by Tom Lochhaas
Just as he started the turn to port, the boys shouted that they had a fish. “Feels huge!” Immediately Seth throttled down to ease the strain on the line. He looked back and saw the pole’s tip bent down toward the water.
He turned more to port to make for the red marker since the incoming tide swept you sideways at this point. Then he turned farther to port so the boat was facing directly across the river.
When they struck the rocks he was so surprised that at first he thought a boat had hit them on the starboard side, but there was nothing there. Alarmed, he turned hard to port and throttled up to head back toward the center of the channel. The keel hit again, harder, and the boat heeled suddenly hard to starboard as the current pushed against the port side. With a shudder, the engine died when the prop hit a jutting rock.
“Everyone hang on!” he shouted.
The boat stopped, heeled even more, and then with a grinding noise slid farther into the rocks 3 feet under the surface. It was now canted over more than 30 degrees.
When he was sure they had stopped, at least for the moment, Seth dashed below to check for leaks. Once in the cabin he heard the steady grinding of fiberglass against granite and could only hope it was the keel and not the hull.
The tide was rising fast and might float them off, but he realized that the current would just push them deeper into the rocks. Things would only get worse.
He rushed back up to the cockpit where everyone waited, Joanna white-faced. “I’m calling the harbor patrol,” he said. “We gotta get out of here.” He handed out PFDs from the cockpit locker.
Fortunately the local Coast Guard crew heard their radio call and responded within minutes in a rigid-hull inflatable rescue boat that could work in close enough to take them off. Later, back at the station after Seth had called a salvage company to try to retrieve their sailboat, one of the guardsmen took Seth aside. “I don’t want to scare your family, but you’re really lucky you didn’t end up in the water. It’s still damn cold, and you’d have been bashed around in that current or on the rocks where a boat couldn’t get to you.” Seth nodded grimly. “And next time you might want to put your life jackets on before you need them. You never know.”
The Reef of New South Wales
The Flinders Islet Race follows a 92–nautical mile course over mostly open ocean off New South Wales, Australia. While this race lacks the treacherous reputation of the Sydney–Hobart race, it nonetheless commands the attention of participating sailors. The forecast for the race in October 2009 was nothing special. Earlier strong winds had abated, leaving a big swell, and race winds were forecast to be 20 to 25 knots and subsiding. Experienced racers like Andrew Short weren’t concerned about the weather but were looking forward to a fast, fun race.
Andrew had a crew of 17 aboard his 80-footer named PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He sailed often and knew the boat well. His friend Matt acted partly as tactician, and more than half of the others were regular crew on the boat. Some had sailed with him for over two decades on other boats. Others, like his friend Sally, were experienced sailors but new to this boat. All of them had gotten used to Andrew’s style of sailing, however.
He liked to be in control, even though he was more relaxed than dictatorial in his command. He generally kept the helm for himself and also made the navigational and most tactical decisions. Unlike most other skippers he didn’t plan out a rotation of crew roles in advance. After all, he likely reasoned before the race, it’s only 92 miles, not a multiday race where you need to set watch schedules for sleeping.
So he took the helm as usual well before the start, late Friday, after a day’s work. The adrenaline was flowing, and the crew was as happy as they could be in this weather. Everyone had full confidence in him as the skipper. They made a good run on the starting line and headed off downwind for Flinders under spinnaker. The southwest breeze was moderate at the start, but they had a reef in the main because they anticipated more wind offshore.
The evening weather became unpleasantly cold after passing showers. The wind averaged about 20 knots but gusted near 30, with frequent shifts in direction. Waves a meter high built on top of the swell from yesterday’s gale. Some of the crew were feeling queasy by midnight.
A little before 2 A.M. they tacked onto port when the chartplotter showed they were about 6 miles from Flinders Islet. The plotter had been acting up earlier, but after they rebooted the system things seemed okay, and Andrew felt he could trust it now. The wind was still shifting, but he anticipated no problems in leaving Flinders to port, as required in the race, without having to tack again. He had been on the helm for about 7 hours now and was a little tired, but the weather was clearing and they were cheered by the prospect of a more pleasant return sail back to Sydney.
The moon came out as they approached the islet from the southeast, steering approximately for its northern end some 3 miles off. Andrew had overstood the mark with the earlier tack in case of a wind shift but could now fall off some to starboard. The boat was humming along at 12 to 15 knots as the crew readied the spinnaker lines for a quick hoist after they rounded the islet. The spinnaker bag was positioned on the port rail—the high, windward side—in preparation. The bag obscured Andrew’s view forward from the cockpit on that side, but he was using the chartplotter more than line of sight as he steered to the mark.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, like many large race boats, had two wheels, and Andrew was mostly using the high, port wheel. The plotter was closer to the starboard wheel, however, so he kept moving back and forth, sometimes switching to the starboard wheel to check the view to leeward, although the headsail blocked most of the view forward from that position.
Matt was just forward of the mast, readying the spinnaker pole and control lines.
Andrew drove on, closing the mark, unwilling to lose ground by bearing off any more than necessary. He shouted commands to the trimmers but had not asked or assigned anyone to be forward lookout. His crew was used to that; Andrew never lacked confidence in his helming or tactical decisions.
