Suddenly Overboard

by Tom Lochhaas

  Wylie was still beside the mast, now tugging at the sail. It came down a few feet, and then he was yanking the halyard again to try to get it up. About two-thirds of the way up it seemed to jam again. Wylie was jerking hard on the halyard. He ought to have a life jacket on, Zimmerman was thinking.

  As the sailboat drifted down past the anchored ketch, Zimmerman lost sight of it for a bit, and his thoughts turned again to Bahamas cruising. He’d chartered in the Abacos once and had vivid memories of easy sailing and the red-striped lighthouse of Hope Town. That’s the place to retire to, he thought, not Florida. Too many old people down here.

  He was still gazing at the ketch when the little boat drifted back into view on the other side. The sail was still only two-thirds up, but the boat was heeled over away from him as if sailing a close reach. Then he realized he couldn’t see Wylie. Was he down low in the cockpit getting a tool or something?

  He reached for the binoculars he kept in a rack on the binnacle. He focused but still couldn’t find Wylie, and the cockpit didn’t look deep enough to hide him. Then he saw a line from the masthead pulled down at a funny angle on the far side of the boat, and the boat was listing to that side. Uh-oh.

  Zimmerman stood and quickly surveyed the water, looking for a harbor patrol boat. Should he use the radio or the cell phone? There were no other sailboats in sight, and he guessed the powerboats down the river wouldn’t have their radios on or wouldn’t hear them above their engines. So he grabbed his cell phone and called 911 and made a report.

  Then he looked around his marina for anyone with a boat that could be gotten out quickly, but on this Friday morning there was no one else about. It would take too long to untie all the lines of his own boat and motor out to see if he could help. Besides, by himself, unable to watch the water from the bow, he’d risk running over Wylie if he got too close.

  Then he heard the siren of the marine police boat as it shot under the Green Bridge, moving fast toward the listing sailboat.

  He watched through his binoculars as the police boat cautiously came abreast of the sailboat, two men near the bow looking down into the water as the driver angled in. As they stopped a few feet from the drifting sailboat, one man with a boathook reached out over the bow and caught the line down from the masthead that Zimmerman had noticed earlier.

  He couldn’t see what was happening on the other side of the sailboat, but he saw all three men bent over the police boat’s gunwale. Together, the boats drifted farther down river.

  After a couple minutes, two of the men moved back, still bent at the waist, seeming to struggle with something, and then he saw them pull a body up and over the gunwale. Because of the high freeboard of the police boat he couldn’t see Wylie on the deck, but two of the men were crouched over him. The third moved up to the wheel, and the siren started wailing again.

  One of the other men quickly stood and seemed to be fumbling with something. Zimmerman saw a flash of sunlight from a knife blade in his hand as he reached over and sawed through the halyard that had been pulling down on the masthead.

  The sailboat bobbed and steadied, no longer listing, and one of the officers shoved it away with the boathook as the driver gunned the big outboards and spun the boat back the way it had come, the other two still bent low on the aft deck.

  In a moment the police boat had disappeared back under the bridge, its siren already fading. Later that day Zimmerman would learn that they’d found Wylie facedown in the water, tied to the drifting boat by the halyard that had wrapped around one of his ankles. CPR hadn’t been able to revive him.

  Now, Zimmerman watched Wylie’s sailboat continue to drift downriver, broadside to the wind, its sail still jammed two-thirds up, the cut halyard swinging loose. He hoped Wylie was okay. That was no way to go out, because of a lousy accident. A solo sailor himself, Zimmerman had thought often about being caught out in a bad storm, fighting wind and waves. A sudden unexpected northerly while crossing the Gulf Stream headed for the Bahamas, the seas rising monstrously—a battle. Go out fighting, struggling with the elements, not because of a stupid jammed sail.

  The little daysailer, another man’s dream, drifted out of sight down the river. He imagined it floating undisturbed out into Tampa Bay, then drifting through the barrier islands into the gulf and finally out of sight of land.

