Schooner Nina
The story of the famous Schooner Nina, and the crew of 7 who lost their lives on its final voyage
Schooner Nina and her crew
Introduction
The Schooner Niña is famous as a boat that transformed ocean racing yacht design. Prior to its construction in 1928, ocean racing was dominated by gaff-rigged ‘fisherman’ schooners, many named after their designer, John Alden. Nina was a narrower and deeper-hulled boat rigged with a Marconi main sail with staysails forward, and it signaled the future of yacht design by winning its first race (New York to Santander) followed in short order by the Fastnet race (in the Irish Sea and English Channel) – the first American yacht to do so.
But the Niña will be remembered for its final voyage, where tragically its crew of seven are presumed to have lost their lives when the Niña disappeared on a voyage from New Zealand across the Tasman Sea to Australia. The largest search in the history of RCCNZ (Rescue Coordination Centre, New Zealand), followed by months of searching organized by relatives of the crew, failed to find any trace of the vessel and crew, or any wreckage. June 4 th 2013 marks the date of this greatest loss of life in recreational boating history.
The History of Schooner Niña
Designer: W. Starling Burgess. Built by: Reuben Bigalow Ship Yard, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA .
Year Built: 1928 Original Owner: Paul Hammond
Burgess “Nina” Specifications: Overall length 70’0”/21.33m. Length on deck 59’0”/17.98m Water Line length 50’0″/15.24m Beam 14’10”/4.52m Draft 9’7”/2.92m. Displacement 44 tons. Sail Area: 2,275 sq ft Foremast: 65′ 0″ / 19.81m – Mainmast: 85′ 0″ / 25.90m
Race history
Known Racing History:
1928 Winner New York to Santander, Spain. 3,900 mile race in 24 days, greeted by King Alfonso from his launch, with “Well sailed, Niña, I congratulate you! I am the King of Spain.” Niña then went to England for the 600 mile Fastnet Race which takes place through the stormy waters of the English Channel and the Irish Sea. She became the first American yacht to win that race. Her overall time was 4 days, 12 hours, 48 minutes, 13 seconds. 1929 Winner London to Gibson Island Chesapeake Bay. Niña had one more major win, the 1929 race from London to Gibson Island Chesapeake Bay. She was temporarily retired as owner, Paul Hammond, became involved in the 1930 Americas Cup race.
1939 Winner New York Yacht Club Astor Cup, and 1940 Winner New York Yacht Club Astor Cup. In 1934, New York banker, DeCoursey Fales bought Niña, and each year of his life he became more and more devoted to her. He would talk for hours about the ‘old girl’. The rest of Niña’s career was probably fore-ordained as she won the New York Yacht Club Astor Cup in 1939 and 1940. Just before WWII, she won for the first time an event that was to become her specialty, the 233 mile Stanford-Vineyard Race on Long Island Sound. Afterward, she was laid up for the duration of the war. Niña was not allowed to rot, however, and she came out after the war in better shape than ever for a three year stint as flag ship for the New York Yacht Club.
1949 Winner Cygnet Cup Mr. Fales became the NYYC commodore in 1949, and Niña earned her honors by taking first place in ¾ of the yacht club’s squadron races as well as winning the Cygnet Cup in 1949. She made such a habit of winning races that Commodore Fales put the trophies back in competition. It became almost a stock joke that Niña would proceed to win back her own trophies! 1962 Winner Newport to Bermuda Race. In 1962 to thunderous cheers, Niña, became the oldest yacht at 34 years to win the Newport to Bermuda Race, under 72 year old Commodore Fales (the oldest skipper in the race!). In 1966, then 78 year old Commodore Fales passed away while his crew was attempting to repeat the Bermuda win. Niña had five owners after Fales, one being Kings Point Academy. 1989 Winner New York Mayors Cup 1994 Winner Antigua (Schooner Class) 2012 Winner New Zealand’s 37th Tall Ships and Classic Invitation
Starling Burgess NINA
Ownership and Restoration, from mid 90’s
Nina was purchased in 1988 by David N. and Rosemary Dyche. They undertook much restoration to the vessel. A new deck took 3 years to complete and was finished in 1997. Photos of some of the restoration can be seen here http://www.sail-world.com/111389 .
In September 2008, the Dyche family, including David junior, began circumnavigating.
A replacement engine was fitted and trialled in Opua, shortly before starting the fateful last voyage.
The final voyage
On 29 th May 2013, the Historic American Schooner Niña, with a crew of seven, left Opua, New Zealand on a planned voyage to Newcastle, Australia. On 4 th June 2013, contact with the vessel was lost.
This treatise documents everything known about the vessel, the crew, the journey, and the search for the vessel following loss of communication.
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The New York Times
City room | a maritime beauty, possibly gone forever, a maritime beauty, possibly gone forever.
John Rousmaniere remembers the last time he saw Nina in top form. It was 1962, and it was dazzling its way to Bermuda, leaving a bunch of younger and sleeker challengers in its wake.
It already was a rare craft, a mahogany schooner racing across the ocean against a pack of sloops and yawls. It had been 15 years since it was the flagship of the New York Yacht Club, but the yacht was still turning heads with its sails billowing out from its wooden masts.
“It was really dramatic” to race against Nina, Mr. Rousmaniere recalled a few days ago, as news of the vessel’s disappearance spread. “It’s a tragedy that she’s been lost.”
The 70-foot schooner left New Zealand in late May, bound for the west coast of Australia with seven people aboard, including a family from Florida who had sailed it around the world for more than four years. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation , those on the yacht included the family — David Dyche, 58; his wife, Rosemary, 60; and their son David — Evi Nemeth, 73; and a Briton, Matthew Wootton, 35. A 28-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman, identified by her father as Danielle Wright, according to the Australian newspaper The Age , were also aboard.
The last known communication from Nina was on June 4 when it was caught in a severe storm. A text message released on Thursday, which had been sent by satellite phone from the vessel to a meteorologist, said, “THANKS STORM SAILS SHREDDED LAST NIGHT, NOW BARE POLES,” and indicated that information about its course would soon be updated. No such update ever came, and the BBC reported that rescuers called off the search for the yacht last week.
Aerial searches of a vast expanse of the Tasman Sea yielded no sign of the schooner or any of its passengers. Leaders of the search said they believed it sank suddenly in the storm, leaving no time for the crew to deploy lifeboats.
If Nina did sink, it would spell the end of a long, eventful life that took the yacht from its creation on Cape Cod to New York City, to Bermuda and back many times, across the Atlantic to Europe, to Florida and, finally, to the South Pacific. Along the way, it was a racer, a flagship, a training vessel for aspiring mariners and the unrequited love of so many sailors.
“She represents the end of an era,” said Nick van Nes, whose father, Hans, owned Nina for more than 15 years. “You rarely see so much love and loyalty going into a boat.”
Mr. van Nes, 68, recalled that when his father was looking for a place to keep Nina after leaving the New York area for New England, the schooner was embraced wherever he took it. “He sailed into Vineyard Haven, and the owner of the shipyard said, ‘You can dock here anytime as my guest. I’d be honored,’ ” Mr. van Nes recounted on Friday from his home on Martha’s Vineyard.
Nina was built in 1928 on Cape Cod, designed by William Starling Burgess for its first owner, Paul Hammond. The schooner immediately shocked the yachting world in July 1928 by winning a race from New York to Santander, Spain, and capturing a cup offered by the queen of Spain.
