Suddenly Overboard (4 page)

Force 10 = 48–55 knots = “storm”

Force 11 = 56–63 knots = “violent storm”

Force 12 = 64–71 knots = “hurricane”

S
torms: what sailors fear most, and what keep many from sailing offshore for fear of high winds and seas. With modern technology, forecasting, and better communication, however, few boats encounter hurricanes and typhoons, although even a passing thunderstorm or squall can still produce winds high enough to cause problems. Storms often pose a great threat for racers who may carry more sail, or attempt riskier maneuvers, or hesitate to heave-to or seek safe harbor, but even a cautious daysailor may encounter winds or waves high enough to threaten. A storm may threaten life by severely damaging the boat, although this is seldom the primary cause of storm fatalities. Most medium to large sailboats are built ruggedly enough to withstand a knockdown, and a prudent sailor has tactics such as heaving-to or using a sea anchor to prevent one. Even in the worst storms, it is most critical to stay on the boat and avoid injury from being battered by the storm's violence. In the worst-case scenarios, safety gear, such as a radio, an EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon), a life raft, and so on, greatly increases your odds for staying alive
.

This is not to say there are no “acts of God,” only that storms themselves are a relatively rare cause of death of sailors and that, as these stories show, in most cases preventive efforts are, or would have been, lifesaving
.

From the moment they'd met, there was something about the guy that William didn't like. Generally easygoing, William put up with all sorts of boatowner personalities—it was just part of the job—but he'd have happily said no to Hank if it weren't so late in the season and delivery jobs weren't so scarce.

In his experience, there were two typical types of boatowners who hired delivery skippers: the ones who admitted they were too inexperienced to sail their boat on their own to some other location, and the rich ones who just wanted to pay someone to move their boats for them. The former often made good crew and were eager to learn, and William was happy enough to teach, while the latter stayed home or at the office as he, also happily enough, moved the boat with his own crew.

But this one, Hank, seemed conflicted and was arrogant to boot. He couldn't quite admit he needed help to sail his 8.5-meter sailboat from Chichester Harbour in the south of England to Dartmouth for a winter refit, roughly 120 nautical miles. He acted almost as if he was letting William come along for the short voyage as a favor. He was too bossy for William's taste. Well, he thought, as he signed the delivery contract after inspecting the boat, Hank also seemed the type to end up seasick down below, and William didn't mind sailing by himself, not at all.

It wasn't the best forecast, but perfect weather was rare in the UK in November. Today the wind was supposed to be 15 to 20 knots southwest, so they'd have to beat their way west through the Solent. Tomorrow it might get heavier, but they'd deal with that tomorrow. There were plenty of good harbors to duck into if it got nasty. “Any port in a storm,” he'd said to Hank as they made plans, but the guy had only scowled as if to say
he
wasn't afraid of weather, come what may.

To top things off, Hank was late to their meeting so they missed the ebb when they left Chichester Harbour. It was late afternoon before they'd motored over the bar and made full sail, shutting off the noisy old diesel that Hank was having rebuilt in Dartmouth.

The beat through the Solent was much the same as always, something William could do with his eyes closed. The little sloop did a lot of crash-banging nonetheless, but he was happy enough to be underway, even in the chill of November as the sun dropped. And he was happy that Hank stayed huddled under the dodger and kept quiet while William took the helm.

“Ought to put on a life jacket,” he'd advised Hank once, eliciting that arrogant scowl again. To which William made a show of clipping his tether to the binnacle, which he might not have done otherwise unless it got rough. But he always wore his PFD with a harness, which felt comfortable after years of wear. William had seen four or five life jackets and harnesses stowed below when he'd checked out the boat yesterday, but he preferred to bring his own.

Hank took the helm for a while before dark, when William tucked in a reef for the night and the building wind. William didn't care for how the man steered, however, heading up and falling off repeatedly, and soon reclaimed the helm.

At ten o'clock he put in another reef and turned on the radio for the hourly forecast. Didn't sound good: gales were imminent. Oddly, Hank didn't even look up from his place under the dodger during the forecast. It was as if he was going to force William to be the one to say anything, since he himself was a masterful enough sailor for anything.

“We have a couple options,” William said at last. “It's pointless to beat into a gale all night and get nowhere. So I say we put in at Lymington or Yarmouth. Either harbor will get us through the night, and hopefully things will settle for a morning start.”

In the dark Hank's eyes were barely visible as he stared out from the dodger, but he didn't speak.

“I'd vote for Yarmouth myself,” William went on. “Better protected if the blow goes more southerly. But it's your boat, so you decide.”

Hank hauled himself out from under the dodger into the full force of the wind for the first time in hours. He staggered as he
stood and watched the flickering lightning off to the west. “No,” he said slowly. “If you won't go on, let's go back to Chichester.”

That made no sense to William. Why give up the 26 nautical miles they'd already made?

But Hank offered no good explanation, and William soon got tired of talking about it. Boatowners! As if this tired old sloop demanded its royal berth home in Chichester. But he gave in and set a return course on a broad reach back toward the east.

Gales tonight, he was thinking, but at least they were reaching now instead of beating. Still, he anticipated a long night. He left the two reefs in.

Only once more did he ask Hank to take the helm, when he went below for his foulies, and almost immediately he regretted it. The guy just couldn't steer! An accidental jibe seemed likely any moment under Hank's hand, and the shock of that—or of being rolled by a backwinded main if they tied in a preventer—might bring down the rig. And the guy still wouldn't put on a life jacket.

