Welcome aboard. Sorry about the mess, I'm installing a new self-steering wind vane on the transom and
so no sailing today. But there is something that I'd like to revisit, or discuss, and that is, in 2014,
about five six years ago now, my first solo sail to Hawaii, I was boarded by the Coast Guard just
off the coast of southern California, and that video has a couple of million views and
there has been a recurring theme over the years, in the commentaries, which goes like this--
"What right does the United States federal government have to board a recreational vessel at sea!" and
"What? You can't even go sailing anymore without the cops pulling you over to check your license plates!" or
Fascist pigs!, my least favorite of them. I think some of these are well-meaning comments,
I think some of them were typed at midnight, but on the whole, the question of the
Coast Guard boarding vessels like mine without apparent cause -- because I don't really look like a
drug runner, I don't think, with my big white sails up, uh, might be worth some discussion.
I have come down on this in a non-ambiguous way, as I think you'll soon see, and here's why:
This is an Ericson 38-foot sloop seen sinking last month 135 miles east of Daytona Beach, Florida.
It happens to be a sistership of my own boat, Thelonious II--which gets your attention. It filled
with water and headed for Davy Jones' locker with all sails drawing. The Coast Guard rescued
the skipper by helicopter (These happen to be pictures from a different incident entirely).
He was a single-hander, like me, and he has not yet revealed the cause except to report that
he was plucked from a life raft within hours and deposited with his socks wet safely ashore.
In 2014, I had just cleared the rugged north point of Catalina Island at dusk,
and next day was about 60 miles from home and just beginning to relax and almost enjoy it
when the cutter Edisto called. This is an expanded version of a previous video.
It's not so easy to board a 32-foot sailboat at sea, even in pleasant conditions. Turn on YouTube
Closed Captions [cc] for the dialogue.
Can I help you?
Is it OK to get on here?
Yeah, it's a good place.
Can we access this part here?
No--yeah, you can climb over it but why don't you grab the stays, that's the easiest way.
Up forward?
Yeah, these wires--just grab those, you can come right aboard.
How about that back ladder? We can go right back there--
No, no! Don't go in the back, that's the self-steering gear!
Just come up on the side of the vessel, reach over and grab those wires -- absolutely secure.
Right here. It'll be easy.
A little further forward.
There you go, right -- see, those, those are very solid.
That's the spirit.
How long have you been out?
Just one day, out of Marina del Rey.
What was the question?
Ah--there's one little part that opens, right behind your right foot.
Yeah, grab that and pick it up.
The bilge runs through that?
Pardon?
The bilge runs straight through that?
Yeah
That's the only part you can see?
Yes, that's where the bilge pump is, that's the important part.
I'm just checking to see you ain't got no fire underfoot.
I'm sorry?
I want to ensure that you ain't got no fire underfoot. You've got a little water right here under...
Fire underfoot, did you say?
That's just what we're checking.
Oh, OK, sure--
Because that's the only access I can get to--
It is.
Is there an engine compartment on board?
Yeah, right under here.
You want to look at the engine?
We just need to check that.
So here's some throwable cushions--
Okay, thank you for digging those out.
Just giving you a heads up, these flares are old, sir.
Yeah, I know.
So the reason we don't keep our throwable cushions out is, who am I going to throw them to? Right?
And the reason we don't wear life jackets is, how long do you want to bob around out there, you know--
before you sink.
I've seen, I''ve seen a couple sharks yesterday, so--.
Put this back over there, sir?
Yeah, that'd be great.
No more flares, no.
Recreational vessels like mine are supposed to carry flares not more than three and a half years old.
I had 40 pyrotechnic devices, the newest of which was four years old.
Expired flares.
The result was a written warning to buy some new ones.
So--was this legal? A Coast Guard spokesman confirmed that U.S.-flagged vessels can be boarded anywhere in international waters.
Thanks, guys -- take it easy!
There is no limit.
And the boarding crews first provide for their own safety, hence my bilge inspection.
Bilges on rust-bucket freighters can catch fire, don't you know.
But, I was there for practice, and glad to provide it, any time. If I fall off a dock I can rescue myself.
That's not always true far offshore.
In a fateful trip from Japan to Hawaii
He was among three people without communications during their week-long ordeal tom george from our station in honolulu has their story.
Along with his crew he set sail from Japan to Hawaii but after hitting rough seas
the mast came dismantled and later a big wave rolled them over.
The water was coming up up on her you know getting up to waist high and we're still upside down...
The boat tipped back upright again but was damaged. Supplies were getting low.
I watched the stars and prayed and
hoped that either way my family was going to be okay.
Finally, days later, another boat... this time they used mirrors to catch its attention and it worked. They were rescued.
This video shows that daring rescue, the Coast Guard came and they were taken to Hawaii,
grateful to his rescuers and family and friends from tennessee who had been desperately...
Coast Guard, hand me those paper towels. Oh, and I'm taking on water far from the measly 200-mile
helicopter range and would you mind awfully sending a commercial ship to pick me up out here?
It's just nice to know the U.S. Coast Guard is there when things go awful wrong, and for me it always has been.
Why, look! The rudder's come off again. And now we are marooned 300 miles from Bermuda.
There's a stainless steel pintle that goes in the gudgeon.
We turned on our EPIRB--our emergency radio position indicator-- and because the Coast
Guard had a budget in those days, it wasn't more than a couple of hours before this enormous plane
appeared overhead with a tremendous interest in the crew of a private sailing vessel. I was a bit
embarrassed myself, but they knew just what they were doing. They commenced to drop these smoke
bombs, which I later recognized as line-ups for their anti-submarine drill, which they
were probably just practicing. This took a long time, all day, through a series of rain squalls.
Then they dropped what looked like a bomb on us. Turned out to be an anti-submarine
set of listening devices. Another low pass to make sure we were all right, and if you can believe it an
accurate dropping of a balsa message to us which read, "Happy Fourth of July,
we're diverting a tanker toward you for further assistance." [freighter, not tanker]
All right. By dusk here comes that plane again, bringing with it an enormous tanker called the Mormacove,
which almost killed us. It came so close, in a blazing rain squall, and
got about a hundred yards away while we were screaming go away! go away! don't come near us!
we'll fix this mess ourselves. Bob Harris's lesson of a couple of years ago came true -- we put out a
sea anchor to steady the boat, we thought our way through the problem just as Harris recommended,
we spent hours and hours and hours in the raft like this, putting our repair plan in action.
And our solution didn't look entirely professional, but it worked.
We amused ourselves by reading Piers Paul Reid's book, "Alive"-- you know, the rugby
team that crashed in the Andes and ate each other.
We weren't going to eat each other, we had plenty of food left.
On that first voyage my steering pedestal broke, which kept me safe in Hawaii as
hurricane Julio passed noisily over us. On a barroom television over a martini
I watched what might have been me a few hundred miles north.
The Coast Guard provided some incredible video of their badly damaged boat in the Pacific, this is about 400 miles north of Oahu.
The sailors spent 24 hours stranded in 30-foot seas battered by winds of up to 115 miles an hour
and those conditions caused their vessel's mast to break from the hull.
I was sitting in the galley, I was reading a book and all the stuff on the shelf on the starboard
side just came off and flew into me. Water just filled up my quarters and I got flipped over
and I thought you know instantly that was it.
A Matson cargo ship rescued them and brought them to Honolulu. All three men escaped uninjured from their ordeal. They had been sailing to Thailand...
Well, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. I must say, though,
that if this boat starts taking on water and I can't stop it after every idea I've come up with,
I know who I'm gonna call on my satellite phone
one thousand miles offshore
and it's not going to be YouTube.