A month later, Nina won the Fastnet Race off the coast of England, and its competitive credentials were established.
In 1935, DeCoursey Fales, a banker who was a member of the New York Yacht Club, bought Nina. When Mr. Fales was elected commodore of the yacht club, whose headquarters are in a Beaux-Arts landmark building on 44th Street in Manhattan, Nina became the club’s flagship.
Mr. Fales lovingly maintained Nina and raced it aggressively, Mr. Rousmaniere, the historian of the New York Yacht Club, recalled. He kept the vessel at a boatyard at City Island, which then was a haven for racing yachts.
He made sure to keep Nina stripped down to its fighting weight.
“Day races, Bermuda races, overnight races, he kept at it,” Mr. Rousmaniere said.
By 1962, when Nina should have been well past its prime, Mr. Fales entered it in a Newport-to-Bermuda race against a pack of yawls and single-masted sloops. With the wind just right to take advantage of the schooner’s big sails, Mr. Fales sailed Nina to an unexpected victory.
“It was a very popular win because the boat was so handsome,” Mr. Rousmaniere said.
The health of Mr. Fales, who was 74 when he won the race to Bermuda, soon began to fail, but his enthusiasm for racing Nina did not. Mr. van Nes recalled seeing Mr. Fales strapped into the helm when he no longer had the strength to keep his balance on Nina. He died in 1966 while the boat was racing to Bermuda.
After his death, Nina passed from one owner to another, briefly belonging to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. By 1975, the schooner had been sitting idle at a marina in Stamford, Conn., for a few years during a dispute over payment for repairs.
Mr. van Nes said he encouraged the marina’s owner to auction off Nina, because he wanted the vessel for himself. At the time, he was charging tourists and workers on Wall Street $3.75 for a 45-minute lunchtime cruise from Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan. There was so much demand for a short jaunt in the harbor, he was certain he could use another schooner there.
Mr. van Nes persuaded his father to bid up to $75,000 for Nina, promising to repay him over several years. Hans van Nes won the auction with a bid of $49,700, but Nina had the same effect on him that it had on so many other sailors.
Mr. van Nes never owned Nina because his father would not give it up. He took the schooner to Massachusetts and sailed it with a group of friends on regular trips from New Bedford to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard and back, Mr. van Nes said.
“He just absolutely loved the boat, and everybody he sailed with loved it, too,” Mr. van Nes said. His father eventually sold Nina to Mr. Dyche, the Florida resident who was sailing the yacht when it disappeared en route to Australia last month.
Mr. van Nes confessed that his own sentiments toward Nina were so persistent that about a week before he heard of Nina’s disappearance, he had searched online for information about its whereabouts. Wistful, he said, he found a YouTube video of the Dyche family happily sailing it across the Atlantic, bound for Ireland. The schooner was still a sight to behold.
He recalled that Olin Stephens, one of the most successful designers of racing yachts in history, once told him that Nina was the only yacht that looked great from any angle. Try as he might, Mr. Stephens told him, he had never been able to match Nina in the looks department.
“That was always a great tribute to the boat,” Mr. van Nes said.
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The Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria
Most schoolchildren learn the tale of Christopher Columbus and his historic voyage across the ocean. The story has evolved over time to take a more realistic and practical view of the trip. Gone are they days when people thought Columbus thought the world was flat. But there’s one part of the story that not enough people pay attention to and that’s the ships themselves. Just how did Columbus make the journey that only a handful of Vikings had ever made before?
When Columbus Sailed for the Americas
Keep in mind, the popular story many people hear was that either Columbus thought the world was flat or that he thought he found China. Neither of these are true. The reason Columbus headed West was because everyone knew the world was round. The problem was he thought it was a lot smaller than it truly is and that it would be a shortcut to China and India. He realized right away that they hadn’t found the Orient. They found a new land that no one had expected to be there.
The Story of Christopher Columbus’ Ships
The flagship Santa Maria was a carrack that displaced about 100 tons. It had a single deck and three masts. The Nina and the Pinta were known as caravel vessels. Each ship carried supplies for their crews. Food, animals, water and so on. Sleeping quarters were not included, the crew would have slept on the deck.
None of the three ships were ever explicitly intended for exploration. Each was likely a second hand merchant ship, the best that could be obtained at the time to be fast enough and reliable enough to do the job.
The smaller caravels were very popular in Columbus’ day, the sports cars of the sea. Sleek and fast, they were skilling at sailing upwind . They made use of lateen sails which greatly helped their performance. A lateen sail is basically a triangular sail set at a 45 degree angle to the deck.
Both of the caravels were lightweight and rode high in the water. Part of the reason was, of course, that they were so light on crew as well. There were 20 men on the Nina and 26 on the Pinta.
As we all know, the ships were the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. So what were the Santa Clara and the Santa Gallega?
Santa Gallega or La Gallega was the name of the Santa Maria before Columbus’s voyage. Columbus never actually
recorded the name of the Santa Maria in his writing, only the names of the other two vessels. It’s believed by some that he obtained the Gallega and changed the name himself. Some think the Gallega, which means Galician, indicates the ship was built in Galicia in Spain.
As for the Santa Clara, that was the true name of the Nina. Saint Clare of Assisi, also known as Santa Clara, was the patron saint of good weather, among many other things. The Nina was a nickname, and it was not uncommon for Spanish vessels to follow this system. One formal name, in particular that of a saint, and a more common name that was more in line with the crews vernacular.
What We Know Today
We don’t have the ships to look at any longer, just similar examples. None of them survived. Most people believe the vessels had three masts but it’s possible the Nina had four masts. This includes a small counter-mizzen. We know that the Nina was also refitted with square sails in the Canary Islands. Based on similar vessels we do have descriptions of, and descriptions the crews gave, some replicas have been produced.
The vessels were much different than anything you’d find today. The layout, design and function was unusual by our standards. For instance, few if any crew members were able to read or write. That meant keeping a log of what happened on a given shift was all but impossible. Instead, the crew used a peg board system to indicate things like wind direction, estimated speed, and bearing.
Piloting the ship was unusual as well. From the tiller, you would be unable to see where you were going. As such, another crew member needed to be positioned at the bow or in the crow’s nest as a lookout. They would relay messages to the one operating the tiller if any course corrections were needed.
A watch shift would last for four hours. An hour glass was used to mark the time. Another crew member, the youngest on board, would be tasked with watching the glass. He’d call it out when it was done, and then turn the glass to start it again.
There have been more models made of the Santa Maria than the other ships. Again, no accurate figures exist to determine the exact dimensions of the original, however. That means every replica is a “best guess” or artistic interpretation of what the historic vessel looked like.
Back in 1892, the Spanish government commissioned a replica for the 400th anniversary of the voyage. Columbus, Ohio built their own for the 500th anniversary in 1992. This was declared by historians to be an extremely accurate replica. There was even one built in Canada to be used in the West Edmonton Mall back in the 1980s.
About Chris
Outdoors, I’m in my element, especially in the water. I know the importance of being geared up for anything. I do the deep digital dive, researching gear, boats and knowhow and love keeping my readership at the helm of their passions.