  Then he found himself gazing wistfully at the big ketch at anchor. A big boat like that, he thought, would be safe in almost all conditions.

  Briefly

  Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, March 2010. The 36-year-old sailor, American-born, was well known at the Simon’s Town yacht club where he had been a member for years. On this Saturday morning, like many others, he had gone sailing alone for the day. Early that evening his wife stopped in at the yacht club bar to ask if anyone had seen him, just about the same time that the club manager saw the man’s boat moving about erratically at the mouth of the harbor and called authorities. Investigating boats found the sailboat unmanned and started a search. Hours later they found his body in the water, with no sign of a life jacket or tether. No one knew what had happened, but some club members speculated he may have been leaning over the side trying to start his outboard. The yacht club commodore later told a reporter, “‘It will never happen to me’ is the comment people usually say about these things.”

  Virginia Beach, Virginia, February 2011. At 8:00 in the morning, the Coast Guard received a call from the crew of a fishing boat near Little Creek Inlet that they had found a 40-foot sailboat adrift with its lights on and the engine running. Several response boats and a helicopter crew searched all day but found no sign of the missing sailor before they were finally forced to suspend the search. The boat’s registration identified the owner as a very experienced 64-year-old sailor who had recently purchased the boat and was planning to sail it home to Australia. The search became a recovery effort for three more days, but his body was never found. There were no clues about why or how he apparently went overboard.

  The Solent, UK, July 2012. A sailor in the Solent was sailing with his autopilot on when the wake of a passing boat rocked his sailboat and he fell overboard. He was not wearing a life jacket, and as he treaded water he watched his boat sailing on toward Cowes. Fortunately, someone spotted him in the water and called a rescue boat. A passing dredger also saw him and picked him up, and a few minutes later the rescue boat arrived and the sailor transferred to it. They then sped off and finally caught up with his sailboat, still sailing on about a mile away. He was reunited with his boat and promptly tethered in for the sail home.

  Long Island Sound, Connecticut, May 2011. Early on a Friday morning a 34-foot sailboat was found floating empty off the coast of Long Island. The sails were up, the chartplotter was running, and the boatowner’s wallet and glasses were in the cabin. The owner’s wife reported that he had left the marina alone the previous afternoon. The water temperature was around 62°F. The sailor’s body was found floating later that afternoon, with no clue about how he ended up in the water.

  Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, November 2007. A sailboat with Maryland registration was found banging against a piling of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge with no one aboard. The motor was off, the mainsail was down, and the jib was up but unsecured. There were no indications of what had happened. A search was mounted but eventually called off. Four days later the body of the boat’s owner was discovered washed up on shore, not wearing a life jacket.

  Intracoastal Waterway, St. Johns County, Florida, February 2009. The 69-year-old sailor was last seen leaving a boat ramp at four in the afternoon. The next morning his boat was found drifting, unoccupied, in the ICW. Later that day, his body was recovered from shallow water within 50 yards of the boat. It was not clear how he had fallen overboard.

  CHAPTER 11

  Can Your Crew Save You?

  Many sailors take special precautions when sailing solo, knowing they have only themselves to depend on if something goes wrong. Many of these same sailors, however, are more relaxed
and less conscientious when sailing with others, perhaps lulled by an unconscious assumption of “safety in numbers.” But there are also some old salts who say that whenever you’re on a boat—regardless of how many crew are on board—you should act as if you’re alone, because maybe you will be.

  Saturday on Lake Arthur

  I told him that morning it was supposed to rain in the afternoon, but he just laughed and said something about how they always said it was going to rain when he wanted to go sailing. Besides, he said, it’s just the lake, so no big deal if we have to duck in somewhere for a while, sit it out until it stops, go down in the cabin. But what about lightning, I asked. They said maybe a thunderstorm. Won’t the mast attract lightning? But he just laughed like he always did.

