BoatUS.com - Seaworthy Magazine

Lost at Sea: The Perils of Abandoning Ship

By Bob Adriance

The story below, based on the individual accounts in the BoatUS Marine Insurance claim files by each of the five-member crew, documents the loss of a 30-foot sailboat bound for Bermuda. It illustrates not only the well-documented risks of sailing offshore, but the considerable difficulty of abandoning a small boat in a raging storm.

***********

The first night at sea was pleasant and uneventful, with no hint for what lay in store for the five-man crew as their 30-foot sloop sped quietly away from the Virginia Capes on a southeasterly course toward Bermuda. Winds were out of the north at about 15 knots. The sky was clear.

After sunrise, the northerly breeze began to fade and by 0800 it had clocked toward the south. The wind built again during the day and by early evening it was gusting to 15 knots out of the southeast. Despite the unfavorable wind shift, the crew’s spirits remained high. According to the watch’s report that night, seas were building and it was foggy and very dark.

Tuesday morning the sky was cloudy and the wind was steady at about 15 knots. At 1400 the watch decided to drop the genoa and sail with a reefed main and working jib. About an hour after the foresail change, the mainsheet traveler broke and the boom swung jarringly out to leeward. Although the traveler was soon repaired, it was decided to drop the main and sail under the jib alone. By 1700 the wind was gusting to well over 20 knots. That evening one of the crew noted that the sky looked strangely like the inside of an oyster shell.

By Wednesday morning the crew had become tired. They were tired of the rough seas and constant motion of the small boat. They were tired of the southeast wind that was forcing them to sail too far to the east. The shallow fin keel sloop, according to one crewmember, was not making headway against the strong Atlantic winds. His doubts were confirmed by the Loran, which continued to put their position farther and farther north, away from Bermuda.

The wind built steadily and by 1900 on Thursday it was gusting to 50 knots. The men on watch could no longer control the helm, so the skipper decided to drop the jib and run under bare poles and warps. Everyone went below for some badly needed rest.

Sleeping that night was difficult. At first light on Friday morning the skipper went on deck, snapped his safety harness onto one of the jack lines, and set to work rigging more warps to trail off the stern. The wind was blowing steadily at over 50 knots and sounded “unbelievable.” The waves, according to his account, were “horrendous.” Spindrift and a driving rain being blown horizontally made it almost impossible to see more than a few feet.

While the skipper was rigging the warps, one of the crew came on deck and snuggled up under the spray dodger. He was not wearing his safety harness.

Without warning, a monster wave suddenly loomed high above the struggling boat. The skipper saw it starting to crest and dove into the cockpit, but the unharnessed man was swept overboard before he could get below. The boat was knocked onto its beam ends and the man somehow managed to grab the end of the boom and climb back aboard as the boat slowly righted itself.

Down below, the boat had lurched violently when the wave broke and gear burst from the lockers and was hurled about the cabin like small missiles. Water ripped through the hatch and the two sleeping crew were slammed against the bulkheads. One landed awkwardly across his bunk, bleeding badly from the left side of his head. He said that he couldn’t move.

The skipper remembered a story about a boat that lost its hatch and two breaking waves later filled with water and sank. He quickly set to work repairing the damaged hatch by drilling holes in the top and securing it with a line to the bulkhead. He also began thinking seriously about abandoning ship.

Everything on board was soaking wet, although the leaks, mostly from around ports and deck hardware, did not seem to present any immediate danger. The injured crew had his forehead bandaged and regained the use of his limbs, but continued to lie on his bunk in considerable pain. Everyone else was exhausted. Someone suggested abandoning ship and the suggestion was quickly seconded.

The skipper was aware that abandoning ship was risky, but the injured crewman was in dire need of medical attention so at 0700 he decided to send the first MAYDAY. There was no answer. A second call was sent. Silence. It was not until three hours later, at 1000, that one of their MAYDAY broadcasts was finally answered, by a freighter about 12 miles to the north.

Because of the conditions, it took the freighter almost two hours to steam the 12 miles and find the small boat. After it arrived, the skipper on the smaller boat was directed by the freighter’s skipper to use his engine to work his boat into the lee of the ship. The small diesel started, but a trailing line quickly got fouled in the prop, so it had to be shut off.

It was now up to the men on the ship to bring the two boats together. Even in calm waters, maneuvering a giant ship is not easy and usually requires the assistance of a harbor pilot. But despite the ship’s size and despite the raging wind and seas, it was finally brought alongside. The crew on the freighter tossed life rings overboard, but their ship and the small boat were dangerously close together. Everyone on the sailboat stayed put as the rescue ship drifted away.

The freighter circled several more times before it finally managed to get back into position for another rescue attempt. Each time it failed to get into position, the crew on the sailboat watched as the ship left and would suddenly reappear, looming overhead like a giant, steel cliff.

During the various attempts to bring the ship alongside, the two boats bumped several times with a “dreadful force” that threatened to break apart the smaller boat’s hull. An even greater threat came from the churning props on the larger boat. Fortunately, the freighter’s skipper managed to keep his boat’s stern away from the smaller boat.

After what seemed like hours, the first man finally shouted to the others that he was going to try and reach the freighter. He climbed through the stern pulpit and jumped overboard. His account in the claim file described how he struggled for several minutes to get a life ring from the ship over his bulky shoulders. But even when the ring was finally on, he said he was afraid that he might be drowned by the blowing rain and spray.

The men up on deck shouted encouragement as they pulled the life ring nearer to the Jacob’s ladder that had been rigged over the side of the freighter. The struggling man couldn’t remember climbing into the ladder; although he did. As he was being hauled up, the same bulky shoulders that had almost kept him from getting into the ring, now prevented him from falling out. With a lot of help from the crew on the ship, he reached the deck.

The decision to leap from the smaller boat into the water was not made easily by any of the crew. One was standing on deck and received a bone-crushing blow to his back by the furling drum, which had been knocked loose in one of the many collisions with the freighter. The man jumped, opting to take his chances in the water, but he struggled for another half hour before reaching a life ring.

Other accounts by the crew are equally as harrowing: one was almost crushed between the two hulls; another, who had a heart attack a few years before, was only semi-conscious and looked “gray” when he reached the deck of the freighter and had to be given oxygen. Like all of the men from the small boat, he survived the ordeal.

Epilogue

A few days after the weather cleared, an Italian freighter spotted the boat drifting alone in the Atlantic about 90 miles from where it had been abandoned. The sea was calm. A launch was sent over to investigate.

The empty sailboat was in shambles. After looking around, the crew from the freighter probably talked about hoisting it onto the deck of their ship and taking it home. But they must have decided that the wrecked boat was more trouble than it was worth. Before leaving, they took some bags of personal gear, which would eventually be returned via the American consulate in Italy, and then climbed back aboard their launch. The drifting boat was never seen again.

***********

Bob Adriance is Editor of Seaworthy, the BoatU.S. Marine Insurance damage-avoidance publication. Click Here for a free insurance quote!

BoatUS : my.BoatUS : Membership : Boat Insurance : Towing Services : Boat Loans : Online Store : Boat Graphics : Classifieds : Site Map : Contact Us