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Revealing report on Search for American yacht Nina released
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Starling Burgess NINA- Timeline for Search and Rescue
Nina , a classic sailboat with an impeccable racing career, where once the King of Spain went out in his launch to congratulate her on winning the 1928 New York to Santander, Spain race, is now in the midst of the largest search and rescue operations in the Tasman Sea off of New Zealand. Extremely competent crew, and qualified Captain, with extensive worldwide sailing experience, all of which keeps hopes alive, that they were able to find safe refuge somewhere. Thoughts and prayers go out to family and friends, and the crew of the yacht Nina.
Over the past 11 days, RCCNZ has coordinated nine extensive searches for the vessel or its liferaft. An RNZAF P3 Orion has searched approximately 737,000 square nautical miles (an area more than eight times the size of New Zealand) without making any sighting. There were also shoreline searches by fixed wing aircraft and helicopters.
Mr Seward said that regardless of any decision on active searching, RCCNZ will continue to evaluate all the available information and any new information that may come to light. In addition, New Zealand’s Maritime Radio is continuing to conduct broadcasts in New Zealand’s search and rescue region, and Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) is assisting with broadcasts on coastal radio, in the search for new information.
July 5th: 6.45am – The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) is continuing to assess all available information in the search for the crew of the American schooner Nina, which is missing en route from New Zealand to Australia. Today’s radar search of more than 97,000 square nautical miles has been completed without any sighting of the vessel.
On 15 June, RCCNZ obtained from Iridium, a satellite communications company, details of the approximate position and actual time (1150 NZST 04 June 2013) of the last transmission from the Nina’s satellite phone.
Nigel Clifford, Maritime New Zealand’s General Manager Safety and Response Services, said the position information was then factored into search area calculations, along with other available information.
“As concern for the vessel increased, RCCNZ made further enquiries with Iridium about all transmissions made from the Nina’s satellite phone during the period of interest,” said Mr Clifford.
On 29 June it became known that the last transmission (a text message), on 4 June, had not been delivered to its intended recipient by the Iridium system. RCCNZ, working with the United States State Department, sought the release of the undelivered text message contents, which RCCNZ received on 3 July.
A copy of the text message follows:
from_unixtime(received_time): 2013-06-03 23:50:25
status: UNDELIVERABLE
src_addr: [phone number]
dest_addr: *2
cshort_message: THANKS STORM SAILS SHREDDED LAST NIGHT, NOW BARE POLES. GOINING 4KT 310DEG WILL UPDATE COURSE INFO @ 6PM
Mr Clifford said the contents of the text message were considered, along with all other information, as part of the planning for today’s search. “The text message gives a clearer indication of the condition of the vessel on 4 June, and the weather that was being experienced at the time,” he said.
“The text message clearly indicates that the Nina was affected by the storm, but gives no indication of immediate distress.
“While it shows that Nina had survived the storm up to that point, very poor weather continued in the area for many hours and has been followed by other storms. The text message, in isolation, does not indicate what might have happened subsequently. “However, the text message states that Nina’s course information would be updated in just over six hours’ time, at 6pm.
“There have been no further transmissions or messages from the Nina since the undelivered text message on 4 June. There were also no distress messages from either of the two distress alerting devices on board (EPIRB and Spot satellite personal tracker),” Mr Clifford said.
RCCNZ has discussed the details of the text message and other search information gathered to date with representatives of the family and friends of the crew.
Search and rescue officers at RCCNZ will evaluate all the information and decisions about the search operation will be considered overnight and tomorrow.
JULY 4TH: 6.45AM – An RNZAF P3 Orion will depart this morning to resume searching for the crew of an American schooner missing en route from New Zealand to Australia.
Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) has tasked the Orion to search a rectangular area north of and parallel to another area searched by radar on Wednesday last week. The aircraft is expected to depart at around 9am or 10am and will search for about five hours, covering an area of 73,000 square nautical miles that extends as far west as the Middleton and Elizabeth reefs in the Tasman Sea. Today’s search will take the total coverage during the search for Nina to more than 689,500 square kilometres.
RCCNZ Operations Manager John Seward said today’s search area was identified during reassessment overnight of the data gathered from earlier searches and the results of drift modelling from the last known positions for the yacht on 4 June. He said almost all of the new search area has not been searched previously, apart from 2,100 square nautical miles covered on Tuesday.
JULY 3RD: 5.00PM – Bad weather has prevented further searching today for the crew of an American schooner missing en route from New Zealand to Australia. The 21m (70ft) Nina, sailing from Opua in the Bay of Islands to Newcastle with seven people on board, has not been heard from since 4 June.
Search and rescue officers at RCCNZ are continuing to reassess all the information they have gathered so far. Mr Seward said a decision on whether to continue the search will be made after a full review of the search operation is made overnight and tomorrow.
The ocean and shoreline searches have now covered an area totalling more than four times the size of New Zealand. An RNZAF P3 Orion made radar sweeps of broad expanses of the Tasman Sea as far as the Australian coast, and shoreline searches were conducted from Northland south to New Plymouth. Since Sunday, visual searches have been focused on locating a liferaft, targeting areas identified from detailed modeling of drift patterns from the yacht’s last known position on 4 June. Records show that conditions at the vessel’s last known position were very rough, with winds of 80kmh gusting to 110kmh and swells of up to 8m.
JULY 2ND: 8.00PM – An RNZAF P3 Orion has returned to New Zealand this evening after completing a seventh day of searching, without sighting a missing American schooner or its liferaft.
RCCNZ mission coordinator Dave Wilson said today’s search has not yielded any fresh information and forecast poor weather is likely to prevent any further aerial searching for the next two days. However, he says RCCNZ will continue to evaluate the available data and consider all possible options for the next steps to take. Mr Wilson said RCCNZ is very concerned for the family and friends who are anxiously awaiting news of the missing vessel and its crew.
JULY 2ND: 8.00AM – The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) has tasked an RNZAF P3 Orion to conduct a search of two areas south of Norfolk Island today, as the search for the crew of an American schooner enters its seventh day.
The P3 Orion was airborne at 6am this morning and will search throughout daylight hours before returning to New Zealand. The search areas will cover 1,700 square nautical miles south-east and 4,000 square nautical miles south-west of Norfolk Island.
RCCNZ mission coordinator Chris Henshaw said the search areas were identified as the result of data modelling and interpretation of drift patterns from the last known position of the yacht on 4 June and other environmental factors, as well as information gathered during the previous searches.
Mr Henshaw said today’s searches will be primarily visual, with the aircraft flying slowly at low altitudes in a tight pattern, to provide optimal conditions for the observers on board. He said the searchers are looking for a liferaft, whereas earlier searches using radar and covering wider expanses of ocean were aimed at locating the schooner.
JULY 1ST – The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) has today requested an RNZAF P3 Orion to search an area north of Northland. The P3 Orion arrived at the search area at around 9.30am and will search until approximately 5pm. The search will use visual and radar methods to look for any sign of the missing schooner or its life raft.
RCCNZ Mission Controller Jeff Lunt said the search area, centred 160 nautical miles north of North Cape is expected to cover approximately 3,780 square nautical miles, has been calculated for a life raft search. If time is available and there’s daylight, the search area will be extended.
JUNE 30TH – The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) today tasked an RNZAF P3 Orion to search an area to the north-east of Northland. The P3 Orion arrived at the search area at around 8am and searched until approximately 4pm. The search used visual and radar methods to look for any sign of the missing schooner or its life raft.
“Today’s search covered an area of 4,830 square nautical miles. Visibility was good, but unfortunately there was no sign of the missing life raft or schooner,” said RCCNZ Mission Controller Mike Roberts.