  The forecasters didn’t say anything about wind. I didn’t think about how windy it can get in a thunderstorm.

  He was happy he’d gotten that spot at the marina so he could keep the boat on the trailer and not have to pull it back and forth like last year. And the mast didn’t have to come down. It’s not a big boat, just 20-something feet, but the mast is heavier than you’d think. Used to be I’d just sit and read a book while he’d wrestle it up and then back down again later before driving home.

  I don’t know what I’m going to do with that boat.

  So I was expecting rain and put on my old tennis shoes and had my raincoat rolled up in a bag. I made us a picnic lunch and was imagining us eating in one of those pavilions they have in the park there with picnic tables and all, watching the rain fall outside. I mean, I was hoping the rain would start before we went out so we wouldn’t get all wet out on the lake.

  Of course it didn’t. The sun was out, and mid-May already felt like July, humid like that. Hardly any wind at all, we were sweating before we even got the boat down the ramp and the truck parked again, but then it was cooler on the water.

  He was grinning once we were floating, for all the world a happy man; he loved that boat. Made him act like a kid, like way back when we’d go canoeing when we were dating. A big old kid. Did I say we’d had our thirty-seventh anniversary just the week before?

  So we went drifting on down the lake from the launching ramp, the breeze hardly even keeping the bugs off, but he didn’t want to start that little motor to go any faster. Said he liked the quiet, so I just smiled and decided to keep quiet myself too. The sails made little flapping sounds from time to time, but other than that there was only the sound of us slapping mosquitoes and sometimes those tiny little flies. Just drifting along. We ate lunch after a while, about the time we got over to the eastern part of the lake where there aren’t any roads or people. It’s pretty over there early in the summer before it gets hazy, the trees fresh green on those hills all around, the water cold and clear, and if you’re lucky there are no other boats roaring around. We were lucky that day—well, I mean we didn’t have motorboats all around us in that part of the lake. Ordinarily that meant you were lucky.

  There was only one boat that I could see, a sailboat way back the other way, back where that sailing club is. I went down there one day when he was at work to see if they gave sailing lessons. I thought I should learn something more about the boat, you know, so I could be more helpful, enjoy it more. They did have classes too, but only on Saturdays, and I’d never have been able to explain that to him. I mean, he always said he’d teach me himself, but he never did. Whenever I asked what this rope did or what that thing over there was, he’d just laugh and say I shouldn’t worry about it. Just do what I ask you, he’d say, and you’ll catch on by osmosis. That’s what he’d say. But that osmosis never seemed to work.

  So there was just that one boat and us out on the water on the east end when I saw the clouds blowing in from the west, coming in low and dark over the horizon like they had something to say. I asked him if he was going to start up the motor now and get us back before the storm, but he just cocked his head and stared at the clouds like he was looking for a secret message. Then he laughed. He always had a big laugh. I think we’re about to have us a good sail now, he said.

  I miss his laugh. I think that was the last time I heard it, and it sticks in my ears sometimes so I can’t think about anything else.

  The wind hit us almost immediately, coming from the direction of those clouds rolling in, even though they still seemed miles off. He pulled the ropes to tighten up the sails as he turned the boat back that way, and the boat leaned way over. It started blowing pretty hard then, and we just zoomed along over the water, headed for the north shore. There wasn’t a beach or anything over there that I could see, just trees and rocks down to the water, but I was hoping anyway that maybe he’d just run the boat up on shore. But he didn’t, he turned pretty soon in that way that you have to scoot real quick to the other side of the boat so it doesn’t turn over. Then whoosh back out toward the middle of the lake, leaning over even more.

