This past saturday morning 2 friends and I were out for our long workout, targeting a 14 mile paddle. Based on the wind and wave direction we left Dane street beach in Beverly Mass and headed for Marblehead. We rounded Peaches point and saw a small sailboat headed toward us. Jim tried to get their attention as there are shoals in the area. I blew my whistle and got their attention, but they didn't react to our arm motions waving them outside. They may have though we were worried about them hitting us. About 40 meters later they hit a rock, then turned toward shore(!) They soon ran up against another shoal. With the 3 foot swell the boat would rise up and slide further onto the shoal. Unfortunately for them we were on our surf ski's which have no attachment points so setting up a tow would be difficult at most. After about 5 minutes of them riding up and down on the rocks the woman, who appeared to be the instructor, radioed in that she was on the rocks. They still had both the mainsail and jib up so Jim paddled over and suggested they take down the sails, they dropped the sails but made no attempt to furl them, in my opinion creating an increased hazard... The sailboat in question was a Sonar23, a keeled sailboat. The boat came very close to tipping over as it bounced against the shoals, and rammed the keel into the bottom. At one point the boat stood straight up on it's keel, when the wave dropped away it left the boat balancing 2 or 3 feet above the water,prior it it falling over, and almost tipping over. One of the launches from a fancy marblehead yacht club was the first boat to respond to the radio call. They tied a line to the dailboat and pulled it off the rocks. No attempt was made to get the sailors off the boat, they were simply pulled off the rocks. A couple minutes later one of the women on the sailboat said to us "kayakers thank you for staying around we're all set now." My response was "No you're not, your are going down." "Excuse me?" "Your boat is sinking, you are going down." Jim suggested they take the sailors aboard, since the boat was sinking, They snapped at him with a glare, making it clear to him, that they felt they had done enough based on the current situation. At this point the woman at the back of the sinking sailboat spoke to the others and they started bailing. Which was pointless as the bow was nearly awash, with the stern slightly high. The harbor master was approaching so I paddled off. Jim stayed behind. Jim later told me that the the 4 sailboat occupants stepped up from the sailboat to the harbor masters boat, Several minutes later the boat sank below the surface. I'm not sure what happened next. About 10 minutes later I paddled back to the area and looked around for the sailboat. It wasn't in sight. On closer observation I noticed a sliver of green bottom paint. The sailboat was upside down, and the rudder sticking straight up in the air. The 900 pound keel had snapped off leaving just the keels stub and rudder sticking up in the air. The sailboat was a Sonar 23. Looking on the web a new one is $35,900, without sails. I hope the sailor had insurance, or the instructor comes from a fairly wealthy family as the sailing company is out one boat... The sailboat episode cut short our paddle, but made for an intersting story. I'll have to contemplate a tow belt for my pfd. It would have been nice to have had a way to try to pull them off the rocks prior to all of the damage being done. My surf ski ski has a leash, and a couple deck lashings, for water bottles or a small bag. There's no way I would have tried to tow anything, but a swimmer, on the surf ski. I've towed swimmers, I knew I could have gotten swimmers out of the water, had one, or more, of the sailors gone into the water before the harbor master showed up. Kirk -- Kirk Olsen *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jun 09 2010 - 09:53:41 PDT
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