The sky was clear as they approached the last mile. Flinders Islet was now an obvious silhouette against the shore lights of Port Kembla in the distance. Everyone was in position for the rounding.
The boat flew off a swell and was surfing fast when Matt suddenly heard breakers. He spun around and saw they were sailing straight at the waves breaking on the rocks of the islet’s north end. “Come away!” he shouted—and kept shouting—and Andrew turned to starboard.
Matt was still shouting. Andrew turned more.
Then they struck.
The crew described it later like a car crash, an instant full stop that threw them forward on deck, gear flying everywhere. Matt had been tethered to a jackstay and was thrown from the mast to the forestay, where his tether held him.
A quick check showed that everyone was still aboard with nothing more than minor injuries. Miraculously the boat remained upright on the reef about 10 meters from the exposed rocks of the shore. Quickly they released the sheets to spill wind from the sails, hoping to steady the boat.
But breaking waves continued to slam the boat forward and it slid around to point straight at the islet, pitching fore and aft with the waves.
Almost immediately after striking Andrew had ordered the engine started with the hope of backing off the reef. It ran for 30 seconds, died, and would not restart.
Still at the port wheel, Andrew then directed someone to make a Mayday call, but abruptly the boat lost all electrical power. Crew reported the cabin was a mess down below, with gear and sails tossed everywhere in the dark and breaking waves flooding in.
Somewhere down below, buried out of sight in the mess, were soft-pack life rafts. But someone did manage to find some flares.
Alone at the wheel, Andrew tried to get a handheld VHF radio to work but it also failed.
The waves kept pounding the boat, rolling it wildly, the boom swinging crazily side to side. Then the mast broke and fell over to port, luckily missing all
crew. The hull pounded the rocks, the rudder broke off, and solid walls of water broke over the boat as it rolled violently on each wave.
Sally and some crew were tethered in, others were not, but almost none of them could hold on in one place as the waves swept them about the cockpit. Often they went underwater as a wave swept over the boat, struggling to breathe after it passed during the brief moments of calm.
No one had any time to make a plan.
Another big wave jolted by, and when it was past, Andrew saw that Sally had been swept through the lifelines on the port side. Her tether was still connected to the port jackline, but she was overboard. Matt and another crew tried to pull her back on board with the tether, but in the turmoil of water they were unable to move her. They saw she was unconscious, going underwater when the boat rolled.
“Big wave!” someone shouted. As it struck and the boat rolled, Matt and another crew were thrown across to the starboard side. The wave slammed Andrew into the port wheel and carried both him and the wheel with the pedestal overboard. He’d never had a chance to put on his PFD or harness.
The big wave lifted the boat and drove it higher onto the rocks in the surging surf and breaking waves. The crew saw they now had an opportunity—and probably a very short window of opportunity—to get off the boat and reach higher ground before the boat broke up.
As a group they jumped between waves and clawed up the rocks out of the surf. They couldn’t see Andrew anywhere in the water. Some wanted to go back for Sally in case she was still alive, but when they moved to where they could see the boat’s port side between waves, they could not see her. Her body was apparently underwater or had been washed away. The boat was breaking up, and they all realized the danger of even attempting to return to it.
Someone did a head count, and they discovered that in addition to Sally and Andrew, another crew, Nicholas, was also missing. The 15 of them gathered together on the islet. No one had a handheld VHF or even a cell phone. But they had some flares, and two crew activated their PLBs. They began firing off aerial flares at 2:42 A.M.
Because several other sailboats in the race were nearby, a search began almost immediately. Several boats spotted the flares and approached the islet, saw the wrecked boat, and began searching through the debris field nearby. Soon it was established that three people were missing, and it wasn’t long before another sailboat found Nicholas floating alive in his PFD. Shortly after, Andrew’s body was found, with signs of a head injury that may have knocked him unconscious before he drowned. Another sailboat found Sally floating facedown, no longer wearing her PFD or harness and also with an apparent head injury. That crew gave her CPR until she was transferred to a medical crew 30 minutes later, but she was unresponsive and was pronounced dead.
The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s (CYCA) investigation of the incident focused on factors related to the yacht’s fatal grounding but found no single reason or cause. Several contributing factors were cited, however. Although the GPS chartplotter may have shown location inaccuracies, the most important failing was overreliance on the plotter to the extent that no one was on lookout, even at a time when conditions allowed a perfectly clear view of the island ahead. With 18 persons aboard, someone easily could have been forward with a clear view. The fact that no one was on watch, the investigators concluded, was largely due to the skipper’s loose organizational approach. In addition, fatigue—the skipper’s 7 hours on the helm—was cited as a likely factor in navigational judgments made during the last minutes before the grounding.