  I heard him shout something about doing that turn again, so I was getting ready to slide over to the other side and trying to hang on to the picnic basket, which I should’ve put down below earlier. The boat was really leaning and I was kind of scared, which is probably why I was holding on so tight. I’ve thought about that since and decided that must be it. So he made the turn and slid over himself as the boat went over the other way real fast and there was water coming in over the side. The boat leaned way over then, and I wasn’t looking at him, and then he fell out. I don’t know what I was looking at, maybe my own hands trying to hold on. All that water swirling around so fast, and me sitting in it up to my waist, and to this day I don’t know if I was off the boat too or if there was just that much water in the boat. Somehow I just managed to hold on. I do remember seeing the picnic basket spill out into the water; why would I remember that?

  He was shouting my name. The boat had bobbed up and wasn’t leaning over much now, but there was a lot of water in it. The sails were loose and flapping like crazy in the wind, so loud I couldn’t hear him well at first, and then I heard him calling my name. I saw him in the water. He was a little ways off trying to swim back to the boat, but the wind was blowing the boat away faster than he could swim. Come get me, he kept shouting, and I looked at the sails flapping like devils and ropes slinging around in the wind. I grabbed the tiller thing and pushed it one way, then the other, but it didn’t make any difference. Come get me—why would he yell that? I’ve thought about that a lot. Why didn’t he yell something like throw me a life jacket? I could have done that, I could have slid through down below where he kept them and thrown one out in the water where maybe he could’ve swum to it. Maybe it wouldn’t have blown away like the boat did. Maybe it might have kept him warmer too, since the water was so cold.

  But he didn’t, and I didn’t think of it. I was looking at the flapping sails and trying to figure out what rope to pull when I didn’t hear him calling anymore. I looked for him but couldn’t see him in the water anywhere.

  Then the thunderstorm hit, and the rain was so hard you couldn’t see anything anywhere. The lightning was still a long way away over the hills, something I remember now even though I wasn’t worried about it right then. But I don’t remember much else about sitting there in the pouring rain except noticing the wind had mysteriously stopped. It was maybe 30 minutes of not thinking much at all, kind of a numbing cold, just staring at that gray water being pounded by the rain. I never even thought of looking for my raincoat. All I remember is staring at the water waiting for his arm to reach up over the side of the boat and him asking for a hand up.

  Sometime after the rain stopped a couple of men came by in a little motorboat. They went around a while in big circles looking for him and then offered to tow me in. They hooked up a rope and told me to get in with them, but I said I’d just stay in the sailboat.

  That would’ve made him laugh, I know, me choosing to stay in the wet sailboat, water up to my knees, instead of taking the dry ride. I don’t know, maybe I’ll keep the boat. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to sail it. Maybe h
e’d want me to.

  Wednesday Evening Club Race

  When Jack and “the Boys” showed up at the club in their sports-boat for a Wednesday evening race, things were always lively. Technically, their 1720 sailboat was a keelboat and could participate in the keelboat handicap race, but a couple of the other skippers didn’t much like it. With a breeze that boat could do over 20 knots, zipping around the course four times as fast as most of the real keelboat cruisers. Even the handicapping couldn’t keep it from winning. Jack and the Boys had personality too. Youngish, mostly in their thirties, they partied hard in the clubhouse after races.

  Tonight the wind was forecast at Force 5 to 6, and outside the harbor breakwater the Solent was sure to be kicking up. It often made for dramatic racing.

  Jack had brought along an extra racer today, making a crew of six on the 8-meter boat. The other four were regular crew who had gone in with him earlier in the year to buy the 1720. They all loved its speed. With its deep bulb for ballast on a strut-like thin keel, it was a fast planing boat, like a miniature Open 50 designed for world-girdling speed races. It had a tall mast with big sails, an open transom, a long cockpit with low freeboard, and a flat foredeck for crew working the asymmetrical spinnaker. At high speeds you had to move fast to change sails or tack round a mark. All the Boys would stay pretty busy while Jack commanded the helm. He was far more experienced at racing and sailing generally than the rest of them.

  This evening there were only seven boats on the line; the other six were all larger cruiser-racers with hull speeds of 7 to 8 knots. Jack was hoping for a twice-around course for the sheer fun of getting to blow by the other boats on his second lap before they finished their first.