JUNE 29TH – The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ), conducted a coastal search of New Zealand’s west coast from Port Waikato to New Plymouth with no success. The mission ended at 1:35pm, and was delayed because an aeroplane was “broken”, so a helicopter took off before noon, to conduct today’s search. New Zealand Maritime Radio is continuing to conduct broadcasts in New Zealand’s search and rescue region. RCCNZ Mission Controller Neville Blakemore said a debrief would be held overnight, before a decision on the next stage of the search operation. Maritime NZ asks if anyone has information on the whereabouts of the classic yacht Nina, from the New Zealand area, should call the Rescue Coordination Centre on 0508 472 269 (0508 4 RCCNZ) or +64 4 577 8030 if overseas. Boat operators can contact the Maritime Operations Centre on VHF radio channel 16.
JUNE 28TH – Coordination Center of New Zealand, has undertaken its largest search ever. The latest extensive aerial shoreline search was undertaken along the northern west coast of New Zealand, from Tauroa Point , up to and around the Three Kings Islands without success. A debriefing will occur tonight to discuss the next phase of the search operation.
JUNE 27TH – A statement from Maritime New Zealand released early Thursday indicates “grave concerns” for the six member crew of the classic Starling Burgess designed 1923 schooner yacht “Nina”Our thoughts and prayers go out to all. Last reported communication was June 4th, in “very rough” conditions with winds gusting to 68 mph and 26-foot swells, position 370 miles west-north west of Cape Reinga. Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand’s (RCCNZ) military aircraft have covered a 160,000 square nautical mile search area on Tuesday, with an additional 324,000 square nautical miles examined on Wednesday with no signs of the vessel and her crew.
JUNE 26TH – A search was completed of 324,000 square nautical miles between northern New Zealand and the Australian coast, based on the vessel suffering damage but continuing to make progress towards Australia.
JULY 25TH – A search area of 160,000 square nautical miles was covered, to the immediate north-north-east of New Zealand, based on the vessel being disabled and drifting.
JUNE 14TH – After concerns were raised by family and friends, the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) instigated a communications, using a range of communications methods to broadcast alerts to the vessel and others in the area.
JUNE 14TH – Friends of the crew got in touch with Mr. McDavitt soon after that, and then alerted authorities.
JUNE 4TH – The next day Meteorologist Bob McDavitt got a text, the last known communication from the boat: “ANY UPDATE 4 NINA? … EVI” McDavitt said he advised the crew to stay put and ride out the storm another day. He continued sending messages over the next few days but received no answer.
JUNE 3RD – Meteorologist Bob McDavitt said he took a satellite phone call from Ms Nemeth on June 3. She asked how to get away from the weather. He said to call back in 30 minutes after he’d studied a forecast. She did. “She was quite controlled in her voice, it sounded like everything was under control,” Mr McDavitt then advised her to head south and to brace for a storm with strong winds and high seas.
MAY 29TH – Nina set sail from Opua in the Bay of Islands for their destination point Newcastle, Australia, ETA June 8th.
Further investigation of events are needed, in order to complete timeline, updates will be provided when available
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Historian Traces Clues About the Nina : In Search of Columbus’ ‘Little Girl’
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Its name, rarely mentioned apart from the Santa Maria and the Pinta, is immortal in the annals of exploration: Nina --little girl.
It was Christopher Columbus’ favorite ship. Among the most advanced of its day, it proved sea-kindly and swift on his first voyage to the New World. And, after his flagship, Santa Maria, ran aground on Christmas Day, 1492, it carried the discoverer through a fierce mid-Atlantic winter storm safely and triumphantly home to Spain.
What happened to the Nina after that famous first voyage? What did it look like? For nearly 500 years, its appearance has been assumed from early 16th-Century drawings. Little is known about the Spanish caravels of discovery.
Searching for information on the early Spanish shipping system in Spain’s Archive of the Indies in Seville, historian Eugene Lyon examined a 400-page bundle of documents called the “Libro de Armadas.” It described the sending of several caravel fleets to the New World between 1495 and 1500.
At First, Not Aware
“When I saw her name on the aged paper before me, I did not immediately grasp its significance,” Lyon, an expert in old Spanish documents, reports in the November National Geographic.
“Nina, also known as Santa Clara.” Could this be Columbus’ “little girl?” It was nicknamed Nina because it was first the property of Juan Nino. It was formally Santa Clara, after the patron saint of the town (Moguer) where it was built.
The bundle of documents included details of the Nina’s cargo, sails, rigging, and other equipment in 1498, the year of Columbus’ third voyage to the New World. Nina, the papers revealed, had four masts, instead of two or three as has always been depicted.
Most historians, including Lyon, believe the first- and second-voyage Ninas were one and the same. A five-year investigation by National Geographic magazine, also reported in its November issue, has concluded that the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria first anchored in the New World at Samana Cay in the Bahamas in 1492.
Belief in Asia
On the second voyage, which left Spain in September, 1493, the Nina was among the flotilla of 17 vessels. Convinced that Cuba was the Asia he sought, Columbus “aboard the caravel Nina, also known as Santa Clara,” on June 12, 1494, required all his crews to swear to their belief about reaching the Asian mainland.
In August, 1495, the sturdy Nina was badly damaged in a hurricane off the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). The documents mention “Nina, which was remade in the Indies.” On her return to Spain in 1496, the Nina brought back New World goods: gold, wood, cotton and a barrel of sand. Columbus thought the sand was a precious ore.
Next, apparently without Columbus’ approval, the Nina was sent to Rome on a commercial voyage in 1497 and was hijacked off the coast of Sardinia by a French pirate. The crew, through bribery, escaped and returned the ship safely to Spain. An angry Columbus recovered it.
Finally preparing for his third voyage to the New World, Columbus decided to send the Nina and its companion ship Santa Cruz ahead to Hispaniola in early February, 1498, with much-needed supplies. To pay his seamen, the documents disclose, Columbus used funds he was to have taken to Hispaniola, hoping to balance the books with gold to be found there.
40 Days of Repair
The Nina received new sails, a new 200-pound anchor, and cartloads of planking. Caulkers worked 40 days on its deck and hull.
Finally, the documents say, it was refitted and fully laden: 18 tons of wheat, 17 tons of wine in great pipe barrels, about 7 tons of sea biscuit, almost 2 tons of flour, more than 2,000 pounds of cheese and a ton of salt pork. Also aboard for the colonists were olive oil, sardines, raisins and garlic.
From a ship’s loaded cargo, it is possible to estimate the dimensions of its hold, and thus its hull. Lyon calculated the Nina’s 1498 Indies lading at just over 52 tons. The ship appears, therefore, to have been 67 feet long, with a beam of 21 feet and a draft of just under 7 feet. Its total carrying capacity was 58 to 60 tons.
For this third voyage, Columbus had received permission to take as many as 330 persons to the Indies on royal salary. The Nina and the Santa Cruz carried more than 90 of them, including farmers and stockmen, crossbowmen, a priest, locksmith, miner and surgeon.
Women Emigrants
Two of the four women aboard were Gypsies named Catalina and Maria, convicted murderers freed by the crown on condition that they emigrate.
The Nina was armed with 10 bombardas with their breechblocks, turning yokes, bolts, and wedges, as well as 80 lead balls, 54 short and 20 long lances and 100 pounds of gunpowder.
