British woman and husband found dead after failed Atlantic crossing
British woman and husband found dead after failed Atlantic crossing
Sarah Packwood and Brett Clibbery’s life raft washed up on a remote Canadian island after they were reported missing on 18 June
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I gather that many larger ships often either have malfunctioning AIS or don't have it turned on.
AIS is a system that pings identity and location to other ships, and can set off alarms to warn of impending collisions at sea.
Seems like it could be used as a homing signal for pirates.
It is, many people will disable it when near known pirate active areas
I don't know for sure, but I suspect there aren't many pirates in the middle of the Atlantic.
All commercial ships are required to be transmitting on AIS. The article doesn't mention if this couple had AIS (send or receive) at all though. Typically sailors keep watch in shifts to spot potential collisions. By the sounds of it, they had a lot of miles under their belt.
If I had to guess, they had a mechanical failure or a collision with something else that caused them to take on water.
By the sounds of it, they had a lot of miles under their belt.
You have to wonder how they ended up dead? What happened to the EPIRB? Did they not have a PLB? GPS and Portable Radio?
Boats that size can sink incredibly fast. They may have had 5 minutes to figure out what was going on, try and fail to stop it, grab a few things and deploy a life boat. It's possible one or both of them were asleep. It may have been the middle of the night. There could have been a storm. E.g. The situation may have been very disorienting.
I would guess whatever happened, they ended up bobbing around in a life raft for days with little or no food/water. As a pale redhead I know I would personally die after a couple days of sun exposure alone.