Calimity Stories

Posquotank River
No LL

Calamities can happen to anyone, cruisers or not. I can't say for sure if cruising carries more risks than not cruising. I can however, recognize and fret over true stories of calamities that befall our fellow cruisers.

The first story was sent to us by blog reader Kerry R. It comes from news-journalonline.com

May 19, 2009

Sailboat pushed onto beach after anchor line breaks

By MARK I. JOHNSON
Staff Writer

NEW SMYRNA BEACH – A couple escaped injury when their 38-foot sailboat broke loose of its anchor and washed ashore this morning.

Steven and Michelle Lai-fook, ages unavailable, were on their way to St. Augustine aboard the Jacksonville-based Island Witch when they lost their engine and a sail at about 1:30 a.m.,

U.S. Coast Guard Sr. Chief Petty Officer Bon Cantrell said.

He said Station Ponce de Leon Inlet received a distress call from the sailboat’s crew and immediately launched its 47-foot rescue boat.

The Coast Guard crew encountered 10-foot seas as they headed out the inlet and it was quickly determined it would be unsafe to try to tow the sailboat to shore, the senior chief said. A helicopter was called in from Savannah, Ga., and the Lai-fooks were told to anchor and wait. The plan was to airlift the crew off the boat and leave it anchored until seas calmed.

"Just before the helicopter arrived, the anchor line parted and the sailboat beached," Cantrell said. "It surfed right in. Everyone was OK."

The boat came ashore near Starfish Avenue in Bethune Beach shortly after 6 a.m..

Cantrell said the Island Witch was sailing from the Bahamas and the Lai-fooks originally planned on stopping in Fort Pierce, but the weather was so nice they decided to continue on to St. Augustine and were caught by the storm.

The second story came from cruisersnet.com

The boat in question was a 38-foot Carver, moored to the marina's outer face dock. The live-aboard couple/owners were off shopping in the downtown business district when another cruiser noticed smoke rising from the Carver. He ran down the dock with a fire extinguisher from his vessel, only to discover "black smoke" and that the fire had gone too far to be put out with a fire extinguisher. The cruiser then warned other boaters on the dock, and some evacuated, but, at some point, the gasoline powerd Carver began to have "explosions." Some people were trapped at the far end of the dock, but everyone was eventually dinghied to safety. One marina employee was sent to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

According to boat owner Robin Kallberg, 32, the couple had stopped at Fernandina Beach on a trip from Fort Lauderdale to Wilmington, N.C., where her husband, Michael, 26, was starting his new job at Camp LeJeune. A sergeant, he has been in the Marine Corps for nine years.

See pictures of the fire here.

Our hearts go out to the victims of both calamities.