The Nina carried three anchors, a small boat with six oars and 11 water casks. According to the documents, its sails included a worn mainsail, an old foresail, an old mizzen sail and a half-worn countermizzen sail. The countermizzen, which indicates two masts after of the main mast, was Lyon’s clue to the existence of the Nina’s four masts.
Lyon is in the process of translating all 400 pages of the “Libro de Armadas,” under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to the University of Florida.
“Unfortunately,” he writes, “it will not solve the mystery of Nina’s final end.” The documents record the Nina’s apparent sale to a Diego Ortiz in October, 1499. And that, Lyon says, is the last glimpse of the beloved “little girl.
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SCHOONER NINA: Missing and Presumed Sunk
Thanks to a heads-up from WaveTrain rider Gareth Hughes I’ve been following this story over the past several days on the Cruisers Forum . I didn’t write anything, however, as I thought the missing boat would soon show up. Now that seems increasingly unlikely, and it would appear that the fabled 59-foot schooner Nina , winner of the 1928 Transatlantic Race to Spain, the 1928 Fastnet Race, and the 1962 Newport-Bermuda Race, among others, has gone down with all hands somewhere between New Zealand and Australia.
Nina left Opua in the Bay of Islands bound for Newcastle, Australia, on May 29 on what was expected to be a 10- to 12-day passage. The last voice contact was on June 3, when meteorologist Bob McDavitt gave her crew weather-routing advice via sat phone. Their position at the time was about 370 miles west of New Zealand. The following day McDavitt received a text message asking for an update, and nothing has been heard since. Following three days of unsuccessful aerial searches over this past week, Kiwi SAR authorities have reportedly stated it is “logical to assume” the schooner sank. The crew of seven included the owner, David Dyche, 58, his wife Rosemary, 60, their son David, 17, a family friend, Evi Nemeth, 73, and three others, two men and one woman, who have not been identified. When last heard from, Nina and her crew were caught in a gale with winds blowing from 43 to 60 knots.
Owner David Dyche at the wheel of Nina
I’ve been struck by the mainstream media’s great interest in this story and can only assume it is because of Nina ‘s age and pedigree, as all accounts seem to refer to her as a “classic” and/or “historic” vessel. She is all that and more, and as sailors we should remember her (if it comes to that) more explicitly.
These days we all cite Olin Stephens ‘ famous yawl Dorade as the boat that transformed ocean racing and modern yacht design in the early 20th century, but really that was a process that started with Nina . Prior to Nina , ocean racing was dominated by much more conservative gaff-rigged “fisherman” schooners, many of them designed by John Alden . Nina , designed by W. Starling Burgess for Paul Hammond, retained a schooner rig, but flew a huge Marconi main with staysails forward, and her hull was narrower and deeper with a more swept-back keel than Alden’s more traditional hulls. Also, her construction was light for the time, and her masts were hollow. Most particularly, she was much more closewinded than traditional schooners, which is how she won the race to Spain.
Linton Rigg, sailing master on second-place Pinta , a gaff-rigged Alden schooner, described the finish as follows:
When we finally made landfall on Spain, Nina was way down on the horizon behind us. Then the wind died and came out dead ahead. The best an Alden schooner, gaff rigged, could make on the wind in that light going was six points, while Nina was doing four and a half. It almost broke our hearts to see Nina go by us to windward almost within sight of the finish.
Nina , seen here flying her original rig, was described by some as a “two-masted cutter.” Her mainmast is nearly amidships and her formast is so short her triatic stay is in a straight line with her forestay
Later in her career Nina was given a taller foremast, seen here
In the end Nina beat Pinta by 29 hours. Later that summer, when she lined up for the Fastnet Race at Cowes in England, she was considered so radical there was serious discussion of banning her from the fleet. Conditions favored her–light headwinds–and she won that race, too, by a margin of over nine hours.
A model of Nina side by side with a model of the cutter Jolie Brise , which corrected out to second place in the ’28 Fastnet Race. The blatant differences between these craft should give some idea of why the Brits thought it unfair for Nina to race
For much of her career Nina belonged to DeCoursey Fales, a commodore of the New York Yacht Club, and served for a time as the club’s flagship. Fales was her owner when she won the 1962 Bermuda Race at age 34, thanks to two massive gollywobblers she carried in her sail inventory, which were known respectively as “the Monster” and “the Grand Monster.” Fales at the time was himself age 74, and there was much ado in Hamilton, as you might imagine, over the fact that the race had been won by the oldest boat and skipper in the fleet.
Lines drawing of Nina
Profile and accommodation plan
For the past couple of decades Nina has belonged to the Dyche family, who, by all accounts, have maintained her carefully and have sailed her well on a long series of bluewater cruises. Here you can see her in action in a video made by one starstruck crew member during a passage to the Azores in 1992:
There is still some hope she and her crew will reappear soon–we can only pray this will be the case.
UPDATE (July 4): One story I’m seeing early this a.m. claims another text message, delivery of which was delayed, was received after Nina survived the gale of June 4. This message allegedly said the schooner’s sails were damaged, but that she was still making progress. Kiwi SAR authorities are searching a new area today. The formerly unidentified crew are Danielle Wright (18), Kyle Jackson (27), and Mathew Wootton (35). All onboard but Woottoon, a Brit, are U.S. citizens.
UPDATE (July 11): Pls. note I’ve changed one photo here, the third one, pursuant to a comment below. Still no word or sign of Nina and the search for her has been suspended. The situation seems quite bleak, I’m afraid.
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The late Frank Snyder who was also a commodore of NYYC told me that she was built as a rule beater, and the premise was that the stays should line up to make her into a schooner in name only, thereby gaining a rating advantage. Frank would have been born about 1920 so his information was not current with the building of the boat.
Evi Nemeth the friend of a very good friend is a larger than life character, it is difficult to think of her not surviving http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evi_Nemeth
Very good summary and interesting history! Makes one wonder about the conditions such that forecasts wouldn’t have called for a delay…..
@Gareth: Yes, my understanding is Nina was built as a rule-beater. Specifically, Paul Hammond had her designed explicitly for the race to Spain and to the rule that governed it.
@Don: My understanding was the forecast was not great, but I don’t know enough to second-guess their decision to leave. I gather crossing the Tasman is much like sailing from New England to Bermuda in the fall. Leave too early and you risk tangling with a tropical system; leave too late and you’re into winter gales. Plus, crossing the Tasman takes much longer! If you wait for a perfect window, you’ll never leave.
Nice….
Just to let you know that the first photo you show here is not Nina but is the boat Ninita which my wife Jenny and I own, racing in the Azores a few years ago. Ninita was built for us to Burgess’ plans for Nina but in 2004 and she carries the original Burgess sail plan. We are facebook friends of the Dyches and are still hoping…
Sorry, I said first photo, but meant 3rd…
@Paul: Thanks for pointing that out! I’ve put in another photo. I’m still hoping, too, but the chances are getting pretty slim, I’d say.
We just keep hoping. No identified debris yet? so perhaps still some hope …
It’s time wikipedia had an entry for Ni
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Ghost yacht: Is it the missing Nina?
The missing yacht Nina.
New satellite images of a vessel or object resembling the missing yacht Nina have been identified - raising crew families' hopes of a resolution to the five-month Tasman Sea mystery.
The families of the seven crew members say they are not giving up hope that their loved ones are still alive and are calling on authorities to resume a search. But officials say they would need better-quality images before doing so.
