Figured I’d share a harrowing experience from Saturday. Two friends and I underwent every boater’s worst nightmare, and through an amazing stretch of luck we managed to emerge unscathed. This is a long post, but it can’t be told in fewer words and hold the same weight. There were things we did right and things we did wrong, but at the very least I can share my story in the hope that others may learn from it.
Around dawn on Saturday I sailed from Woods Hole with my friend Mitch on his older 20’ Seacraft, the Cynthia Z. Our friend John was going to cancel after being up too late, but decided to come anyway. The plan was to run out through Muskeget channel to track down some bonito, then work our way a little further south of the island in the hopes of running into some school bluefin.
The channel was a little rough; there was a short period on the waves, but nothing too bad. Right after we went through the channel we noticed a peculiar smell- almost smelled like brake fluid. We stopped, examined the engine, and didn’t find anything amiss. The boat was still running fine. Not thinking anything of it, we continued on our way.
Once we got out to the fleet we set out crystal minnows and started trolling- Wasn’t long before we had our first bonito. After about an hour and a half of catching nothing but bluefish in the shoal water, we decided to move southwest to start chasing BFT.
We worked our way a few miles short of the inside fingers and set out our spread. For the next few hours we just trolled with no results- didn’t see any life, no busting fish or any signs of activity. I noticed that the boat was a little unresponsive- difficult to maintain course- but the Cynthia Z has notoriously stiff steering so I didn’t think anything of it.
The exact sequence of events that happened next is a little tough to remember. We decided to bring in our spread and start working our way back in, as the bite never developed. We were running low on gas, so Mitch opened up the storage in the stern to retrieve his extra gas tanks to fill up. When he opened the bilge he found that it was full of water- that peculiar smell we had noticed earlier was the bilge burning out. There was no alarm on the boat, so we didn’t notice the water until it had become a serious issue.
We were a little nervous at that point, but still thought we would be OK to get in. John started tinkering with the bilge- he thought that it might have been disconnected when we were going through the channel, and if he could get it rigged up we could pump out. I made an impromptu bailer out of a water jug, and busied myself with keeping the boat as dry as possible. As we were stopped and filling up the gas tanks, this started to become an exercise in futility- the weight of John in the stern meant that every fifth or sixth wave would hit the open transom of the Seacraft and wash a little water over and into the boat, and I found it very difficult to keep up. And, to add insult to injury, it was right around this point that ~40-50” bluefin started erupting on halfbeaks all around the boat. It was as if they knew they were safe, and taunting us.
John couldn’t get the bilge running, so once we got the engine running we decided to motor in towards Gay Head where we could get pumped out and pick up some more fuel. John and I moved everything heavy into the bow of the boat, and Mitch turned us on a course for land.
I cannot overstate how quickly the following events transpired. Mitch tried to get the boat up to speed, but as soon as he did the water that was in the boat rushed to the stern. The entire stern immediately went underwater, and the boat turtled to port. Mitch grabbed his Spot GPS device, and as he ran to the bow the hatch that contained our PFDs opened up- Thanks to his quick thinking he managed to rip them out and throw them into the water. We all threw ourselves off the boat, not wanting to be caught underneath. The boat fully capsized, and immediately went bow up and vanished underneath the surface. The entire sinking took maybe fifteen seconds.
So… there were three of us, about six miles south of the Vineyard, with a few PFDs, in a debris field. There was no time to grab flares, emergency equipment, or anything of the like. One always hears that when things go bad they do so in a hurry- but it can’t be fully understood until it’s been experienced. Mitch latched onto a cooler, John and I put on a PFD (and FYI, oilskins provide excellent buoyancy, and boots do not instantly drag you down), and we assessed our situation. Anyone who fishes that area knows that it’s not the most trafficked spot- We would be lucky to have anyone come by. We had very little water and no means of signaling any passing traffic save waving a seat cushion or spare PFD. Mitch had his Spot personal safety devices- but he was rusty in its use, having only read up on it early in the season. He transmitted a quick signal, but accidentally turned the device off. His parents and girlfriend received notifications that the device was activated, but it wasn’t on long enough to transmit any GPS coordinates. By some amazing stroke of luck John found his portable VHF radio floating by- The battery on Mitch’s had died during the day, but Johns had a full charge and was working fine. It was clipped onto the boat’s windshield-
had it not come free, we would likely still be out there at this moment.
We issued a mayday on channel 16 at approximately 2:24 PM. We did not have our exact location, as we had no time to check the GPS for coordinates. We got in touch with Coast Guard sector SE NE and gave them as much information as we could. It was difficult to know how much information was being transmitted- we only had a small handheld, and the chop made it difficult to speak clearly into the unit. The CG didn’t seem to realize that we were all in the water. They kept asking how many bodies were in the water and how many were onboard the vessel, prompting a good amount of frustration on our end. It was also difficult to convey our position as we didn’t have time to read the GPS.