At 4
A.M
. the radio reported steady 38-knot winds in the Solent and gusts approaching 50. Out here in deeper water the waves had built only to 2 meters and were full of curling white horses, but William was thinking ahead to the Chichester Bar. He checked the tide chart. “Looks like we won't make it before the ebb,” he told Hank. “In this blow the bar will be breaking on the ebb, and I don't think we want to get caught in there. We'll have to stand off until the wind drops or until slack.”

“We're almost home free,” Hank growled. This time William couldn't see his eyes in the dark space under the dodger. “She's a good boat—we'll go on in.”

They could wait for morning light, that would help some, William thought, but by then the ebb would reach its peak and it would be breaking heavily over the bar. “At least put on your life jacket and a tether,” William said. He wanted it to sound like an order from the captain, but not so much so that it would antagonize the owner.

He was happy to see the other man go below then. But in a few minutes he came back out, still without a life jacket or harness. It had now started raining, and the water stung William's eyes whenever he glanced back at a following sea. With no protection from the dodger with the wind aft, Hank unrolled his jacket hood and covered most of his face.

William squinted to peer forward in the rain and dark at the Chichester Bar beacon ahead, trying to judge the waves. The depth-finder and his handheld GPS showed they were getting close. The seas were building, lifting the stern higher and slewing them sideways, but William was able to steer each wave as it passed, walking the delicate line between broaching to port and jibing to starboard.

Then a big wave struck just before they reached the bar, as the water heaved up over the rising sea bottom. When the stern began to lift he instinctively looked back over his shoulder, not even seeing the wave at first in the dark because its white curling top was so high—it had to be 6 meters. Before he could even think, it broke and slammed the port quarter with massive force, knocking the boat down to starboard and flooding the cockpit with water. He held on as best he could, but was knocked loose. He felt his harness tighten around his chest as his shorter tether went tight, and he threw one arm over his head for protection and closed his mouth and eyes against the water.

The boat must have been knocked right over 90 degrees, he realized later, because just before it rolled back up, he'd slipped and started to fall to his left but instead bumped his shoulder against the port cockpit seat vertical beside him.

Hank was gone, thrown or washed overboard. In the white foam of the departing wave William saw him for a second in the water, only some 7 or 8 meters behind, but the boat was quickly blown away from him. William grabbed the dan-buoy from its rail mount and threw it toward him but lost sight of the man in the water.

Acting automatically, William turned the boat hard to port to bring the bow up and released both sheets when the boat was as close to the wind as he could get it. In the turmoil of the waves
breaking over the bar he'd never be able to reach Hank under sail. He turned the key and jabbed the starter button, barely able to hear the engine grinding in the roaring wind, but the engine would not catch. He tried again, tried everything he knew, then gave up and made a Mayday call on the radio.

As he gave his location and described the man in the water, the boat shook as it was slammed aground by a wave. It quickly rolled onto its side, driven into a groin in the shallows. William took a few seconds to get his bearings—to calculate the water depth and the waves and the distance to shore—and then unclipped his tether, yanked the cord to inflate his PFD, and jumped overboard.

It took a long time to scramble up on the shore, and he lay on the beach panting as the first rescue boat roared out of the harbor headed for the bar.

Soon he heard a helicopter.

They found Hank's body an hour later.

At age 51, Mark had been sailing his whole life along with his younger brother, Peter. As kids they raced small sailboats on lakes, graduating to larger boats and races on Lake Michigan and elsewhere. No question, they were highly capable sailors. Previous to the 2011 Race to Mackinac, Mark had done the two-day Chicago–Mac five times and Peter four, along with dozens of other races. Suzanne, Mark's girlfriend, and one of the crew this year, was doing her third Chicago–Mac and had also sailed across the Atlantic. When you looked at their credentials they seemed like professional racers, but they held jobs in the “real world.” Still, they seemed sailors first, and were skilled, able competitors.

Mark and Peter were also members of a close-knit extended family. With cousins John and Stanton, they'd purchased
Wing-Nuts
, their current entry in the race, and they sailed it together, along with Peter's son. In photos they looked like a poster family for club racing.

They were excited for another Chicago–Mac and had hopes of winning the sport-boat class.

Held by the Chicago Yacht Club, the Chicago–Mac has been an annual event for a century, making it one of the oldest organized races in the United States. Well over 300 sailboats usually compete, with 345 registered in 2011. Lake Michigan, the race site, is scarcely a “lake” in any sense of that word except for being fresh water. Conditions on the 333–nautical mile course across the length of Lake Michigan to Lake Huron rival those of an ocean and often change radically over the 2 to 3 days most boats need to complete the course. In July the only thing predictable about the weather is that it will likely be unpredictable—at least to some extent. Thunderstorms and squalls, often violent, can rapidly sweep the area, sometimes seemingly faster than radar and the
best forecasting can see them coming. Boats are often damaged and crew injured. But for all this, there had never been a race-related death.

WingNuts
under sail in 2010. (AP Photo/G. Randall Goss)

Suzanne, Mark, his three co-owners, and three others comprised the crew of
WingNuts
, a modified Kiwi 35, a sailboat that looked very unusual at first view. Like the fast racing boats used in the Volvo Ocean Race and many others, the Kiwi had a lightweight planing hull that was ballasted primarily by a heavy bulb at the bottom of a long, thin keel. At 35 feet,
WingNuts
displaced only some 4,000 pounds, about 1,400 of which was ballast. The primary beam of the hull was only a little over 8 feet, providing minimum wetted surface, and the boat carried a proportionally large amount of sail.