Good thing there was no loss of life, 12 souls safe; I can assure y'all a lot of nice electronic goodies went to the bottom.
The US Coast Guard did a fine job of responding (I'll check with my Coastie
kids from the next Sector down if they have any scuttlebutt).
Here is the USCG News Release about this incident:
Coast Guard, life jackets save 12 after sailboat sinks off Texas coast
The Third Class PR writer got some facts wrong, it wasn't a 60' sailboat that sank. It looks to be about a 30-35'
power cat/workboat to me from the pictures I linked elsewhere here.
The
captain (Tom Hilton, 50 ton Master, out of League City/Freeport, TX) is very well respected, he posted a few comments on those threads. He had checked the bilges at about 10 miles outbound and things were OK. By 15 miles out the port
hull was down, control was sluggish, and a look below confirmed it was bad.
Hilton immediately set course back to shore, radioed the CG for assistance, and prepared guests for the abandon ship.
Those pictures are something you rarely see (unless Mr. Starzinger posts up an interesting
accident report or something
). There are another thread or two on 2cool.com on this (one poster has video, but don't know if it is up
Boat sunk - 2CoolFishing ).
I'm sure Tom Hilton will originate one of his own soon on 2cool.com, unless there are legalities involved.
Caution: y'all gentle CF'ers may need to
steel yourselves from some of the yahoos over there, not overly Bristol or PC; and typical powerboater approaches to the water (yeah, I have one too, an
offshore center console stinkboat).
(speculation)- It may have been a
collision with debris in the water, a through hull let go, or who knows what. The
weather could have contributed, there wasn't anything radical WXwise, but a front had gone through.
No idea how it was equipped for
bilge pumps or other mitigation, it sounds like it went down in 20 minutes or less from first notice of a problem.
Plan is to
salvage the boat, it's in relatively shallow water (I'll guess <100'). It had just been put up
for sale, and the
insurance company will want a look I'm sure.
Just good that no one was hurt, and there are always some lessons to be learned in any case (their certainty that
rescue was guaranteed, for one, with a casual attitude-
beer while adrift?).
The sea is completely indifferent to those who sail it.