I’ve gone through multiple boating safety and offshore survival trainings- I knew that we would be OK and rescued once we issued the mayday. But it’s a credit to my crewmates that they remained so calm throughout the entire process. They could have panicked, but they remained level headed. We all kept making jokes, trying to keep the mood light which is important in a situation like that. John even had the thought to grab his GoPro camera out of his duffel (which floated, remarkably)… So yes, we have almost the entire ordeal on tape.
It was then that I noticed two commercial fishing vessels south of us. One was a blue dragger with a white wheelhouse about a half mile away, the other a black scalloper about a mile and a half off. We relayed this information to the CG and they issued a broadcast on channel 16. The dragger ignored the broadcast and continued underway- but the scalloper, F/V Patience, responded.
I was able to get into communication with the captain of the Patience on 16, and tried to give him the best instructions that I could. Adjust course 90 degrees port… 20 degrees port… etc. After about thirty minutes the crew on the bow finally spotted us in the troughs, the captain told me he had our location, and we all linked together to await rescue.
Let me tell you, those boats are pretty big when you’re standing on them, but they’re massive when you’re at the waterline! The crew threw a life ring out, and dragged us alongside the boat to a ladder. Each of us climbed up, and sodden and shaken took stock of our situation on deck. The crew gave us towels to dry off with, as well as some fresh clothes (I now have a sweet Foxy Lady NB T-shirt that I can proudly rock). We’re incredibly grateful to them for their hospitality- The captain was a true Good Samaritan in responding to the UMIB, and thanks to the crew for making us comfortable. We were probably onboard for about 30 minutes until a CG life boat arrived to take us in.
It wasn’t until I was onboard the CG boat that the brevity of our situation finally sunk in. After I was off the adrenaline rush I felt like I was going to throw up. The entire situation just felt so surreal, like it hadn’t actually happened.
We got debriefed at Menemsha, and after an interesting voyage that included bus rides, hiking and hitching we made it to Vineyard Haven to get on the ferry back to Woods Hole. Over a few whiskeys on the rocks we went over what exactly went wrong, how lucky we were, and what we’d do in the future.
For one, our first and most glaring mistake was not combing the boat once we noticed that peculiar smell. We checked the engine and were near other boats; we thought the smell might not have been coming from us. Big mistake. If we noticed the bilge was out we would have called the trip right then and there, and would have been fine. Second, once we realized that we were potentially in distress, we should have issued a pan pan, or at the very least recorded our exact coordinates. If we had been able to get under way safely, we could have notified the CG that we were ok. As it was, had we not found the handheld VHF, we could have lost our lives. Finally, we all should have known exactly how to use the safety equipment on board- I didn’t even know Mitch had his little GPS thing. We could have gotten off an accurate distress signal immediately, which we did not. The flares should have been taken out of the center console the second we realized we had water in the hull, and we all should have put on our PFDs.
The amount of luck we had was unbelievable. John was up very late the night before we sailed- he almost bailed last minute. Had he not come, we wouldn’t have had a spare VHF. Even as it was, he said that he almost didn’t bring the radio- it was a last minute decision, as Mitch already had his onboard. I’m not sure how that radio came unclipped when everything else that was clipped on the windshield stayed put. If it had gotten tangled or remained on the boat, we wouldn’t have had any means of sending out a distress call. Spookily enough, the radio stopped working as soon as we were on board the Patience- completely fried, and it’s still broken now. It worked fine and had almost a full charge when we were in the water guiding the vessel towards us. We were fortuitous that a commercial boat was close by- A jayhawk was scrambled to find us, but there’s never any guarantee that they’d track us down. Guiding the Patience in was a piece of cake. And we were lucky that we all had some experience- I’ve been trained on what to do in these types of situations, John was familiar with distress calls, and Mitch had the foresight to retrieve the PFDs and his safety device.
So what would we do differently? I mean, the obvious statement is turn around if you have even the slightest thought that something might be wrong. At the very least, make sure EVERYTHING on the vessel is in working order. If you find yourself in an emergency situation, don’t hesitate to make a preemptive pan pan and retrieve all necessary survival equipment. Finally, I’m going to be making a ditch kit- A floating, waterproof bag that contains a waterproof VHF, PLB, flares, lights, strobes, signal mirrors, whistles, etc. I want to have something that I can bring on any boat that I sail on, regardless of the equipment that is already onboard. We had everything we needed except the time to retrieve it.
You can check out the story tonight on Fox News Boston at 6, 10, and 11.
So, I’m very grateful to be around today. We lost about $5k worth of gear- but that can be replaced. Lives can’t. We did a lot of things wrong on Saturday, but thankfully we did some things right, were very lucky and we all were OK. I hope that others will learn from our experience, and if they’re ever in a similar situation then they’ll make better decisions than we did. As we were winding down on the ferry ride to Woods Hole, John asked an interesting question- He said, “Was this not really a big deal, or were we just really lucky?”
We were really #^&#^&#^&#^&ing lucky.
3 rescued south of Martha’s Vineyard after Mayday Call | Coast Guard News
Three rescued by scalloper after mayday call | CapeCodOnline.com
Given the diversity of the human species, there is no “normal” human genome sequence. We are all mutants.
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