Share your offshore adventures and mishaps.
Here's Paloma's March "˜08 adventure. Thursday, March 06, 2008, three of us, all seasoned blue water sailors, sailed Paloma, my Bristol 29.9, out of Puerto Isabella and around the bottom of South Padre Island, just North of the Rio Grande River and the Mexican border, laying for Freeport about 250 miles to the ENE. It was the perfect sailing weather - we were in shorts and polo shirts, on a broad reach in warm 15 knot SE winds, gentle 5-7 foot seas and 70 degree weather - the only thing missing was a Jimmy Buffett CD on the stereo.
Later in the day a Coast Guard weather alert came over the radio, small craft immediately make for the nearest port. There was a Northerly cold front (the one that dumped all the snow in mid-west mid-week) moving our way at 35 miles per hour packing internal winds of 50-60, gusting higher, seas quickly building to over 20 feet. Paloma is a not a small craft, but a second-generation Bristol, built and equipped to go anywhere in any weather, and since the weather report was coming from Coast Guard South Padre Island, we thought we could head more easterly and possibly get on the other side of at least the brunt of the storm. We should have reefed down, but we needed all the boat speed we could muster.No such luck, around 6:30pm the front hit us full force, coming like a freight train it hit us full abeam. It slammed Paloma through a 100 degree arc, from a 15 degree heel to port down to the starboard cabin trunk handrails and the sails filled with water before Paloma rounded up into the wind and could start the engine and start dropping sail. On the initial hit, the mainsail, still dumping water, hung up in the spreaders and tore, at the same time we lost cotter pins on the port and starboard upper stays and we couldn't haul the main more than about 3/4 of the way down. Then as bad luck and Murphy's Law would have it, a jib sheet got of control and went under the boat, tangling in the prop, stopping the engine. Then, came the decisions not in the "game plan".
Under these circumstances, we made the only possible decision - turn south and run bare poles before the storm. From the point we turned South, about 35-40 miles NE of the Rio Grande, we screamed downwind in what we thought were 18 - 20 foot following seas (later the Coast Guard told us they were 28 - 30 feet) and winds 50-60 and gusting over 60 ( a Force 10 storm) for 36 hours. The stern and bimini windage was more than enough sail and it was a wild ride being pushed along by the seas, hitting over 10mph (per the GPS) when sliding down the face of the seas. It was a strain to keep Paloma tracking, so we couldn't stay on the helm more than an hour at a time and we knew if we turned beam to the wind, we would likely broach. When anyone went below for an all too short, one-hour rest, they could only nap on the cabin sole - even that was comfortable after two hours in the cockpit. The winds were cold, but when waves broke into the cockpit, the water was warm. We kept wondering when the storm would abate - actually we just kept wondering if we were going to end up in Vera Cruz.
When the winds finally abated and shifted back to SE, we were about 135 miles down and 70 miles east of the Mexican coastline - we had been blown 180 miles off our original rhumb line, no engine and only a 110 working jib. During the short calm of the wind shift, we unwound the line around the prop, by starting the engine in neutral then putting the engine in reverse and pulling like crazy on the line - after two tries, thank goodness it worked. We now had a working jib and an engine (if we needed it) - not a bad combination to turn and run North in what ended up being a much more comfortable 15-20 knot SE winds and 8-10 foot seas - still a chore to keep her on track with only a working jib and making hull speed, and better when shoved by the following seas, but easily manageable.
The closest US landfall was South Padre Island, about 135 miles NNW, and by mid-day Sunday we were in sight of the buildings on the island.
Joined: 2009-07-02