Briefly
Northern California, November 2011. One of the big issues for long-distance solo sailors, of course, is getting enough sleep. Offshore and far from shipping lanes, with the right equipment and good weather, it’s manageable, but this sailor had been struggling with gales for the last 2 days of his voyage from Hawaii to California. He’d made this voyage several times before, however, and knew what he was doing. Finally the weather eased, and the exhausted sailor checked the steering wind vane, set his alarm to wake him long before approaching shore, and lay down for a nap. Sometime later he woke to a brutal pounding as his boat was rocked and slammed down by surf off a beach. With the high, crashing waves it was not safe to try to get off the boat. His VHF radio was on the fritz, but his cell phone had a signal so he called his wife, who called the Coast Guard. The helicopter reached him quickly but was unable to drop a cable because the boat’s mast was thrashing about, so they lowered a rescue swimmer nearby to help him off. Over the loudspeaker they told him to stay on the boat, but he sensed time was running out and leaped into the surf just before a big wave struck the boat, which snapped the mast, stove in the portlights, and filled the cabin with water. “Unlucky to sleep through the alarm,” he told friends later, and, repeating what the rescue swimmer had said to him, “Lucky to have gotten off alive.”
Coronado Islands, Mexico, April 2012. Four friends ranging in age from 49 to 64 were participating in the Newport to Ensenada race in a 37-foot sailboat. Like the other boats in the race, their position was being tracked by the boat’s satellite transponder. Friday’s sail was on a light but steady breeze, but after dark the wind died and they turned on the motor, accepting the race penalty for using the engine. The boat most likely was being steered by the autopilot. Around 1:30 A.M. Saturday, their tracking signal disappeared. Since no distress call or other communication had been received, race officials assumed it was a transponder failure. About 10 A.M, however, other boats passing through the area off the Coronado Islands started reporting boat debris in the water and the U.S. Coast Guard began a search. Many pieces of the boat were found, including a section of the transom with the boat’s name on it. Then, as the search continued, they found three bodies in succession, all battered, none wearing a PFD. They continued searching for the fourth man and found more pieces of the boat, all fairly small and suggesting a violent collision. Sailors on other boats reported seeing a large ship in the area that night and speculation was rife that a ship must have run them over, but why hadn’t they seen it? No calls had been made, no apparent evasive action had been taken, and they hadn’t even put on their PFDs. The Coast Guard reported the night had been clear, lit by a half moon, and sea conditions were calm. No one wanted to speculate aloud that the four men—all experienced sailors—might have been in the cabin below with no one standing watch. On Sunday evening the Coast Guard suspended its search for the fourth man. The coroner ruled that two of the three victims had died of blunt-force trauma, reviving the speculation that they had been run over by a large, fast ship. None of the boat debris suggested any other cause such as an explosion.
Then, 2 days later, the boat’s GPS transponder track became available and it showed a straight-line course directly into the sheer cliff face of North Coronado Island. The pounding of the boat into the rocks over and over likely resulted in the small pieces of debris, which were then carried away by the current. While some still speculated that the boat might have been run over by a ship and then the transponder floated on and reached the island, it seemed obvious that the boat, motoring at 6 knots, had slammed into the cliff while no one was on lookout. Were they all below, or had a crew on watch in the cockpit fallen asleep?
Six days later the body of the fourth sailor was found washed up on the island not far from the suspected crash site. Later investigation revealed that the emergency button on the SPOT satellite messenger device had actually been activated, but because a GPS position was not transmitted along with the emergency signal, the emergency was not relayed to search-and-rescue authorities, a protocol flaw that was subsequently corrected. The GPS location may not have transmitted if the unit was in the water at the time.
CHAPTER 6
Engine or Equipment Failure
Anyone who has owned a boat for very long knows that things break down—often, and usually at the worst time. The water is a harsh environment, and the stresses and battering of wind and waves can knock almost anything out of commission. T
he engine may fail when you most need it, the chartplotter may die in a tricky channel, and the electrical system may give up and bring down instruments and communication equipment, to say nothing of sails or lines tearing or jamming or otherwise becoming inoperable. Experienced mariners say to expect such failures at any time; you should do your best to prevent them but be ready to act quickly when a breakdown leads to a situation that can threaten your safety.
The Delivery Skipper
Jonathan, who was in his early forties, was excited to be embarking on his first sailboat delivery despite the cold March weather in the English Channel. Maybe the weather was why the boat brokerage had hired him for the job, since they likely had more experienced regulars, or maybe it was just that his beginner’s fee was lower, but in any case he was pleased to have landed the job. He’d worked hard to earn all his captain’s certificates and commercial endorsements, and this was the beginning of what he hoped would become his new career.
The voyage itself, despite the weather, was simple enough—a one- or two-day trip from Southampton to Plymouth. He knew the Solent and the Channel well and anticipated no problems. The 9-meter sloop Pastime, built in Sweden in 1990, sounded like a well-equipped cruiser, and he’d had plenty of experience on boats of its size.
Jonathan’s only apprehension as he packed his gear bag Friday morning was about dealing with his crew. Carlyle, the boat’s new owner, was a decade older than he, and had said he knew how to sail but needed a refresher because he’d been away from boating for quite a while. Jonathan understood many of his future clients would be on board during the delivery cruise, but he’d heard that owners sometimes challenged the delivery captain or made poor decisions. There can be only one captain on a boat, and Jonathan didn’t like arguing.