Satellite technology captured images of what appears to be a boat drifting about 184 nautical miles west of Norfolk Island on September 15.
Raw images of the object were collected and measured and, according to family, showed that the vessel was the same size and shape as the Nina.
The Nina, carrying six Americans and a British man, set sail from the Bay of Islands in late May and was last heard from early in June.
Official searches for the yacht have stopped, but the families have enlisted the help of a US-based search and rescue organisation.
Robin Wright, mother of 19-year-old crew member Danielle Wright, said the new images were exciting.
"We have never lost hope that the crew of Nina is alive and well and that they will be rescued, but seeing that boat image is very exciting.
"We've been scanning all these images supplied by [satellite technology] trying to find that same image again to be sure that it's not just another boat that sailed through the area that happens to be the same shape and size as Nina," she said.
"It's not a perfect system, but it's all we have at the moment."
Ian Wootton said he and wife Sue were filled with mixed emotions after the discovery of what could be the boat their 35-year-old son Matthew was on.
"You get the elation of yep, this looks like a really good image. But also the downside of, 'How are you going to find it again'?"
A MetService spokesman said it would take time to trace the weather patterns since mid-September in that area to try to determine where the boat could have drifted to.
The families have been in contact with several groups and authorities in the United States, Australia and New Zealand but no one has been willing to send out yet another official search and they were relying on funds raised privately to send out search planes.
"[Authorities] have never said that the Nina has definitely sunk," Mr Wootton said. "On the other hand ... we feel they are not going to be convinced by a satellite photo until they can see seven people holding their passports up with their date of birth clearly visible. It seems a bit like that.
"We can provide them with the data and say this is what the Nina looks like - you can see it's the same shape as the image. They have to be prepared to have a look at it. But there's nothing much we can do about it."
The Rescue Co-ordination Centre of New Zealand confirmed it had received the images from top private search and rescue organisation Texas EquuSearch and had examined the images.
Maritime NZ's general manager for safety and responses services, Nigel Clifford, said a better-quality image was needed for an official search to go ahead.
"RCCNZ undertook a close examination of the images, but does not believe they are sufficiently compelling to justify resumption of the official search," he said.
Other more technical information - including satellite type, the satellite's height above the Earth and better resolution of images - was also required.
Mr Wootton and Mrs Wright said not knowing what had happened to their children was the worst feeling for a parent.
Mrs Wright said of her daughter, Danielle: "Every child that says 'Mommy', I turn my head. I dream about her. There's no escaping, for a minute, that our only child is missing."
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The next two years were spent in research. During that time it became evident that due to money and time constraints it would be possible to build only one replica. It was decided that the Niña would be built. The original Santa Maria ran aground in Hispaniola and sank on the first voyage. She was a nao, or freighter and was built in Galicia. She became the flagship because she was the largest of the fleet but Columbus disliked her for her dull sailing qualities, and when she sank, he recorded in his journal she was very heavy, and not suitable for the business of discovery. The least was known about the Pinta , and after the first voyage she disappeared from history without a trace. The Niña , like the Pinta , was a caravel, which was a common trading vessel in use during the Age of Discovery. Caravels were also used as cargo carriers, warships, patrol boats, and even corsairs (pirate ships). Their advantages were speed, a shallow draught, and manoeuvrability, plus the fact that they were good sailing ships. The Niña , which is rigged as a Caravela Redonda, has square sails on the main and foremast for sailing downwind, and lateen (triangular) sails on the mizzen masts. Caravels have always been linked with Portuguese and Spanish explorations and explorers. They were used to chart the Coast of Africa to the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz; they took part in all four of Columbus voyages; they were used by Vasco de Gama in 1502; in 1519, the caravel Santiago accompanied Magellan's expedition. The Caravel heydey lasted almost a hundred years from the early 1400's to the 1530's. Once Columbus established transatlantic routes, larger cargo vessels as well as warships were required, which paved the way for the development of the galleon. Columbus changed the Niña's rig to a Caravela Redonda before the first voyage. The Niña was Columbus's favorite. She made the entire first voyage, bringing the Admiral safely home. When Columbus had the pick of the whole Merchant Marine on his second voyage he selected her out of 17 ships as his flagship for an exploratory voyage to Cuba, and purchased a half share in her. After his return she made an unauthorized voyage from Cadiz to Rome, was captured by a pirate off Sardinia, recaptured by her master and crew and returned to Cadiz in time to sail to Hispaniola early in 1498 as advance guard of Columbus third voyage. She was lying in Santo Domingo in 1500, and we last hear of her making a trading voyage to the Pearl Coast in 1501. The Niña logged at least 25,000 miles under Columbus' command.
In 1988, the Columbus Foundation hired John Patrick Sarsfield (click for more information on John) , an American engineer, maritime historian, and expert on Portuguese caravels, to design and construct a replica of the Niña. John had lived in Brazil while working in the Peace Corps, and had learned of an archaic ship building process called Mediterranean Whole Moulding. This was a technique used by master ship builders in the 15th Century and likely used to build the original ships. Sarsfield discovered this technique in daily use in shipyards on the coast of Bahia in Brazil. In a sleepy little fishing village called Valenca, Sarsfield slowly gained the confidence of the Valencan shipwrights and they began to share with him the secrets of their techniques. Valenca was chosen as the building site for three reasons: shipwrights were using Mediterranean Whole Moulding in conjunction with mechanically generated geometric progressions known as graminhos, techniques that may be similar or identical to those used by the builders of discovery period ships. Secondly, shipwrights were using traditional tools, such as axes, adzes, hand saws and chisels, as well as utilizing traditional construction methods; and finally, the tropical forests of Bahia provided a source for the various naturally-shaped timbers necessary to build a large wooden ship. Ships of this period were not built from a set of plans but from the mental template in the head of the shipwright who based the dimensions of the ship on a set of proportions. Different proportions, varying from region to region were used for different types, however, all were based on the length of the keel. Several important design details, including such fundamental factors as the number of masts and rigging specifics were clarified by data from recent discoveries of 15th & 16th Century Spanish shipwrecks in the Caribbean. Tragically, on July 11th, 1990, whilst on a trip to select a main mast for the Niña , John Sarsfield was killed in a traffic accident. His contribution to the project had been enormous, in fact, it was his determination to see his theories develop into reality that made the building of the Ni�a possible. As the hull was complete, the ship had yet to be rigged. Jonathan Nance, British maritime historian, and one of the main researchers of the project, was asked to finish the ship. John produced a sail plan for the caravel together with numerous drawings of blocks, spars, and other fittings. Although no information directly relating to the design and construction of the Niña exists, specific reference to her rig and gear survives in a document called Libro de Armadas, which was discovered by Eugene Lyon. It indicated that the Niña may have been rigged as a four master. The document also included an inventory of equipment aboard the Niña in 1498 when a new Master Pedro Frances took over the ship. Nance's sail-plan represents the Niña as she would have appeared during the eight recorded busy years of her life following her departure from the Canaries in September 1492. In June of 1990, the project came to the attention of a group of marine archaeological researchers from the privately-funded group Ships of Discovery, based in Corpus Christi, Texas. They spent a week inspecting the project and came away believing that they had seen the making of a true fifteenth century discovery caravel. Their article, published in the January 1991 issue of Archaeology magazine asserts: combining ethnographic survivals with pertinent results of documentary, artistic and archaeological research, Sarsfield's Niña will likely be the most authentic replica Columbus era ship ever built. In December of 1991, the Niña left the banks of the Rio Uno in Valenca, Brazil rigged as a four-master. It carried a crew of eleven and arrived in Puntarenas, Costa Rica on January 23rd, 1992 to take part in the film 1492 directed by Ridley Scott and starring Gerard Depardieu. Its voyage of over 4,000 miles represents the first time that a discovery caravel replica has made a successful unescorted open ocean passage of any considerable distance. The Niña continues to sail to new ports, and also continues to be the only touring maritime museum of its kind. The ship was used for Discovery and that is precisely what it will continue to do, and this is what makes this attraction vessel unique.
