Mayday-Mayday

[Ken Heyman]

so--my wife and I took a leisurly sail last week in rather benign conditions on Lake Michigan. We had Otto the autopilot engaged and were multi tasking by reading, listening to music and monitoring channel 16. Amidst the sensory clutter, we heard a "mayday" call on the VHF. While we have occasionally heard mayday distress calls before, it is somewhat rare particularly in near perfect conditions and no Chicago lakefront events in process (like the air show or July 4th activities). Moreover usually the calls are pranks or not real emergencies such as "my battery is dead or I am  out of gas" .
The captain  of the distressesd vessel hailed the coast guard. They responded immediately and asked about the nature of their distress. The captain said that "they were sinking and their cockpit was full of water' This got my attention so I immediately tacked and headed for their reported position, which was only about 1/2 mile off the beach. It would taken us aprox. 1/2 hour to get to the location. The craft was a 16 foot sailboat with flotation and the captain didn't know the source of the leak although he thought a drainage plug could have been "open" but didn't know where it was located. The captain also indicated that he could sail and remain upright-- but very slowly. After the coast guard completed the usual drill i.e. lifejackets, number and condition of crew etc they asked the captain for a cell phone number. The captain gave the number---the coast guard asked him to repeat-he did--the coast guard asked a third time to be sure of accuracy and then said that they would call him  on the cell.  The captain then reported that he did not have his cell phone on the boat ! !

----Darwin is going to catch up with this fellow

Ken

[Ken Heyman]

BTW it was reported that he was fine--high and dry on the beach within a half hour.

Ken

[Ralph Masters]

Ken,
That is a good one.  The admiral is amazed at the stuff "boaters" put out over ch.16.  And here in San Diego we hear a ton of it.

Ralph

[Kyle Ewing]

Another distress call I heard on the radio this summer:  A guy in a sailboat near Calumet Harbor (south end of Lake Michigan near the Illinois/Indiana border) couldn't start his engine and was drifting toward shore.  He claimed to be in imminent danger and wanted the Coast Guard to send help.  It was a light wind day (I was making less than 2 knots about 10 miles away).  When the Coast Guard asked about anchoring, he said he had a problem with the anchor and couldn't figure it out.  Boat US finally got to him.

The lesson to me is a reminder that even the anchor is a piece of safety equipment.

[Ralph Masters]

There was a sail boat stuck out in the fog and was affraid of running aground off Point Loma.  Vessel Assist advised him to drop anchor.  He came back on the radio and said he dropped it but it was not touching the bottom.  They asked him how much rode he put out and he said "all three hundred feet".  There was a very long pause before they told him to just drift with it like that.

Ralph