Marigot:--- On March 10th, a man covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe told said that this was the worst day of his life. Our crew responded "Worst day of your life? This is the best day of your life. You're alive". Looking past the man to his former home of 13 years, a 37 foot sailing vessel named "Sea Beaver" was being destroyed 60 feet away against the rocks by a relentless sea.
That day began as typically for us as it could that morning. Our crew of 12 Canadian friends had chartered a 43 foot catamaran to race in the Heineken Regatta in Saint Maarten. After the regatta, the crew was reduced to 9 (co-captains Alex Moret and Jeff Clarke and crew Jason Hawkley, Adey Roett, Justin Lewis, Ryan Webber, Bryn Butler, Mark Alexander and Brydone Dewar) and we spent three days on St. Barths. On the morning of Thursday March 10th, we weighed anchor in Colombier Bay and gracefully exited the bay to 5 foot swells and about 14 knots of breeze on the beam, perfect for a great sail. We hoisted the sails and turned off the engines as the fishing lines went over the side. At about 11AM, after 45 mins of sailing towards St. Martin, one of our crew members noticed a boat very close to rocks around the point from Colombier bay under full sail. After looking for a few minutes we notice the boat is not moving and may have run aground.
Unsure of the gravity of the situation but realizing we had better investigate we quickly decide to head back to offer assistance if necessary. The crew springs into action; fishing lines in, motor on full speed, furl head sail, prepare to drop the main, monitor channel 16, and keep looking at the vessel. Our decades of experience sailing in the North Pacific off Vancouver BC coming into play seamlessly and effortlessly as commands are spoken and carried out.
We monitor channel 16 for a few minutes to determine if this has already been reported. We are unsure and suspect it has already relayed a mayday and switched to a working channel. Unsure, we call a Security hail out to all vessels in the area to let them know we have spotted a vessel that looks like it is on the rocks and is a hazard. We get no response and end up trying other harbour frequencies in the area to get a hold of any Coast Guard. Finally we get the Coast Guard but they are quite confused and think we are the vessel in distress. We are now close to the site and see a dinghy floating in the water and the boat being thrashed against the rocks, waves constantly breaking over the boat as it continues the slam the vessel against the steep rocks. At this point we see no one on board. Another vessel, "Wild Orchid" comes on the radio and says they think the vessel is their friend's and says there should be one person on board. By this time we have readied a team of three to launch the dingy to get in closer to the vessel and possibly help if anyone is there. Equipped with extra life jackets, signaling device, radio, and heaving lines they take off powered by 5 hp motor. The power of the dinghy is worrying as this is very underpowered for this kind of operation but we have no choice, no other boats have yet shown up and the St. Barths Coast Guard has made no mention of assisting on scene, no one else is around and the boat could break apart any minute.
As the dinghy is launched, a difficult task on its own since we are in heavy seas, we finally spot one person on board. As each wage hits he tossed around like a rag doll in the cockpit. He submerges the finally pops up again gasping for air with waves crashing all around. We confirm to the Coast Guard and Wild Orchid which is en-route as quickly as possible that he is alive, but barely holding on. One particular wave knocks the sailor crashing into a winch, almost caving in his chest.
He reappears again and realizes the dingy cannot get any closer due to the dangerous surf and rocks. At 11:30AM, knowing he doesn't have much time he waits for a lull in the waves and finally flings himself in the water, hoping to make it to the dinghy. A tense few minutes pass as we can only tell the coast guard and other boats to stand by as we wait and hope he can swim away from the crashing surf and hazardous rocks.
Our crew in the dinghy is yelling at him "you doing great, keep swimming, almost here, keep going, you can do it". When he is finally close enough a life jacket is thrown and the man grabs hold. A few more frantic minutes and we are finally able to relay the message that we have the sailor next to the dinghy. Our dinghy tows him to out of the way of the rocks before attempting to bring the exhausted soul aboard.
The dinghy crew attempts to pull the man aboard but as he is naked, there is little to hold on to. In the confusion the kill switch from the outboard motor is pulled stopping the engine. The man is brought aboard by 11:38AM with great difficulty, but his mind is elsewhere, the loss of his boat, the embarrassment of being naked, lost passport and ships papers. Unfortunately the dinghy motor does not start right away and they start to drift quickly back towards the rocks. Another boat, the dual 250 hp powered "Renaissance" dinghy from a large yacht by the same name in Colombier Bay has come on the scene and stares dumbfounded at our crew as they desperately signal for a tow. They finally come to their senses and slowly toss them a rope. At the same time the motor finally starts just as they drift towards the edge of the rocks with waves starting to crash upon them.
The rescued man is clearly in severe shock and is having a hard time communicating. He says he had fallen asleep at the helm on the way to St Barth's and was more concerned with the potential news headlines than anything. He was alive after all and aside from a large number of cuts and bruises, should be ok. He was finally transferred to the Renaissance after we managed to overcome their reluctance to assist as they would be able to bring him to medical attention a lot faster than we would.
We heard later that there was wreckage for miles and there was no sign of the boat the next day; it had completely broken up. We were the first boat to notice him and I do not know when the next boat would have come upon him if we had not. He is very lucky to be alive and we were happy with how everything turned out. However, we were shocked at the lack of response by the St. Barths Coast Guard. As far as we could tell they never attended the scene despite being just 3 miles away in Gustavia. Also, although a number of other boats came to the area to investigate none made any offer to assist in our rescue efforts despite seeing our obviously severely underpowered and undersized dinghy in the rough seas.
I feel we had enough experience to know what we were doing and how to safety rescue him without putting us into grave danger. I thought our crew acted very well and did not panic or make rash decisions.
Looking back at the rescue I feel that we should have issued a MAYDAY or PAN PAN call earlier although at the time we did not know if there was actually anyone onboard.
If anyone knows the condition of the skipper of the Sea Beaver or knows how to reach the crew of Wild Orchid please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