LIFE ABOARD THE NIÑA Life aboard the Niña in 1492 was not for the light hearted. When the Niña left on any of her three voyages to the New World, her cargo hold was full of provisions, water, armaments. There were live animals ranging from horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. The four-legged animals were suspended in slings as the rolling motion of the vessel would have easily broken their legs. Needless to say, there was little room below decks for the 27 or so crew to sleep or cook. Cooking was done in a fire box located on decks in the bow of the ship. Sleeping was on the deck and was always uncomfortable as the ship was so loaded with cargo, her decks were always awash. A lucky few could sleep on the poop deck or find a coil of rope to sleep on to keep them off the deck a foot or so. Life on board improved dramatically when the Niña reached the New World. New fruits and vegetables were discovered which helped to eliminate scurvy and most importantly, the Indians slept in hammocks which the Spanish crew immediately used in their travels. Today life on the Niña is better. We have WWII style pipe berths to sleep on, an icebox which holds 1000 lbs of ice and a small propane stove for cooking. Most importantly, we do not have the smells on board of livestock below decks, and the associated jobs of cleaning the bilges.
 New thread of hope - is this a photo of drifting Nina? Related Articles Stay up to date with notifications from The IndependentNotifications can be managed in browser preferences. UK Edition Change
Thank you for registeringPlease refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in Ghost ship Nina: Missing for four months in the vastness of the Pacific, with seven crew presumed dead, is this faint satellite image a glimmer of hope?Article bookmarked. Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile  For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emails, thanks for signing up to the breaking news email. Blurry satellite images of what appears to be a ship drifting in the Pacific Ocean have raised faint hopes that seven crew members, missing since their yacht disappeared off New Zealand four months ago, may be alive. Mystery has shrouded the fate of the Nina, a mahogany schooner which vanished after sailing into a severe storm in June. No trace of it was found during a search of more than half a million square nautical miles of the Pacific. The last word from the boat was an undelivered text message reporting: “Sails shredded last night.” Relatives of the crew – six Americans, including David Dyche, the Nina’s owner and skipper, and 35-year-old Matt Wootton, from Orpington, Kent – say the object in the satellite images is the same size and shape as the 21-metre Nina. A private search and rescue company recruited by the families, Texas EquuSearch, is trying to plot its probable course before conducting an aerial search. “We have never lost hope that the crew of Nina is alive and well, and that they will be rescued,” Robin Wright, whose 18-year-old daughter, Danielle, was on board, told The New Zealand Herald. However, the images gathered by EquuSearch are a month old, and some are sceptical as to whether they really depict the schooner. According to an Auckland-based meteorologist, Bob McDavitt, the area – about 200 kilometres west of Norfolk Island – is traversed by a vessel at least every other day. Even if the pictures do show the Nina, it may be a wreck – or a ghost ship, with no one left aboard. The yacht – once the flagship of the New York Yacht Club – left Opua, in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, on 29 May, headed for Newcastle, north of Sydney. It apparently weathered a storm on 4 June, with Evi Nemeth, a 73-year-old crew member, subsequently reporting the shredded sails. Ms Nemeth said she would update the Nina’s position six hours later. But no further message was sent. Her undelivered text was released by the satellite phone company Iridium a month later. The boat’s emergency beacon was never activated. On the day of the storm, Ms Nemeth – in the crew’s last direct contact with the outside world – had sought Mr McDavitt’s advice. The pair spoke by phone, after which she texted him, asking: “ANY UPDATE 4 NINA? … EVI.” That was the last he heard. Nigel Clifford, the general manager of safety and response services for Maritime New Zealand, has said that while the Nina survived the storm, “very poor weather continued in the area for many hours and… [was] followed by other storms”.  New Zealand authorities have rejected calls by the crew’s families to resume their search. “We feel they are not going to be convinced by a satellite photo until they can see seven people holding their passports up, with their date of birth clearly visible,” said Mr Wootton’s father, Ian. He told the Herald that he and his wife, Sue, had mixed feelings when they first saw the photos. “You get the elation of ‘Yep, this looks like a really good image’. But also the downside of ‘How are you going to find it [the boat] again?’” One expert, Ralph Baird, told the NY Daily News that the Nina was “a needle in a haystack, and that needle is moving”. After the Nina disappeared, Russ Rimmington, a New Zealand skipper, claimed that the Nina was unseaworthy, with a warped hull, and that Mr Dyche – whose wife, Rosemary, and son, David, were also on board – refused to carry modern gadgetry. Mr Rimmington also told Fairfax New Zealand that the Nina would have sunk if it had capsized, because of the lead on its keel. Join our commenting forumJoin thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this articleWant to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. New to The Independent? Or if you would prefer: Hi {{indy.fullName}}
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News World NewsSatellite images show possible ghost ship that may be missing american yacht. A satellite image showing an object that may be of the missing schooner the Nina.  In this undated photo provided by Maritime New Zealand the yacht Nina is tied at dock.  ABC News Facebook Robin and Ricky Wright are keeping hope alive that the missing sailboat that includes their daughter, Danielle, can still be found.  The Nina's last known location was about 370 nautical miles west of New Zealand.  Family of the seven crew members who were sailing aboard the 70-foot yacht named the Nina, which vanished off the coast of New Zealand, are now even more adamant that U.S. officials should get involved in the search. But so far, their pleas have gone nowhere. “We’ve got six Americans out there and the United States has only lifted a finger to say they’re not involved,” said Ricky Wright, whose 19-year-old daughter, Danielle, was on the ship. “It was a nightmare, and that’s the most difficult part of this nightmare: Why does the government not want to participate? That just baffles my mind,” Wright told the Daily News on Tuesday. Initially, with the Nina lost about 370 nautical miles west of New Zealand, that country sent out a plane to comb the Tasman Sea.  There are seven people on board the 85-year-old mahogany schooner — once the flagship of the New York Yacht Club. The six Americans are: captain David Dyche, 58, his wife, Rosemary, 60, and their son David, 17; their friend, Evi Nemeth, 73; Kyle Jackson, 27; and Danielle Wright. A seventh crew member is Matt Wootton, a 35-year-old British environmental activist. The Dyches had solicited the diverse crew as part of a whirlwind trip traveling the globe. The ship had set sail from New Zealand on May 29 and was headed for Australia. The last contact from the Nina came June 4 as a strong storm pummeled the sea. A New Zealand meteorologist said he received a text message from Nemeth asking for steering guidance.  “ANY UPDATE 4 NINA? … EVI,” the message read. But the ship never activated its emergency locator beacon, and authorities weren’t alerted until 10 days later that something was wrong. The satellite images were taken a month ago, and the families hope to use them to get a firmer grasp on where the Nina could now be — in hopes it will spur New Zealand, Australia and the United States to take action. The volunteer group Texas EquuSearch , which specializes in finding missing persons, has also been aiding in the search by using a twin-engine plane to patrol by air. Adviser Ralph Baird said there is no evidence proving the Nina sunk because of the storm.  Finding it, however, is difficult because of the vast area it’s lost in. “It’s a needle in the haystack,” Baird told The News, “and that needle is moving.” One saving grace, he added, is that the ship vanished in the northwestern Tasman Sea where there are “reverse circulating currents” — which move in a way that keeps boats trapped there for months. That would make the ship slightly easier to find. Baird said he’s tried to get the U.S. Department of State to order military and commercial satellites be used in the search, but there’s been no response. The government agency Maritime New Zealand also doesn’t plan to get involved with a renewed search effort — at least not right now, The New Zealand Herald reported Tuesday.  Officials “undertook a close examination of the images, but does not believe they are sufficiently compelling to justify resumption of the official search,” maritime official Nigel Clifford told the newspaper. But the families of the crew members aren’t giving up. Wright, of Lafayette, La., doesn’t believe the sailboat capsized in the storm. “There’s a good probability that that (satellite) image is the Nina,” he added. If the crew survived, they would have to be living off rainwater and fresh fish after their rations were depleted.  Wright said his daughter, a college sophomore, is a free spirit and looked forward to sailing the world on her own. He and his wife are keeping vigil. “We’re relying on our faith — and faith in God — to keep going,” Wright said. On a mobile device? 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The 85-year-old staysail schooner Niña, a fabled 50-foot (LWL) ocean racer that once was the flagship of the New York Yacht Club, disappeared without a trace on the stormy Tasman Sea with its American owner, his wife and 17-year-old son, and four crewmembers. Niña left Opua in the Bay of Islands on New Zealand's North Island May 29 bound ...
