# Drifting with the current.



## JohnT777 (Jul 2, 2018)

Just curious , the pacific garbage patch just stays out in the ocean for the most part because of the circular current in that aria. How long could a boat stay out in a place like that without drifting to land?


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## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

Depends. Is the boat garbage?


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## TQA (Apr 4, 2009)

Reid Stowe 1,152 days without touching land.

OK He cheated and threw in a circumnavigation as well.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

JohnT777 said:


> Just curious , the pacific garbage patch just stays out in the ocean


Remember the only person who has seen the pacific gyre garbage patch is the guy making money out of it. Its never been verified.

If it exists how did the junk from Fukishima end up on PNW beaches?


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## capttb (Dec 13, 2003)

Long time, I remember a power boat abandoned in S. Pacific found years later in N. Pacific, it had been stripped and looked like a floating island, and then there's "The Mummy". https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/01/mummified-body-of-german-man-found-in-yacht-adrift-off-philippines


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

TQA said:


> Reid Stowe 1,152 days without touching land.
> 
> OK He cheated and threw in a circumnavigation as well.


He was a bit of a nut but I quite liked him. 
He always replied to my emails... But then what else did he have to do floating like a bit of flotsam making whale patterns in the Atlantic?


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

By the way, the South Atlantic is the only ocean not beset by cyclones, tropical or temperate, so if ya gunna float that's where to do it. Between Receif, St Helena and where the butter gets solid.


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## krisscross (Feb 22, 2013)

Did Rimas the Drifter ever got stuck in a garbage patch? I don’t think so. He plowed through it like a snail through lettuce field.


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## Barquito (Dec 5, 2007)

I think current may have the predominant influence on the plastic, whereas, wind would have a larger influence on a boat. You would probably get shoved out of the gyre by a storm or two. That's my guess.


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## Minnesail (Feb 19, 2013)

krisscross said:


> Did Rimas the Drifter ever got stuck in a garbage patch? I don't think so. He plowed through it like a snail through lettuce field.


"Snail through a lettuce field" 

I "friended" Rimas on Facebook so I could watch his drift-a-thon. Every once in a while I'll get a notification that Rimas has liked one of my photos. Very weird.

Anyway, he wasn't strictly drifting. He had some moderate directional control and could sail a broad reach on either tack.


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## paulk (Jun 2, 2000)

Good article in this week's (04FEB) New Yorker magazine about Boyan Slat and his Gyre cleanup efforts. It mentions how all the plastic in the ocean will soon start to outweigh all the fish. Slat comes across as persistent and ready to work with - or against - the current. Maersk shipping, among others, seems to find his arguments convincing. On September 8, 2018, they provided the tug that took five days to tow the 2000' prototype boom from San Francisco Bay into position in the Pacific Gyre, to see if it would work. Results were not as good as expected, so Slat is considering using the wind to create a bigger speed differential between the cleanup boom (christened "Wilson", like Tom Hank's friend in "Cast Away"), and the surrounding water. Getting something that will work, unattended, in any conditions, is not easy. But again, Slat comes across as persistent. Let's hope we succeed. We could all use a little less plastic.


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## paulk (Jun 2, 2000)

Whirlpools, eddies and gyres come in all sorts of sizes
https://www.kctv5.com/news/giant-ro...deo_a17a08fd-dfeb-57d7-9f34-79aa24101875.html

Reports in March, 2018 describe the North Pacific Gyre as covering 600,000 square miles - twice the size of Texas.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...currents-involved-in-the-North_fig1_259166112

There are six gyres in different oceans around the world. It seems that the N.Pacific gyre has the most garbage in it. Stuff isn't chockablock out there - it's spread out over a huge area. Raking sections of it with "Wilson" type booms - or perhaps something better - is intended to help start cleaning things up. But the process will take years.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

krisscross said:


> He plowed through it like a snail through lettuce field.


Did you just coin that phrase? I searched it and looks like you can claim it!


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## krisscross (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkofSeaLife said:


> Did you just coin that phrase? I searched it and looks like you can claim it!


Yes, it's mine, coming from my experiences with snails in my lettuce patch. :svoilier:


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## TQA (Apr 4, 2009)

On the epic SA thread about Rimas there is a recent post by the robot guy in which he details a recent conversation with Rimas who is on back in the USA and I believe him to be looking for another boat in Seattle. If what Rimas said is true and there is no reason to doubt this [ as he is not on the VHF to the coasties pleading for a tow ] he has very bad cataracts.

To read his GPS he takes a picture of the screen with his Iphone and blows it up. I guess he can not read a compass without doing the same.

He explains that he did know what he was doing when he escaped from the Texas reef trap shown below.

He read his position on a chart. Realised that his only hope of escape from wrecking or at least grounding was to go North round the Undu Peninsula. So he set off hand steering and broad reaching North. He would have had to hand steer for many hours. As he can not read a compass he would have been sailing by feel. He made it.

