Sailboat Sinks After Hitting Cape May Jetty

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by malbert73

I’ve been in and out of that inlet Not sure what conditions were. If current exiting and onshore breeze there can be some decent standing waves at entrance. Nothing one couldn’t handle, but perhaps in dark an unseen stern wave could cause a sudden veer into the rocks. Or autopilot was engaged and went on fritz.

But it’s an all weather harbor so some preventable error happened

I think your guess is most plausible, getting the stern and rudder picked up and pushed sideways just before entering the inlet and the next wave pining the hull to the out side of the jetty as the wave wraps around.
I draw 7.5 ft not deep but not shallow, no port on the Jersey coastline is without risk with even a mild 3 meter swell. I pulled into Atlantic City at 2300 hrs 3 weeks ago and it had the look and feel of a bar crossing and that is the only port I would risk along that coast day or night. I would add the south shore of Long Island is equally as treacherous, the fire island inlet being the deepest but very shallow and continuously changing.
Some would cast disparagement on the skill and prowess of the skipper and crew, I would caution, nature is unforgiving, it’s best to be humble before it. Especially if you are human, we are incredible and infinitely faulty. I’m glad that wasn’t me.

[Chotu]

I still think a lot of people aren’t properly understanding where the boat was. it was north of the north jetty, where the red X is on the second post of the thread.

I suppose a big wave could lift you up over the entire jetty and throw you on the outside of it north of the north jetty. I guess that’s possible. But I don’t think that's what happened.

[hpeer]

Only been through that inlet once. It was a blustery afternoon and I was tired having just dine a single handed trip from the top of LIS outside.

A few hundred yards from the entrance I stopped and pulled the main down. It was rough as all get out there, really bumping me hard.

In the meantime some guy comes sailing down the beach, and swoops around the mouth of the jetty and then drops inside on the South side of the jetty. He was within a few yards of the jetty.

It was an impressive bit of seamanship but I thought it rather cavalier and an unnecessary risk. But that is just me, I am trying to get from A to K, usually in unfamiliar waters l and grateful I am alive. Others are on their home turf and out for a thrill and have done it a hundred times. But when a newbie trues to match the master, stuff happens.

No right or wrong, just commenting on the differences.

[SailingHarmonie]

Originally Posted by Kd9truck

I think your guess is most plausible, getting the stern and rudder picked up and pushed sideways just before entering the inlet and the next wave pining the hull to the out side of the jetty as the wave wraps around.
I draw 7.5 ft not deep but not shallow, no port on the Jersey coastline is without risk with even a mild 3 meter swell. I pulled into Atlantic City at 2300 hrs 3 weeks ago and it had the look and feel of a bar crossing and that is the only port I would risk along that coast day or night. I would add the south shore of Long Island is equally as treacherous, the fire island inlet being the deepest but very shallow and continuously changing.
Some would cast disparagement on the skill and prowess of the skipper and crew, I would caution, nature is unforgiving, it’s best to be humble before it. Especially if you are human, we are incredible and infinitely faulty. I’m glad that wasn’t me.

Except your nice theory is NOT what happened. He drove straight into the north jetty FROM THE NORTH in quite mild conditions. He was outside of all the issues that might have arisen because of strong currents in the inlet because he was not in the inlet!

I appreciate that you don't want to judge someone without all the facts, but making facts up doesn't make things better. It is certainly possible that he had a catastrophic mechanical failure that left him unable to control his boat, but having seen a lot of these jetty accidents like this one they usually come about because someone just is not paying attention.

[mdc]

I have entered Cape May inlet late at night after coming from sandy hook a few times.
When coming down the NJ coast from the north at night towards this inlet you see the green on the right and the red on the left from quite a distance. it is dis-orienting until you realize that you are looking at the green from over the top of the jetty. I like to set my way point for the red marker about a mile out and then make a hard right leaving the white flashing range light to stern.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by mdc

I have entered Cape May inlet late at night after coming from sandy hook a few times.
When coming down the NJ coast from the north at night towards this inlet you see the green on the right and the red on the left from quite a distance. it is dis-orienting until you realize that you are looking at the green from over the top of the jetty. I like to set my way point for the red marker about a mile out and then make a hard right leaving the white flashing range light to stern.

Same here. That’s the proper way to enter an inlet or channel. From the safe water marker (typically red/white) or similar.

[slipaway]

Agree with the above. Start at the sea buoy, and then the navaids will be aligned and make sense. We make that our practice even for those inlets we are very familiar with. It may add a few more minutes to the trip but it is the safe way to do it. (learned that early-on in my CG seatime).

