Here’s an account, as told in Latitude 38”s Lectronic Latitude, of a man overboard emergency and the cascading series of events before and after. It serves as a reminder of how quickly things can go awry at sea and what good seamanship looks like.
On May 9, Andy Newell and crew were racing his Santana 35 Ahi in the annual Duxbury-Lightship race. The course runs from San Francisco under the Golden Gate Bridge and then north to the buoy off Stinson Beach before turning back to the SF Lightship and then home.
Ahi rounded the Duxbury buoy just after noon and in a rising westerly breeze was reaching south when she was hit by two large waves on her beam. The second wave washed right over the boat, throwing three crew into the water.
Two of them were able to maintain contact with the boat but Newell was not. His life vest inflated and he popped to the surface. But, the crotch straps were too loose, so he had to struggle to keep his head above water.
Right after the accident, one crewmember hit the DSC button on the VHF, pressed the MOB button on the charttplotter and issued a Mayday on VHF channel 16. This altered the coast guard which launched a rescue helicopter and informed the racing fleet of the emergency.
This last fact was key to Newell’s rescue. Ahi’s boom was broken in the accident and the two other crew struggled to get back aboard. The remaining crew got the sails down and, once the two men were back onboard, fired up the engine to go back for Newell.
But, with lines and sails loose on deck, the inevitable happened. The head of the jib washed overboard and was soon tangled in the propeller. Ahi was now without power and adrift.
Another boat in the race, Zaff, heard the VHF Mayday call and immediately dowsed sails and motored to the spot where Newell was floating in his vest. They deployed their Lifesling and were able to haul Newell onto the boat through the open transom.
With the Coast Guard helicopter on scene, the crew on Ahi had to decide whether to abandon ship or not. They chose to save Ahi and accepted a tow from the crew of the fellow competitor Shaman. After a short time, Ahi was picked up by a Coast Guard 47 footer and towed back to Richmond where TowboatUS took over.
In the end, Andy Newell and his crew were fine and aside from a broken boom and damaged sail, Ahi would be okay. In the aftermath, the crew sat down to do a post mortuum of exactly what had transpired which Newell has promised to share.
In the meantime, it is fair to say that the crew of Ahi behaved professionally and made the right calls almost immediately. The VHF Mayday certainly resulted Newell’s recovery.
It is instructive that Newell’s crotch straps were too loose and thus the life vest did not work as designed. It is also worth noting that after a major rig failure, the rigging and sails on deck are always a potential problem when running the engine.
In the end, the teamwork on Ahi, the quick response by Zaff’s crew, the quick Coast Guard’s deployment and the volunteer tow by Shaman collectively contributed to a positive if fraught outcome.
(Photo by Andy Newell)
