Boat Went up on the Beach Last Night

[rebel heart]

Ground tackle failure, not sure of the details. There's a Crowley tug captain down here who organized a six dinghy tow operation which was working, then two idiots in dinghies buzzed into the towlines and fouled the whole thing. A guy with a 200hp panga then put a line around the mast base and ripped the rig off.

Maybe 10-15 knots of wind at the time of drag, nothing special.

Now everything is on the beach (he was taking it off to lighten the load), and he's selling all his possessions as the boat gets more and more holed and will be dragged and chain sawed by someone.

I took the photos about an hour ago. La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Mexico.

[atoll]

manson or rocna?

[Kettlewell]

That's sad--we seem to get a lot of tales like this from you Mexico cruisers--too much cheap Tequila down there?

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

That's sad--we seem to get a lot of tales like this from you Mexico cruisers--too much cheap Tequila down there?

I'm honestly not sure what it is. Most boats had to get down Baja to be here so it's either 300 mile legs with anchoring in three places or a straight ~1500 mile run.

And that's just south of the US border, there are plenty of people that started up in Washington or British Columbia.

Either way you'd imagine anyone who could handle that could handle anchoring in 15 knots of wind.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by atoll

manson or rocna?

Very funny.

It's crazy how undersized and garbage most people's ground tackle is. It seems like it's either rock-solid oversized stuff that could get through a cat 5 direct hit or it's some knock off west marine special on poly.

[Kettlewell]

Judging from that cockpit awning my guess is that boat is owned by a low-budget boat owner who primarily uses it as a place to live, not for cruising. I could be wrong.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

Judging from that cockpit awning my guess is that boat is owned by a low-budget boat owner who primarily uses it as a place to live, not for cruising. I could be wrong.

There is that part too. I'm not sure how much of that is on the east coast (Caribbean area), but there a lot of boats like that down here too. I actually know two guys who live on their boats who bought them here and have only motored around between anchorages. One is a mid 40's Hans Christian ketch.

This was the second boat on the rocks this week. Terrible stuff.

[Kettlewell]

I'm not sure how much of that is on the east coast (Caribbean area), but there a lot of boats like that down here too.

You don't see much of it north of Florida, and most places the squatter boats, for lack of a better term, can't really end up lost on a beach short of a hurricane, which does take a few out every year. In 99% of the harbors someone breaking loose would end up aground on some mud long before anything much happened to the boat. We have very few harbors over here that don't have 360-degree protection, because the wind switches around all the time--you can't anchor off a beach for long or else it becomes a lee shore within a few days or even hours. More of that type of anchoring down in the Caribbean and Bahamas where the winds are steadier.

Kind of surprising nobody noticed the drifting boat in time to rescue them. With all those other boats there you would think someone might have been bumped into.

[Tortuga's Lie]

Judging by the fact that the mast is missing, I would say that this is a floating condo and not likely has moved in a while therefore, his ground tackle probably rusted through.................

[Astrid]

A guy with a 200hp panga then put a line around the mast base and ripped the rig off.

Don't know about how long he has been there, but it sounds in the original post that some misguided soul tried to tow him off by putting a line around the mast, result in completely dismasting the boat.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Astrid

Don't know about how long he has been there, but it sounds in the original post that some misguided soul tried to tow him off by putting a line around the mast, result in completely dismasting the boat.

Yep. After the attempted smart-tow with the dinghies a 200hp panga showed up and looped onto the bottom of the mast.

[Tortuga's Lie]

Ahhh, deck-stepped................

[solarpoweredbot]

Different ships, different long splices. Whatever his cruising style was, he was one of us - he was "out there" - which makes him one of my definition of "us" (I'm sure not everyone's "us" as I see all the time may exclude: power boats, trawlers, racers, catamarans, shoestring sailors [also called homeless - oh, wait, a boat is a home], fin keelers, full keelers, those with refrigeration, those without refrigeration, those with generators, those with wind vanes, those without all chain, two anchor troglodytes, engineless [oh, god forbid], paper chart navigators, hank on sailers, and every other sort of "us" vs. "them" distinction).

The sight of a boat on the reef saddens me on many levels

[44'cruisingcat]

Damn shame. Looks a nice boat.

[Kettlewell]

The sight of a boat on the reef saddens me on many levels

I wish the unknown sailor better luck and hopefully a fast rebound.