Mid Size Power Boats

To the Out Islands

A middle aged couple from North Carolina bought a new 45’ boat in South Florida and headed to the Bahamas from Florida, with another couple of the same age.

I’ll call them Smith and Jones, with Smith being the boat owner. This couple had quite a few years of experience with smaller boats in the North Carolina area in protected waters, but almost no oceanic experience.

They purchased the boat in South Florida with the idea that a Bahamas cruise would be their maiden voyage, followed by a return trip to Charleston.

This was poor judgment to begin with for a new boat that hadn’t been tried and tested. The couple was both in their late 50’s as were the Joneses, the couple they invited along.

The first demonstrable lack of respect for the sea was that this trip took place during hurricane season, which is almost half the year.

There’s nothing wrong with that so long as a voyage is planned in such a way that safe refuges are always close at hand.

That was not the case here. Instead, this couple was heading to the out islands, into the open Atlantic with safe harbors too far and few between for comfort. Big mistake number one.

Mistake number two, the worst of all, is that they misjudged the weather reports which showed a tropical depression passing what they thought was well to the south. Though predicted to continue heading west and away from them, that was not the way things turned out.

Thirdly, both couples failed to assess their own physical abilities, or lack of same.

Although fairly robust middle aged folks, they weren’t athletes and did not possess the physical stamina necessary to deal with weather emergencies at sea.

What was anticipated as a pleasant, relaxing vacation of fun in the sun, white sand beaches, crystal tropical waters and margaritas on the aft deck at sunset, instead turned into a nightmare.

Not their worst nightmare, because they had never imagined that such a thing could happen. It simply did not occur to them, and their ignorance nearly killed all four of them.

It turned out that this early season tropical depression did not follow its predicted path, nor did it remain a depression, but instead became a tropical storm which made an abrupt 90 degree turn south of Cuba and headed north to the Bahamas where our relaxed vacationers were caught completely off guard.

The fourth and final mistake was that the vessel was by no means sea worthy for the kind of conditions they were about to experience.

The design of their 45 foot motor yacht ANGELINE was little more than a floating condo with a very high superstructure and center of gravity

It was one of those slick-looking price boats that sold for about half of what a good sea boat would sell for.

Making matters worse, it was not equipped with adequate ground tackle. By the time our vacationers realized that the storm had turned and was heading toward them, it was already too late.

It wasn’t the tropical storm that caused the beginning of their troubles, but a thunderstorm.

Caught out on the Bahama Banks in choppy seas, apparently the motion of the boat kicked up water that was lying in the bottom of their fuel tanks, for first one engine, then the other, quit and would not restart. Then the generator died.

The single pulpit mounted Danforth anchor was dropped, one that had six feet of vinyl coated chain and a mere 150’ of 3/4” line.

At this point, the storm center was 150 miles south and moving north at 11 knots but winds were picking up to around 20 knots and seas getting pretty ugly.

Smith was by now aware that they had about 10 hours before coming under the direct influence of the storm.

It is not known exactly how it happened, but a gust of wind hit the boat broadside. Everyone on board heard the loud crunching sound as the bow pulpit was torn away, which is where the anchor rode was attached.

The anchor held for about an hour until the rode sawed through on the rough edge of the broken pulpit, setting them adrift.

Both Smith and Jones tried to protect it with rags, but the boat motion was so bad that they couldn’t stay on deck for long. Had they a reserve anchor, they might have prevented what was to come but, alas, they did not.

They called the USCG for assistance and were referred to a private towing company since the owner was not calling a Mayday.

The towing company did not come to a quick decision whether they would assist. An hour later, BASRA (Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association) a volunteer group, overheard the radio calls and offered help. They were about three hours out from ANGELINE.

Meanwhile, ANGELINE continued to drift eastward and they maintained near constant contact with the BASRA rescue boat until the batteries completely died and then they lost the radio.

The batteries went dead without their understanding why. They still had a cell phone and were able to patch in through USCG Miami and back to BASRA.

Now the storm was down to five hours out and the direct effects were now being felt.

ANGELINE was drifting almost sideways, rolling severely and everyone was violently ill. The interior was a shambles as furniture broke loose and was hurled about.

A flying door hit Mrs. Smith in the face, breaking her nose. Mrs. Jones was incapacitated with a sprained wrist and seasickness.

Mr. Jones was sitting on the aft deck, relieving himself of breakfast, when the poorly supported hard top came crashing down on him, putting a four inch gash on the side of his head and knocking him out.

Smith had a very hard time trying to pull Jones out from under the wreckage, but eventually he got him into the salon.

The cell phone, which was in Jones pocket ceased to function after getting wet in the rain. Now our vacationers were adrift without communications with the storm bearing directly down on them.

ANGELINE was now in the outer bands of the weak storm as was the BASRA boat which was forced to turn back.

ANGELINE’S last reported position was thirty miles north of Nassau and 15 miles east of the Berry Islands, but now drifting north-north west at probably a good 4-5 knots meaning that they could have drifted another 20-25 miles in five hours.

BASRA notified the USCG which initiated a helicopter search at roughly the time ANGELINE was in the storm which remained a weak tropical storm with 50-55 mph winds.

ANGELINE had by this time drifted well into the Northeast Channel with its famously confused seas. Exhausted, battered and all but incapacitated, the four unfortunates were plucked out of the water by the rescue helicopter, very lucky to still be alive.

Afterward, Smith’ s most poignant comment was, “We just didn’t know how bad things could get. It was just one thing after another went wrong.”

I recount this story not to try to scare you, but to demonstrate what lack of proper respect for the sea can mean.

And also because the boating media does not like to publicize stories like this; they hurt the image they are trying to promote. It is, essentially, the regard of every day on the sea as a care free holiday without awareness of the risks.

Mr. Smith broke every rule in the book and paid a severe penalty.

There’s more to boating than just having fun, so that if fun is all that you are interested in, perhaps you should take up golf.

It’s one thing to buy a fancy cocktail barge and be willing to confine yourself to protected waterways.

The problem many like Mr. Smith have is that they want their cake and eat it too, thinking that it won’t hurt once in a while to venture offshore and hope that they don’t get caught by bad weather.

Some are lucky that way and get away with their indiscretions for a long time. Others like Mr. Smith get nailed on the very first day out. And that’s something to think about.