At approximately 1900 hrs on Sat eve June 22, 2009 a skipper and crew set out on his fairly nice Hobie 18.

At approximately 1930, the boat capsized in 18 knots of breeze and calm seas and the skipper was separated from the boat, and it was moving away from him faster than he could swim. The crew climbed the mast and purposely turtled the boat to slow headway, the skipper swam to the boat and boarded.

At approximately 2030 as the sun was setting, the 70' sailing vessel Chardonay II, with 49 passengers aboard saw the vessel in distress and altered course. Chardonay II made contact with the Vessel, radioed the Santa Cruz Harbor Patrol and stood on scene until the Harbor rescue vessel arrived.

The crew was taken aboard and the last known coordinates were reported to the Coast Guard.

Vessel Assist was hired the next morning and started a 6 hour search. Additional coordinates were given to Vessel Assist from a Coast Guard plane that happened to be searching for an overturned fishing boat in the same area.

The boat wasn't found until today in this condition:





These guys were lucky. The water is about 56F, that's a cold night in the water!

What could they have had aboard to facilitate their own rescue?

J

From the looks of that boat, water temperature would not have been a problem. I wonder what ran over it.

I think the safest thing, when sailing on open water, is to always sail on the buddy system, with another boat.

As far as what they could have had aboard to help them, I would think a VHF radio and/or a cell phone and a GPS unit.

Shame, its a proper Boomer too!

The guys did well to stay together. A phone in a waterproof zip bag would have made things easier.

I know stuff breaks or goes wrong, but if you are sailing alone you should always be confident that you can right the boat in all conditions. One of Ricks righting poles or a water bag should have been on board.

Hopefully the dicks that think it is ok to single-hand a 2-hander will take this on board too.

a drogue chute would have keep the boat from drifting so fast. Being able to right the boat from a turtle would have helped as well, but this means that the mast needed to be sealed.

The drift is fastest when the trampoline is perpendicular to the wind. So you can also slow the drift by getting up on the bow and dragging feet (and whatever else you can find to drag), to turn the bows into the wind. And sometimes the boat will even right itself when you do this. I wouldn't count on that happening, but at least the drift will be slowed considerably when the trampoline is in line with the wind instead of crossways.

Things they forgot:

VHF Radio
GPS
Cell Phone
Brains

It's idiots like that that give catamaran sailors a bad reputation.

Ditto.

Ditto to Matt's point

Do you think they even have a clue how to right the boat from a turtle?

Do you think they had a plan B.

A lot of the rec sailors on my beach have never thought about these seamanship issues much less read or talked to someone about these issues.

Good question that might save someone's life.

Never go out on a Yellow Hobie 18 in Santa Cruz. This is just like last time almost an identicle 18 did the same thing.

Have someone on the beach to know your planned arrival time. Always go out with more than 1 boat. Always carry safety gear, Any time I'm in the ocean I have a marine radio, phone, gps, flares , whistle , mirror and flashlight.
If your flares get old then buy new ones and set them off on the 4th of July.

Dude, that must have been a big shark to leave those teeth marks...

[...playing Jaws theme...]