[hpeer]

+1 ^ What I try to do.

Why run under the beach?

[Jim Cate]

Here in Oz there are lots of jetty walls forming entrance channels to rivers. Most of them have bars that form just outside (~100-200 m) the ends and those bars often are shallow and break, especially on outflowing tides. Common practice is to come near on a course ~parallel to the beach and just outside the end of the jetties, and inside the breaking area. Once past the first jetty, one hooks a sharp turn and proceeds in the channel.

Perhaps these unfortunate folks were attempting something like that and just screwed up... who (besides them) knows?

Jim

[malbert73]

I just don’t think the article is right. There is no place they could hit the north jetty rocks on the outside and have vegetation BEHIND the rocks. Are we sure they didn’t hit the north side of the south jetty, or south side of north jetty?
The picture behind the sunken mast cannot be outside the north jetty which is only rocks.
I still think they sank in the channel because that’s the only place there are rocks with land behind them. The jetties are both just rock

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by malbert73

I just don’t think the article is right. There is no place they could hit the north jetty rocks on the outside and have vegetation BEHIND the rocks. Are we sure they didn’t hit the north side of the south jetty, or south side of north jetty?
The picture behind the sunken mast cannot be outside the north jetty which is only rocks.
I still think they sank in the channel because that’s the only place there are rocks with land behind them. The jetties are both just rock

Attachment 275769Attachment 275770

I think you are probably right. Reporting is a joke nowadays

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by malbert73

I just don’t think the article is right. There is no place they could hit the north jetty rocks on the outside and have vegetation BEHIND the rocks. Are we sure they didn’t hit the north side of the south jetty, or south side of north jetty?
The picture behind the sunken mast cannot be outside the north jetty which is only rocks.
I still think they sank in the channel because that’s the only place there are rocks with land behind them. The jetties are both just rock

Attachment 275769Attachment 275770

Good catch. Bad reporting!

It amazes me these days with passes for reporting. The facts are usually wrong, the grammar is incorrect.

Anyway, analyzing what you said even further, it’s possible to see in the night picture that there is also a tree line behind the jetty.



So, really, the only possibility as you said is for them to have struck the south face of the north jetty or the south face of the south jetty.

I’m going to still guess that they were outside of the jetty and trying to short cut it. Which makes a lot more sense from the south than it does from the north anyway.

South side of the south jetty is my guess.

Because it would be pretty hard to be 3/4 of the way up the channel where all of the vegetation is for these pics inside the jetty and just veer off to the one side and hit the rocks. You are already basically done with the channel at that point and had been lined up the rest of the way into it.

Here is my new guess. My guess is they were at this red X.


UNLESS…. they hit the jetty at the very end out there somewhere. All the way out at the tip of the jetty and were trying to make it back in the channel but were sinking so went down 3/4 of the way into the channel. Maybe they didn’t even hit the rocks where the picture was taken.

Thanks to crappy reporting we will never know

[singlespeed]

Wouldn't be surprised to hear the person operating the vessel was colorblind. 8% of men have some degree of colorblindness, women less than half that. Those red and green lights look the same to a colorblind person. Add in any background lights on shore and you have serious problems, unless you have a no-colorblind person next to you, to guide you. AIS is a godsend to colorblind sailors encountering larger vessels at night.

[malbert73]

Yes, we’ll probably not learn.
That is a plausible scenario- hitting outside of jetty and trying to get in the inlet while taking on water..

If they hit inside the inlet, my guess is one of these things happened:
1. They were too close to the right side of the channel/jetty. Perhaps all the cockpit LED lights made distance difficult to gauge
2. Someone let go of the wheel and the boat spun suddenly to starboard into the rocks (balanced spade rudder can do this with prop wash)
3. Autopilot pulled a “crazy Ivan”
4. They just got too close and hit underwater rocks from jetty.

Still an unfortunate issue. Regardless, looks like the boat sank in the inlet channel so hope they were able to remove soon after to keep inlet open and safe

It’s good for all of us to consider all possibilities as none of us are immune to mistakes

[Kd9truck]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

Except your nice theory is NOT what happened. He drove straight into the north jetty FROM THE NORTH in quite mild conditions. He was outside of all the issues that might have arisen because of strong currents in the inlet because he was not in the inlet!

I appreciate that you don't want to judge someone without all the facts, but making facts up doesn't make things better. It is certainly possible that he had a catastrophic mechanical failure that left him unable to control his boat, but having seen a lot of these jetty accidents like this one they usually come about because someone just is not paying attention.

Well then you are in possession of the facts.
“A lot of people just not paying attention”
Thanks for clearing that up.