Salty Pup rescue story
With all this convention safety demos on flares and such I have a story that brings this full circle.
Back when I was a young boy in college (early 20's), after sailing a Cal 20 (20 foot sailboat) since 12 years old, I volunteered to sail said Cal 20 from Long Beach, CA to Santa Barbara. My folks had moved, and needed the boat brought up; must have been in '74 or '75. Anyway, as far as safety gear, we had life jackets, a weather radio to hear forecasts, but no way to call out. I had packed a case of U.S. military smoke signals as well as the usual flares and Coast Guard required stuff. My crew was 2 college friends who could swim but had zero sea experience.
Day one was very light winds and pleasant sailing around San Pedro to Marina del Ray. Overnight aboard and Day 2 was hopefully to Santa Barbara. Morning sail was fine but conditions went to heck in mid-afternoon near Point Mugu when a full-blown Santa Ana gale set in with 15-foot swells and 30-45 mph gusts. Well my crew got so sick they could not move and layed in cabin with heads hanging out hatch puking, then dry-heaving for hours, and begging to die. As I have been there I will not comment on that condition except to say they were played out. With such winds and seas I had taken the jib down and had the main sail reefed in. The vessel was not making any headway up the coast as the swells and wind were all against her. We had our 6 horse motor going but it was only in the water some of the time. That's the first problem.
#2 came when the rudder mount underwater snapped a bolt and we started taking on water. I had to baby the steering so that the other bolts did not snap. I crawled in a very small space and plugged the hole with a pencil - that's when #3 happened: the auxiliary motor gas supply had problems and we lost that power. Did I mention it was getting towards dark and the boat was slowly heading towards the rocks at Point Mugu. Some Navy fighters where doing touch-downs and lighting up their afterburners out a few miles where we were almost dead in the water. I started lighting flares with no results as to them noticing us so I went for the military smokes while there was some daylight left. A jet pilot spotted us and made a few slow passes waving his wings. Then it took off. A long hour later the Coast Guard boat showed up. I will always remember him yelling at me to put on our life jackets - as I had never yet thought about going in - it never had crossed my mind. I helped my sick crew don the gear and they kept way distant as the seas were too rough to get close. They threw a small line which I got and hauled in and at the time held the largest line I had ever had in my hands. I had no idea what to attach it to, as this 3-inch houser was not going in a 3/8th inch cleat. The deckhand must have seen this glazed look a 1000 times and yelled to tie it around the mast, which I did, then for the next hour we had a submarine ride to Port Hueneme. They said at the dock they had to keep that speed to have steerage but we had to close every hatch and still had lots of water aboard. They tossed us a pump at the dock to pump it out and took off on another call, as the Santa Anna winds had over 20 boats in distress that nite. We kissed the ground hung there an extra day then finished sailing north to Santa Barbara the following day with a two way-radio.
Lots of learning for a salty pup in his 20's- extra flairs such as solas has been the norm since then. Lots of water under the stern since then as well as another rescue on a friend's boat. Mark Cortright
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