staggering in quality for a one man band, compared to the crap documentaries you see on TV these days. The episodes about sailing to the islands off Scotland are beautiful and illuminating.

I would love to see a collaboration, "Chris and Eric go South on Boxing Day" - I'd lob money into Patreon for that??

Eric is as mad as the Scandinavian equivalent of a cut snake. His English is patchy, but way better than my Norwegian. I think Leo (Tally Ho) would shudder at what he does with a power drill to the roof of his cabin. The Admiral would like him to eat more veggies, and we both think he might be better off without the cigarettes.

However, his photography is brilliant. It was Eric that inspired me to get the ferry (with the Admiral) from the north end of Denmark to Iceland last year, which gave us the most incredible scenery on the western side of the Faroe Islands. Those views were worth the entire journey.

I found his account of his grounding candid and informative. He even told us how much he contributed to the insurance costs for the repairs because of his own negligence. Not a lot of folks would do that. His experience of lead-on-rock vs steel-on-rock might persuade some future boat purchases.

I did not find his account of the North Sea Crossing too dramatic. After all, it was an interview by TV-folk who think it is dangerous to walk along a snow-covered wharf. I really hope he manages to get to Greenland this year. As an inshore sailor, I find his adventures fascinating. Now, I would seriously like to explore the Caledonian waterway, and I still would like to sail out to St Kilda.

So, I am an Eric fan. So is the Admiral, which makes for some interesting viewing.

On the keel - surely the energy absorbed by deforming that keel was the difference between a wet bilge and a cold swim? Had that been a ferrous keel that energy woulda had to go somewhere!??

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JonE said..
On the keel - surely the energy absorbed by deforming that keel was the difference between a wet bilge and a cold swim? Had that been a ferrous keel that energy woulda had to go somewhere!??

Maybe but if he had hit a bit harder the lead keel may have sheared off and the boat capsized (see screenshot below). Hard to know.

One thing is almost certain and that is if it had been a modern production boat with a flat bottom and thin glass and/or glued down support matrix the keel would be punched up through the bottom of the hull at the rear and the boat sunk irrespective of the keel material.

So we watch a guy totally optionally leave a perfectly safe mooring when he had been awake for 3 or four days straight and motor through a busy waterway at night asleep on autopilot, crashing into some (probably visible at night) rocks where 80% of his claim is paid for by other boat users in his insurance pool and our learnings are that modern boats are bad because driving them hard up onto big boulders is bad for them?

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JonE said..
So we watch a guy totally optionally leave a perfectly safe mooring when he had been awake for 3 or four days straight and motor through a busy waterway at night asleep on autopilot, crashing into some (probably visible at night) rocks where 80% of his claim is paid for by other boat users in his insurance pool and our learnings are that modern boats are bad because driving them hard up onto big boulders is bad for them?

I have grounded my boat once since I got it, pretty sure it will happen again before I am done, knowing she is built well gives a little piece of mind.

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JonE said..
So we watch a guy totally optionally leave a perfectly safe mooring when he had been awake for 3 or four days straight and motor through a busy waterway at night asleep on autopilot, crashing into some (probably visible at night) rocks where 80% of his claim is paid for by other boat users in his insurance pool and our learnings are that modern boats are bad because driving them hard up onto big boulders is bad for them?

If Tesla hits a Ford and I own a Ford I'm interested to see which car comes off best. Got nothing to do with whether either of the parties are drunk drivers or whether I like the guy in the Tesla or not.

It is very relevant because we all might run aground one day unless of course we are perfect, equipment failures never happen and the weather and tides are always favourable.

There are two types of sailors those that have run aground, and those that lie.

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JonE said..
So we watch a guy totally optionally leave a perfectly safe mooring when he had been awake for 3 or four days straight and motor through a busy waterway at night asleep on autopilot, crashing into some (probably visible at night) rocks where 80% of his claim is paid for by other boat users in his insurance pool and our learnings are that modern boats are bad because driving them hard up onto big boulders is bad for them?

That's a pretty good insurance company, and not typical. Most would not pay a claim like that, or it would be the other way round- they pay the 20%. I am guessing they treated him well, hoping they will get positive publicity.
If his boat was a modern build, for sure it would be a a write-off.

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Eric's doing some incredible work, and some tricky navigation - check out the tidal variation at 5 minutes in on this video!