s/v Ellipsis

--A short fictional story written by Bob

This is a fictional story about a sailboat that recently washed up on the beach in Hope Town on Elbow Cay.  Much of this account is true and accurate.  However, all names have been changed and the story has been embellished to add interest. I like to call such stories “hysterical” fiction (a kind of play on the words "historical fiction"). I hope you enjoy it.

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Joe McCabe lives in St. Augustine. Having grown up in New England, he spent most of his life around sailboats. His lifelong dream was to cruise the Caribbean islands. He owned a Westsail 32, named Ellipsis. What it lacked in sailing speed (these boats are sometimes referred to as "wet snails") was more than made up for in ruggedness. It has been said that “few boats have inspired as many dreams of sailing to far away exotic places than the Westsail 32.” During the fall and winter 2017, he sailed it through the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, and down the “thorny path” to Puerto Rico with his two miniature schnauzers, Karl and Gretchen, on board.  As spring turned to summer, he decided to fly home with his dogs, leaving his boat in a marina in Culebra, a small island just east of the main island of Puerto Rico.

It was a long time since a hurricane had hit Puerto Rico and lots of sailing blogs by young and relatively inexperienced couples threw caution to the wind and left their boats in Puerto Rico during hurricane season.

Then on September 16, 2017, a tropical storm named Maria had formed east of the Lesser Antilles. Environmental conditions that were highly favorable for intensification, increased Maria’s strength to a Category 5 hurricane as it approached Dominica and Puerto Rico. With a pressure of 908 mbar, it became the tenth-most intense Atlantic hurricane on record.

The 175 mph maximum sustained winds blasted Puerto Rico killing more than 500 people. The evening news in the U.S. was filled with pictures of the island’s devastation, including dramatic shots of houses without roofs and boats washed up three high on the deck of a waterfront cafe in San Juan. Thousands of boats were totaled in the worst natural disaster to ever hit the island of Puerto Rico.

“Puerto Rico suffered catastrophic damage, including destruction of its previously damaged electrical grid. For weeks in Maria's wake, most of the island's population suffered from flooding and lack of resources, compounded by the slow relief process.”

Joe was worried that his 1975 Westsail with its newly fitted tanbark sails would be lost to the hurricane. There was no communication with the island for over a month. When he finally reached the marina, he learned that his boat suffered only minor damage to its rigging. It took months for flights to San Juan to resume.

Joe flew to San Juan, took a bus to Fajardo on the east end of the main island, and then a ferry to Culebra. He and his two lively schnauzers departed the crowded ferry on Culebra. When he arrived at his boat in the marina he was devastated to see the standing rigging wrapped around the mast and looped over the spreader on the port side. He knew that the standing rigging would have to be replaced. Within his first week back, he made arrangements with a boatyard in Fajardo to replace his standing rigging but the work couldn’t be started for a month or more. Once it was replaced, he planned to hire crew from St. Augustine to help him sail his boat back home.

Brent Johnson was hired as crew to help Joe bring his boat home to St. Augustine. Brent had been a racer and well versed on the ins and outs of sailboats by the young age of 30. He arrived in Fajardo a couple days before their scheduled departure on the day after Christmas.

The day before departure they realized that their VHF radio wasn’t working. Their chart plotter/GPS was out too. They concluded that it was due to a lightning strike during the hurricane. However, there was no time left to replace the failed equipment.

Brent had to be back in St. Augustine within two weeks. Even though sailors know too well that “sailing” and “schedule” are two words that should never be used together, they were feeling the pressure to get home. The two seasoned sailors along with Joe’s two small dogs left Fajardo, Puerto Rico at 7 AM on December 26, 2017.

Sailing long distances offshore with only two people is an exhausting exercise under normal conditions. They had a schedule of 3 hours on watch and 3 hours off watch--this meant at the helm steering, not just “on watch.”  With the proper electronics, like an autopilot, this would be doable but with the successive cold fronts, 20 to 30-knot headwinds, and the fact that they had to hand steer, they quickly became exhausted.  Exhaustion led to errors and poor decisions.  On their eighteenth day at sea, Brent accidentally let go of the jib sheet while they were motor sailing and it wrapped around their propeller. The engine stalled immediately and the jib was flogging in the near gale force wind conditions.  It was blowing them sideways.  All they could do was to release the jib halyard and lower the flogging sail.  It was dark and they had no idea where they were, as they labored to get the boat under control.

The north winds blew them directly toward Hope Town on Elbow Cay. Miraculously, the boat made it through a narrow opening in the reef and was deposited on the beach.  Completely exhausted, at 9 PM on January 11, they gathered their two canine crew members, got off the boat, and climbed up the dune to the nearest cottage. 

They had been lost at sea for 5 days. The last day, they were within range of the cell towers on Elbow Cay. They could have summoned help if only their cell batteries were charged. Their boat has been sitting on the beach for two weeks.  "The law of salvage is a concept which states that a person who recovers another person's ship or cargo after peril or loss at sea is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the property saved."  This is often interpreted as a right to pick through a wrecked boat and get what you can from it. The bronze prop was the first thing to be taken.  The boat is now ruined and will be demolished.

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