![]() But they were getting rained on every 30 to 35 minutes with squalls, waves are going over the boat, covering the deck. You'd expect this kind of thing on an ocean crossing. Basically they sailed into a part of the ocean called the Intertropical Convergence Zone where they hit some nasty weather and waves. Well, Eric said that one of the big problems began the day before they called for help. What happened that made them abandon everything they had been hoping for and planning for for years and years? Which made me especially interested in the moment that they decided to give all that up and call for help. The idea was they would head out and then just figured it out. When I asked Eric how long the trip was going to be, he didn't have an answer. The plan was they were going to travel to the Pacific Islands, make it to New Zealand before November, then live in New Zealand for a couple years, and then on to Micronesia and Indonesia, then who knows where. Eric and Charlotte had been preparing for this trip seriously since 2010 when they started buying safety gear and did all the careful steps you do to make a ship as safe as possible, replace the rigging and chain plates, that kind of thing. This is where their savings went.īefore they set sail last month, Eric made his living doing a computer job for a financial services company. First off, OK, whatever impressions you have of people who own boats, they are not rich. Some basic facts about Eric and Charlotte Kaufman. Stay with us.Īct One, When May Day Falls in April. Not actually the kind of thing that the Senate usually handles at all. Including, by the way, we have former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson stepping in to lend a hand about a matter that is not the kind of matter that one usually turns to the United States Senate for. It turns out that when you call for help it can lead you to places that you never suspected that it possibly ever could. And we also have other stories of people calling for help. Today on our program we have them and their story. They gave no interviews explaining what really happened until today. It said, quote, "For those who are more critical, we ask that you kindly await all the details." They thought that if people heard the whole story, everything that happened to them, their choices would seem reasonable. So when Eric and Charlotte Kaufman got to safety and realized the reaction their story was getting, they put out a statement on the internet. He said it was on the adventurous side of routine, but it was routine. In fact, he said, however it may sound to people who do not sail, crossing an ocean on a sailboat is routine. And he said that what the Kaufmans did was not unusual at all. We reached somebody from the American Boat and Yacht Council, which writes the safety guidelines for these kinds of boats, and he confirmed that there are in fact thousands of families living on boats, tooling around the world with children of all ages. And on day 16 of the trip- well here's Eric and then also Charlotte. And basically when all else fails you break a seal, you push a button, and this device transmits your coordinates to authorities who know that it means that you are in trouble and they need to send help. EPIRB stands for emergency position indicating radio beacon. It looks like a fluorescent green Big Gulp cup with electronics inside and a little antenna that's sticks out. ![]() It takes 360 days on the water to get that, and it means that he can captain a commercial vessel, which he has done.Īnd he says that when things started to get bad on his sailboat, he started thinking about this piece of gear they have on the boat. Eric is an experienced sailor with a Coast Guard Master's License. The parents, their names are Eric and Charlotte Kaufman, say that a whole bunch of things had gone wrong besides the sick baby. ![]() But 1,200 miles out in the middle of the ocean in the cabin of a 36 foot boat, it looked pretty different. ![]() So that is how the whole thing looked from dry land. Who in the hell takes two little kids on a voyage like this." To a point a lot of people made, quote, "This family should be forced to pay for the rescue. Comments on the internet ranged from, why take a baby out to see when she's a baby? After all, she won't remember it. And what a surprise, this being the internet they found things to get angry at. People went online and they read the blogs that these parents were keeping of their voyage online. The front page New York Times story on the family was headlined, quote, "Two tots, a Sailboat, and a Storm over Parenting," and quoted experienced sailors arguing pro and con weather was OK to take a baby to sea. ![]()
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