Nina was a narrower and deeper-hulled boat rigged with a Marconi main sail with staysails forward, and it signaled the future of yacht design by winning its first race (New York to Santander) followed in short order by the Fastnet race (in the Irish Sea and English Channel) - the first American yacht to do so.
Schooner Nina and her crew. Introduction. The Schooner Niña is famous as a boat that transformed ocean racing yacht design. Prior to its construction in 1928, ocean racing was dominated by gaff-rigged 'fisherman' schooners, many named after their designer, John Alden. Nina was a narrower and deeper-hulled boat rigged with a Marconi main ...
Aug 2, 2017. Original: Jul 19, 2013. Earlier this month, the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) called off its search for 70-foot American schooner Niña, last heard from on June 4. On the night in which the Niña was last heard from, conditions in the Tasman Sea were rough: 26-foot waves and 50 mph winds with up to 68 mph gusts.
In 1935, DeCoursey Fales, a banker who was a member of the New York Yacht Club, bought Nina. When Mr. Fales was elected commodore of the yacht club, whose headquarters are in a Beaux-Arts landmark building on 44th Street in Manhattan, Nina became the club's flagship. Mr. Fales lovingly maintained Nina and raced it aggressively, Mr ...
The Nina and the Pinta were both very small. The Pinta had a deck length of only 56 feet. That's like a modern yacht. The Nina clocked in at about 50 feet of deck length. The Santa Maria's deck was around 58 feet and was the largest of the three, meant for carrying cargo. By no means were these large at all.
The more I read and researched parasails and drogues, the more I eliminated every device on the market. Traditionally designed drogues have a single rope a couple of hundred metres long, that stretches initially, until the drogue bites in, with the sudden drag causing the drogue (hand brake) to leap out of the water, with the end result being an out of control yacht racing at pace, down the ...
The report, released this week into the search for the vintage American yacht Nina, which disappeared in the Tasman Sea in June 2013 with six Americans and one Britsh sailor aboard, said the entire dynamic of the rescue operation would have changed had the message been delivered earlier. The critically important message was a text sent on a ...
JUNE 27TH - A statement from Maritime New Zealand released early Thursday indicates "grave concerns" for the six member crew of the classic Starling Burgess designed 1923 schooner yacht "Nina"Our thoughts and prayers go out to all. Last reported communication was June 4th, in "very rough" conditions with winds gusting to 68 mph ...
A five-year investigation by National Geographic magazine, also reported in its November issue, has concluded that the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria first anchored in the New World at Samana Cay in ...
27 June 2013. AP. The Nina is equipped with an emergency beacon, which authorities say has not been activated. A yacht sailing from New Zealand to Australia has gone missing, prompting fears for ...
These days we all cite Olin Stephens' famous yawl Dorade as the boat that transformed ocean racing and modern yacht design in the early 20th century, but really that was a process that started with Nina. Prior to Nina, ocean racing was dominated by much more conservative gaff-rigged "fisherman" schooners, many of them designed by John Alden.
The missing yacht Nina. New satellite images of a vessel or object resembling the missing yacht Nina have been identified - raising crew families' hopes of a resolution to the five-month Tasman ...
It was a prophetic statement. The 85-year-old Niña, a fabled 50-foot (LWL) ocean racer that once was the flagship of the New York Yacht Club, disappeared without a trace, along with Dyche and his wife, 17-year-old son and four crewmembers during what should have been an eight- to 10-day crossing. ADVERTISEMENT.
Missing yacht Nina 'presumed sunk' off New Zealand. 29 June 2013. AFP. Three days of aerial searches of the sea and New Zealand coastline have yielded no sign of the schooner Nina or its eight ...
The Niña, like the Pinta, was a caravel, which was a common trading vessel in use during the Age of Discovery. Caravels were also used as cargo carriers, warships, patrol boats, and even corsairs (pirate ships). Their advantages were speed, a shallow draught, and manoeuvrability, plus the fact that they were good sailing ships.
A private search team have now identified satellite images of a vessel or object resembling the missing yacht Nina. Satellite images captured on September 15 around 184 nautical miles west of Norfolk Island and examined by the private search team appear to show a drifting boat. Family members say the boat is roughly the same size and shape as ...
Relatives of the crew - six Americans, including David Dyche, the Nina's owner and skipper, and 35-year-old Matt Wootton, from Orpington, Kent - say the object in the satellite images is the ...
A satellite image showing an object that may be of the missing schooner the Nina. There are seven people on board the 85-year-old mahogany schooner — once the flagship of the New York Yacht Club.
Motor Yacht Nina J. 1. Nina J: A Masterpiece by Baglietto and Design Studio Spadolini. The yacht Nina J is a stunning vessel built by renowned Italian shipyard Baglietto in 2005. Designed by Design Studio Spadolini S.r.l, Nina J showcases a perfect blend of style, luxury, and performance. 2. Impressive Specifications for Smooth Sailing.
Nina is an elegant and classic displacement yacht with timeless appeal, completely restored and equipped with all amenities and zero speed stabiliser, ready to explore the hidden beauties of the West Mediterranean.
Description. Nina is an elegant and classic displacement yacht with timeless appeal, completely restored and equipped with all amenities and zero speed stabiliser, ready to explore the hidden beauties of the West Mediterranean.
The yacht NINA LU was built by Trinity in 2009 as Big City. She is designed by Trinity Yachts, LLC. For a few years, she was named WAKU. Specifications. The yacht is powered by Caterpillar engines.Her max speed is 16 knots. Her cruising speed is 12 knots.She has a range of more than 3000 nm.