So. No experience. 24 and 26 years old, barely out of school and they are tired of paying for a house. "How can we live our lives when we’re working most of the day and you have to pay so much just to live?”
Well, guys, it’s called life. They seem to have good jobs, a nice house, what many less fortunate people can only hope for. But, no. So they sold off everything, bought a 50 year old boat and stocked her up. No more jobs, no cash, no boat insurance. Sailed off into the deep blue sea and promptly ran aground and sunk. Local boat captains (you know, people who actually know how to sail) said the sand bars shift all the time in the channel.
"But we had a GPS! And a map! We only have one life, we can’t give up on our dream. "
So they started a Go Fund Me so other people can help pay for their dream.
They had some small experience sailing at least, but the whole ‘sell everything, buy a boat, sail around the world’ thing is dangerous as hell. If they hadn’t run aground there, they were just as likely to die in a storm or have multiple encounters with pirates, which are still a major problem around the world.
And I bet they would have been major league shocked at the port and docking fees they encountered in the Caribbean. Article says they were left with $90 in cash. I don’t know if their money sunk with the boat, but that’s laughably inadequate just to feed themselves on such a trip, let alone all the fees they would encounter every time they docked.
I’m sure if you add up everything I wasted or didn’t need to spend money on in the last year it would add up to more than $10,000. My car doesn’t need to be as nice. I shouldn’t eat out as much. But it’s not my only $10,000.
Well that’s odd, the GoFundMe listed in the Fox News article says they raised over $10K in three days. At any rate, the money is to raise the boat and get it off the sandbar where it’s a nav hazard. They are looking for a new boat.
There are lots of dreamers like these two. Buying a beat up sailboat without knowing much about sailing and there are thousands of experienced sailors who pack it all up and cruise for the rest of their lives, picking up jobs along the way. You just never hear about them unless you hang out in marinas.
I have some walking experience, but I wouldn’t go traipsing around a professional-level hiking trail in Nevada in July without a hell of a lot of practice and planning and contingency plans.
I have difficulty believing how these people could be that stupid. What a couple of clowns.
This Tampa Bay Times article explains what went wrong, "It was about 8:45 p.m. when they sailed into a new port [John’s Pass, near St Petersburg], navigating a channel they had never sailed before, in the dark, fog rolling in.
Broadwell steered while Walsh stood at the bow, lighting their path with a spotlight, trying to figure out the navigational buoys. But the red and green buoys seemed out of place, they said, and the shoal wasn’t where their 2016-17 navigational charts said it should be. Had Hurricane Irma altered the channel?
Then it happened: The Lagniappe struck something underwater. Walsh almost flew off the deck."
In short, they were inexperienced dumbasses. Honestly, they should be happy that their luck didn’t run out when they were on the open ocean or very far from home. And yes, given that the boat and apparently all the equipment and provisions cost only $10,000 should have given them a clue that they were ill-equipped to sail around the world.
Arguably my spouse and I have done that sort of thing… but as another Doper pointed out, that wasn’t our only $10k at the time and we didn’t ask other people for money to cover our mistakes.
