sad story. Could have and should have been avoided.

When i first got into beach cats... we had a local sailor who de-masted and was swept into the gulf. This was the week of 9/11 and there was no one else out. He had no water, no sunscreen, no cell phone, no anchor, no paddle...

He and his crew slept wrapped in the sails and were luckily found and rescued by a shrimp boat that was coming in because of a pending hurricane.

I learned several lessons from hearing him tell that story. Even though I sail mostly on weekends, when there are lots of other boats around...

I carry all the items mentioned above, plus a homemade first aid kit with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and bactine (suffered a few foot infections last year that could have become very serious), some extra foul weather gear in dry bags (in my hulls), some emergency tools and spare parts (I too de-masted in the gulf last year, but had a friend who’s spare parts let me re-mast) and a few flashlights (have been caught off guard and ended up sailing back to the beach in the dark).

I will gladly suffer with the extra 10-20 lbs of gear in exchange for any and every time I have / will need any 1 of these items.

PS I also have a righting bag