Mind you he does not explain how he got into that pickle.

Getting out deserves some respect in my eyes. Up until now I was firmly of the opinion that he should not be encouraged to set off again and the 'enablers' should be shut down somehow. Now I don't know, he needs to get his cataracts done then should he be stopped?


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## capta (Jun 27, 2011)

I have no personal experience with the NP gyre, thankfully, but having made the sail from Hawaii to SF twice, I have successfully gone around it. Even back then, it was reputed to have a lot of garbage in it, and there were tales of a few who were stuck without wind and couldn't power for some days because of the garbage.
In my numerous voyages through the Med in the '70s and '80s, I encountered literal 'rivers' of plastic bags. I called the Med southern Europe's garbage can.
This stuff isn't new, it is just getting worse. Lately, however, I have noticed a drastic reduction in the number of stores and markets down here that put their sales in plastic bags; you must have your own or buy the plastic ones at an unreasonably high cost. Some of the take out places have switched from styrofoam containers to cardboard. 
So, while the first world talks, some of the third world countries are actually doing something! Good on them.


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## mbianka (Sep 19, 2014)

capta said:


> So, while the first world talks, some of the third world countries are actually doing something! Good on them.


We bookended stays at two different resort islands for our recent Maldives charter. I was glad to see the resort restaurants provided paper straws with my Mocktail libations. We also picked a plastic bag off a reef while snorkeling one day. Glad it was the only one we saw during the eight day charter.


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## Minnesail (Feb 19, 2013)

MarkofSeaLife said:


> Did you just coin that phrase? I searched it and looks like you can claim it!





krisscross said:


> Yes, it's mine, coming from my experiences with snails in my lettuce patch. :svoilier:


Well I'm stealing it. You can't stop me.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

Minnesail said:


> Well I'm stealing it. You can't stop me.


He grabs the phrase and runs away at the speed of a snail through a lettuce patch.

:wink


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## blowinstink (Sep 3, 2007)

MarkofSeaLife said:


> He was a bit of a nut but I quite liked him.
> He always replied to my emails... But then what else did he have to do floating like a bit of flotsam making whale patterns in the Atlantic?


Well, at least for a little while, a 22 y/o, no? :laugh

Damn, I thought this was gonna be a Rimas thread!

Happy 2019 sailnetters!


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## blowinstink (Sep 3, 2007)

capta said:


> I have no personal experience with the NP gyre, thankfully, but having made the sail from Hawaii to SF twice, I have successfully gone around it. Even back then, it was reputed to have a lot of garbage in it, and there were tales of a few who were stuck without wind and couldn't power for some days because of the garbage.
> In my numerous voyages through the Med in the '70s and '80s, I encountered literal 'rivers' of plastic bags. I called the Med southern Europe's garbage can.
> This stuff isn't new, it is just getting worse. Lately, however, I have noticed a drastic reduction in the number of stores and markets down here that put their sales in plastic bags; you must have your own or buy the plastic ones at an unreasonably high cost. Some of the take out places have switched from styrofoam containers to cardboard.
> So, while the first world talks, some of the third world countries are actually doing something! Good on them.


Buenos Aires Argentina is among those who don't permit free or single use plastic bags. Makes quite a difference and is eminently "do-able". #BanTheBag!


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## dixiedawg (Sep 22, 2013)

It is my humble, uneducated and sincere opinion that we are too focused on global warming, and not focused enough on pollution. 

Over the last three and a half billion years, mother nature has proven herself quite capable of handling our planet's ever-changing climate. Pollution ... not as much.


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## MarkofSeaLife (Nov 7, 2010)

dixiedawg said:


> It is my humble, uneducated and sincere opinion that we are too focused on global warming, and not focused enough on pollution.
> 
> Over the last three and a half billion years, mother nature has proven herself quite capable of handling our planet's ever-changing climate. Pollution ... not as much.


Absolutely 1000000% agree with you.
The GW focus allows us to blame big companies... but the pollution focus allowed us to become more vigilant... and be more critical of other countries that pollute the world.


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## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

"Results were not as good as expected,"
IIRC the boom broke, the collection was insignificant, and the tug was going to tow the whole thing to Hawaii for...well, let's say disposal if they don't find a way to massively change it. It wasn't up to the basic structural needs to stay in one piece at sea.
I'd call it a massive fail, but even that is a success since it proves "We need a bigger hammer". I'm not sure if the entire concept falls under the heading of "magical thinking" or if it ever could work. Considering the massive amounts of plastic and damage from it found even in places like Wake Island, I wish the guy luck but I don't see the odds.
Maersk wins either way. GREAT PR for a "dirty" industry trying to clean up, and I'm sure 100% tax deductible as either a donation of services, or a marketing expense.


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