CYC Home
March 14, 2009
By Peggy Johnson
In contrast to the Blakely Rocks race, during which we encountered a little bit of everything, a southerly blew like the dickens for Possession Point–20-30 knots–the entire race, with gusts to almost 40 knots. It was a run downwind all the way to Possession Point at the south end of Whidbey Island, then a hard beat home. For the 25.4 nm, the shortest elapsed time of 3.39.28 gave Roxanne first overall.
Unable to race myself, I made my way to the clubhouse for the post-race gathering. I knew there would be stories, and the adrenaline would be high–it had blown a solid 23 knots at my son's Ultimate Frisbee game. As soon as I arrived, JP Peterson collared me and told me I must talk with the Here & Now guys for an incredible story of a man overboard rescue. "They literally saved his life!"
I managed to get a hold of Burl Nolte, of Here & Now, for his account of the rescue:
Members of the Here & Now Team, safe in the CYC Clubhouse after the Possession Point Race, were, from left, Jeff Marcus, Bill Blodgett, Rob Alexander, Pat Denny (owner), Jason Grauer (did not sail), Heidi Gildersleeve, Brian Marcus, Burl Nolte and Gary Harr.
"We had rounded the leeward mark, started coming back upwind for a couple minutes. We were pretty busy. We'd had a three up and we were getting overpowered, changed to a four. Had a little chaos trying to get that squared away. We're getting going, going upwind, and the boat he was on did not have the spin up. The story I heard second hand was they were trying to reef down the main when he got thrown. Apparently he had given his life jacket to someone on the boat that didn't have one, and he ended up in the water without it.
"They had some kind of trouble with whatever they were trying to do and he was thrown off. They were struggling to regain control of their boat as they were coming down. We had to luff up and take some evasive action to avoid them. We came pretty close by them and they're still kind of coming downwind, and as we go by, they started yelling and pointing off the back. We were headed straight for him, and they would've had to turn around and come back up. He was right there in front of us.
"Those of us that saw and heard what they were yelling at immediately started informing the rest of our crew and our driver–'There is a MOB, we have to pick him up', etc. And Gary Harr immediately started going right for him. But, you know, sometimes, when you're sailing, you only have limited options, going upwind, what angles you can choose, and sometimes you have to throw in multiple tacks or come back around for somebody, and there's just no other way to do it.
photo: Borrowed Light
This photo, taken soon after the start, shows the rough conditions sailors faced during the race.
"It was just really fortunate that we were already there. If we hadn't had to luff up a little bit to avoid the other boat, we would've been too low of him. Then when we came up to him, Gary kind of stuffed it up and stalled out so we weren't going too fast, when we got right alongside of him. Gary did a really excellent job. Gary is a really good driver.
"I was at the back end of the boat and flopped down on the deck where I knew I could hold on and reach. I reached down, got a hand on him. As his hand came up, someone else got a hand on him. I wasn't in a position to have enough leverage to pull him up into the boat but I got a hold of him, pulled his arm up. The other person pulled up and he was able to get his hand on the stanchion and hang on. We clung to him while everyone else started piling in and grabbing him, his clothes, and started reeling him in.
"We happened to be in the right place at the right time and headed in the right direction. I don't think he was in the water very long. He had gone over pretty close to the time that they had had trouble and that we had to avoid them. So I think it was a pretty quick in and out of the water. I would guess 5 minutes or less."
But he was hard to see. "He was low in the water, no yellow hood. He had a grey vest on. There was not much color-wise to pick him out. Fortunately we were just close enough and they were pointing right at him.
"You've got to have a lot of respect for the elements out there. The boat feels big and stable in light air. The boat feels really small in heavy air when it's getting tossed around like that. Things can happen very fast."
Here & Now's Pat Denney asked for 2 minutes time, but only if it made a difference in the results. It didn't. Despite the time taken for the MOB rescue, Here & Now placed first in class 9 and second overall.