Coast Guard Helping Sailboat In Distress at Ocean View In Norfolk, VA

[PamlicoTraveler]

Saw this earlier today. Apparently the sailboat lost engine power and anchored offshore at Ocean View and is getting hit pretty hard. As of now the anchor is still holding. There are 2 people on board.

[callmecrazy]

Yeah, they just called in a mayday and were rescued about 5 minutes ago

[callmecrazy]

actually I don't know if they were rescued, they were "assisted". But I listened to the mayday call and he said "we're sinking". So I assume they got off the boat.

[ad_astra]

Any idea why they were out there in these conditions?

[offline]

According to the coastguard they were assisted by "Locals" The coasties relocated their fleet because of the storm..

[ggray]

Rescued 2 people and a cat.

[ad_astra]

From the updated article:

The couple have not been identified, but they live on their boat in Portsmouth. The man and woman decided Friday night to try to escape the storm. They, along with their cat, were planning to head for Annapolis, but they didn’t encounter any trouble so they dropped anchor in Ocean View.

[Starbuck]

This could be it:

[Dkdoyle]

Wow nice boat. Could not imagine trying to ride out a hurricane in the open

[PamlicoTraveler]

I try never to second guess other sailors, but from what has been reported this appears to be a case of bad judgement. Trying to outrun the storm given all the information that is available about the conditions was not wise, but we have all made some poor calls that weren't as catastrophic.

Very sad for them, but at least they were rescued.

[SaltyGirl]

Appears that they were west of (inside) the Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel. The area is called Ocean View. It doesn't appear to be ocean coastline on the chart.

[smurphny]

Looks like it's up into Chesapeake quite a way, almost to Willoughby Bay. Too bad they could not make it another few miles.

[mike d.]

Hopefully they will get charged for stupidity at it's finest!!!!! considering all the prior information out there on how bad it was going to be!!!!!!

[roverhi]

If it's Willoughby Spit, it's probably just across the street from our old house. Willoughby Spit was created by the excavation for the Norfolk Tunnel and has a nice sandy beach. It's the south side of Hampton Roads from USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fame inside the Chesapeake. The spit is totally open to the north and NNE . With the sand beach and if they don't get huge waves from the north, boat may be salvagable. Depends on how much damage done when thy hit the Jetty.

They were probably trying to head up one of the rivers in the Hampton/Norfolk area to hide out from the hurricane. Strange place to anchor to ride out a storm. If they would have gone another couple of miles East, they'd have been in an area with limited fetch for the waves to build and much more likely place to survive the storm.

[callmecrazy]

They weren't inside willoghby bay (or spit) but outside in the open bay between Hampton roads and the bay bridge tunnel.
I think the locals call it east beach.

Seems like a really strange place to stop for the night (as reported) the day before a hurricane. I've seen a boat anchored out there the past few days, and I'm guessing it wa them. They must either thought they could ride it out in that spot (which is really bad judgement!) or they were unable to move foe some other reason...

It could have been a different boat of course, but from the sound of it they were anchored there atleast overnight...