"It's not an adventure until something goes wrong." - Yvon Chouinard
A sense of dread and a wave of adrenaline rushed through me when I heard the hollow crunch and crackle of the fiberglass hull caving in. We had been struck by another sailboat while maneuvering during the starting sequence of a regatta on San Diego Bay. I asked my brother Joe to lean over the side of the boat and tell me how big the hole was, and whether it was above or below the waterline. "Pretty big, and the bottom of it is underwater," he responded. I immediately put the boat onto a port tack, hauled in the main sheet in order to get as much heel as possible, and told Joe to lean toward the starboard side in hopes of keeping the rupture out of the water. We were sailing a beam reach back toward Harbor Island but I could still hear the water rushing into the hull. I had Joe rig the handle for the manual bilge pump, but told him to forget about it when I saw that the water was already ankle-deep and rising quickly. No way would the hand powered pump be able to keep up with the volume of water flooding into the boat, so I asked him to remove the handle as it might pin my leg if we needed to abandon ship. I glanced down and confirmed that I could access the bright yellow activation pulltab on my inflatable lifejacket, and cleared loose lines that could entangle me, just to be sure. As a quadriplegic, I'm keenly aware that my swimming ability isn't what it once was.
As we made our way toward the marina, the boat progressively sank lower into the water. I felt the steering grow more sluggish and noticed our boat speed was dropping rapidly. My crew was not pleased by any of this. I assured Joe that, theoretically, the boat shouldn't completely sink. I informed Joe that the builders of the Martin 16 had incorporated buoyant foam into the construction of the hull (good call Mr. Martin!) to keep the boat and crew afloat in case of our exact situation. Of course, that's not to say that the boat couldn't be swamped- by the time we reached the calm water behind the breakwall at the marina, we had zero freeboard (the hull was completely awash and waves were lapping across the deck). The Challenged America support boat came along side and took our 16' bathtub under tow.
Now sitting in chest deep water, the air cushion I was sitting on began to float, lifting my body beyond my control, and I became concerned that I might simply float overboard. I asked Joe to pull the cushion out from under me and hold me in place in my seat so that I could continue to steer the boat. When we approached to within a few hundred feet of the dock, I asked the support boat to bring us alongside so that they could better control the boat in the tight spaces of the marina. Made up on the crash boat's hip, we crept toward the dock, then Joe stepped off the boat with the docklines, and we found ourselves home safe, not exactly sound, and very soggy.
I'd like to commend and thank the volunteer staff of Challenged America, and especially my crew/ brother Joe. Everyone responded to the incident appropriately and what many would have treated as a calamity went down as a glitch in an otherwise pleasant day. Besides, although I feel horrible about the damage to the boat, it was one of the most interesting afternoons I've had in a long while.
A sense of dread and a wave of adrenaline rushed through me when I heard the hollow crunch and crackle of the fiberglass hull caving in. We had been struck by another sailboat while maneuvering during the starting sequence of a regatta on San Diego Bay. I asked my brother Joe to lean over the side of the boat and tell me how big the hole was, and whether it was above or below the waterline. "Pretty big, and the bottom of it is underwater," he responded. I immediately put the boat onto a port tack, hauled in the main sheet in order to get as much heel as possible, and told Joe to lean toward the starboard side in hopes of keeping the rupture out of the water. We were sailing a beam reach back toward Harbor Island but I could still hear the water rushing into the hull. I had Joe rig the handle for the manual bilge pump, but told him to forget about it when I saw that the water was already ankle-deep and rising quickly. No way would the hand powered pump be able to keep up with the volume of water flooding into the boat, so I asked him to remove the handle as it might pin my leg if we needed to abandon ship. I glanced down and confirmed that I could access the bright yellow activation pulltab on my inflatable lifejacket, and cleared loose lines that could entangle me, just to be sure. As a quadriplegic, I'm keenly aware that my swimming ability isn't what it once was.
As we made our way toward the marina, the boat progressively sank lower into the water. I felt the steering grow more sluggish and noticed our boat speed was dropping rapidly. My crew was not pleased by any of this. I assured Joe that, theoretically, the boat shouldn't completely sink. I informed Joe that the builders of the Martin 16 had incorporated buoyant foam into the construction of the hull (good call Mr. Martin!) to keep the boat and crew afloat in case of our exact situation. Of course, that's not to say that the boat couldn't be swamped- by the time we reached the calm water behind the breakwall at the marina, we had zero freeboard (the hull was completely awash and waves were lapping across the deck). The Challenged America support boat came along side and took our 16' bathtub under tow.
Now sitting in chest deep water, the air cushion I was sitting on began to float, lifting my body beyond my control, and I became concerned that I might simply float overboard. I asked Joe to pull the cushion out from under me and hold me in place in my seat so that I could continue to steer the boat. When we approached to within a few hundred feet of the dock, I asked the support boat to bring us alongside so that they could better control the boat in the tight spaces of the marina. Made up on the crash boat's hip, we crept toward the dock, then Joe stepped off the boat with the docklines, and we found ourselves home safe, not exactly sound, and very soggy.
I'd like to commend and thank the volunteer staff of Challenged America, and especially my crew/ brother Joe. Everyone responded to the incident appropriately and what many would have treated as a calamity went down as a glitch in an otherwise pleasant day. Besides, although I feel horrible about the damage to the boat, it was one of the most interesting afternoons I've had in a long while.
