Successful Rescue - Santa Barbara to King Harbor Race

On August 1 Rattle & Hum, our Antrim 27, raced the Santa Barbara to King Harbor race. I was the skipper, with crew Judy Rae Karlsen, Betsy Crowfoot, and Valerie Navarro. All of these women are experienced offshore racers with 8 Transpacs and numerous Cabo and PV races between them. We have trusted each other with our lives many times, but this time we called in the card.

We were having an absolutely awesome ride past Anacapa Island to King Harbor (Redondo Beach) in 25 gusting to 31 kts of wind running at upto 16 kts boat speed when we had a violent roundup that tossed Judy and I overboard.
None of us were wearing our inflatable harnesses and tethers. We thought about it, as we were surfing like a spray ball of water, pumping and grinding. We had been burying the bow into the waves in front of us every 5th wave or so, taking on green water over the deck. We were mesmerized by that need for speed. The thrill is addicting . We had moved our bodies aft, but we didn’t take the time to get ourselves tethered. BIG mistake number one.

At the moment the accident occurred I was driving and Judy was on main, Betsy was on the weather aft stanchion (blessing number one as you will see) and Valerie was on the winch.

The boat was pinned, with our largest running spinnaker flailing in the wind. I was lucky enough to pop up and grab the aft stanchion, but Judy Rae was drifting away. I’ll never forget looking at her as she said “I’ll be OK”. Betsy and Valerie were then left to go into action. Betsy was at the windward aft stanchion where she deployed the MOM unit (which by the way did not deploy in the sideways position) then moved to the leeward stanchion, throwing the horseshoe ring to Judy then holding onto me while Valerie was trying to blow the spin halyard and right the boat. That wasn’t working and my strength was quickly waning, so Valerie came to pull me in as well. I could not get my self up on the boat that was still underway, albeit on its side. Flailing spinnakers do still sail, by the way. I told them I can’t hold on any longer. Betsy quickly came up with the big difference maker for my rescue, tying the bitter end of the running back line around my torso, and then Valerie and Betsy could pull me up. That all took about 5 minutes. Next we needed to call Mayday. I had earlier put the GPS and VHF into the chart table to protect them from the waves we were taking on. Big mistake number two. These things need to be in the cockpit immediately available. Valerie got them out, Betsy called the Mayday and I read the position from the GPS and pressed the MOB button. Valerie and Betsy cut the kite away and the boat righted and the MOM unit deployed, hah!

Val and Betsy pulled out the jib and headed back on reciprocal course to the site of our accident. We tried to explain to the coast guard our reciprocal course as well, since our coordinates were 5 minutes late. We also made a strenuous request that they deploy a helicopter immediately as the sun was setting and Judy Rae had no flotation (she was not able to capture the horseshoe buoy). At about that same time a racing trimaran was reported capsized in the same area. So now they had two incidents running. Then Sidekick called in that they had spotted Judy and were in the process of recovering her. The radio communications at that point was chaotic. The Helo pilot came on and was asking, basically, what do I have here, two incidents? How many MOB each, where? Etc. We heard transmission that Judy was aboard so we turned off our radio, since there was no room to talk on it with all the other communication; we were just stepping on everyone. We continued to sail looking for Judy or the boat that may be rescuing her. We sailed right to Sidekick, seeing that her sails were down we figured that was the boat. We sailed up to her, saw Judy Rae waving at us in the cockpit, and so we yelled “we love you” and bore away to King Harbor with our harnesses on. Under main and jib we were still going 12 kts. I was down below, wet clothes off, and in a sleeping bag to get rid of the shivers.

There were more racers than you would think with VHF 16 on at that time. Blessing two is they were listening, and blessing three is they reacted. Several boats including Ono, Juno, and French Kiss doused sails or prepared to douse sails and alter course to the position we gave over the radio. Sidekick was the one that was right on track to get to her, and skipper Dr. Bill Webster and crew were ready to handle the situation, recovering Judy and communicating with the CG. Thank you so much Sidekick, we can’t begin to tell you how special she is to us and how grateful we are to you. By the way, Judy was passed by two boats in less than 100 yard distance that could not hear her and did not see her. So, please, when you’re racing, in conditions like that, monitor 16, keep your eyes peeled, and when you see a round up pinned down for two minutes or more, assume it is a boat in distress with possible MOBs. Go by them if you can and check to see.

Judy Rae on Sidekick beat us to the harbor and she left me a message “Hey, I’m here at the YC, where are you? I’m going to go home to shower and nap, and I’ll be back to meet you later today as planned to sail the boat home”. What a crazy trooper.

My husband Barry and I are happily continuing on with the build of our Antrim Open Class 40 for Transpac ’09. You can bet it’s going to have all the features for safety and speed.

Sue Senescu