s/v Rainmaker Dismasted & Abandoned!

--Blogpost written by Bob

You might recall in our blogpost of October 13, 2014 (five months ago) about the Annapolis Sailboat Show, we included a photograph (shown below) of a Gunboat 55 catamaran (worth in excess of $2 million) called Rainmaker.  

This beautiful 55-foot catamaran that we photographed at the Annapolis Sailboat Show
was dismasted and abandoned 200 miles off Cape Hatteras on January 30.  
Five people were rescued by the Coast Guard helicopter airlift.

On January 30, this boat was caught in very high winds and heavy seas 200 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras and was dismasted and abandoned.  Five people were rescued by Coast Guard airlift, the owner and his son along with three professional crew--all are now safe.  This boat, Hull #1, was heading south and was going to be exhibited in the Miami boat show in mid-February.  Because of the height of it's mast the large catamaran could not travel on the Intracoastal Waterway with it's 65-foot height restriction.

This is a grim reminder about the importance of minding the weather and not having a schedule override weather conditions when making an offshore passage.

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