![[Facebook]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[Twitter]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://sailchannelislands.com/california-sailing/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
Photo and BLOG by Rob Walton, proud owner and skipper of R Escape, a Catalina 387
The call came over channel 16 from a women with a trembling voice: “Coast Guard, Coast Guard” … then silence.
You could tell by the sound of her voice that this wasn’t good. The Coast Guard tried to raise her for the standard interrogation, but she only responded with “We’re headed for the beach”.
Sector Los Angeles asks “What beach?” to which she replies “We’re south of Ventura harbor and it’s hard to hear because of the surf”. Seconds later, with alarms going off in the background, she was back on the radio: “OK, we’re on the beach”.
It was easy to spot her boat from our vantage point about a mile off shore.
The boat lay on her starboard side and was getting pummeled by the surf. Main and headsail were still up.
I had grabbed our mic to give the vessel’s location to the Coast Guard, when a Ventura Harbor Patrol boat reported that they had a visual and were less than a minute away.
As we sailed down the coast, we could see a crowd gather on the beach as a Ventura Lifeguard truck arrived. They reported the owners were OK and that Vessel Assist was on the way. The whole event from the first radio call until the report that the crew was OK took less than 10 minutes.
So, what did we learn?
The original call for help came much too late for anyone to help them prevent the grounding. Mechanical failure, inexperience, panic or any combination of those factors resulted in a vessel that was out of control.
Everyone reacts differently under stress, but the most basic actions of dropping the sails and deploying an anchor were forgotten. And the radio call was too late with far too little information to be of much use.
If this accident had happened on the backside of one of the islands, the CG would still be looking for the boat.
It’s pretty clear that we need to brief our crews on how to summon help:
Channel 16
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday
Vessel name, nature of distress
GPS location, and number of crew on-board is a good start.
We have no idea if the crew was wearing lifejackets. If not, I bet they wish they had.
Rob Walton
S/V R Escape
Channel Islands, CA
There is a contour line of 30ft if one has a depth sounder with no other idea of where they might be. You really dont want to get any closer to the beach than that line. It will keep you out of trouble with the river drainage further North as well.
Pingback: Hard Aground | surfgearcentral.com
This photo scared me because it could have been us and is a great reminder to remain calm and to not be afraid to ask for help.
We went to Catalina for July 4th and anchored between Avalon and Hamilton Cove. We dropped in about 33 feet of water and had anchored bow and stern. After about an hour we noticed we were drifting toward the rocky shore and decided to move. We went to pull up the anchor and the windlass crapped out (Dan has confirmed that as an official sailing term). At this point we were really drifting inward and continued to do our best to bring up both anchors, although were having trouble due to the lovely kelp. Thankfully, and this is why I love sailors, a dingy rode by with a man and woman who offered to tow us out and then further helped us raise the anchors. With this, and why we were having trouble, they could see we had part of our anchor line wrapped around the keel… it was a mess but with some cursing, we stayed calm and acted quickly and went down to Two Harbors and luckily got a mooring for the night. The people who helped us would not take our offering of wine and simply said to remember everyone needs a little help sometimes.
We realize now what mistakes we made. One being the consideration of the strength of the tide and that we needed more practice.
IF this was the same incident that was reported in the Star, the boat captain was arrested for DUI (or is it (SUI – Sailing Under the Influence?). This might explain the irratic behavior and the inability act in such a manner that provided timely safety to vessel and crew.