Some time after a foreboding winter brush with dense sea fog whilst under power single handing my then sailboat, a Shark 24 as in twenty-four feet in length,* a member of the yacht club of which we were both members was also single handing his much larger and hence significantly faster sailboat. He was also under power and at sea in winter. Wisely in addition to of course wearing a life jacket as had I, unlike me he was also wearing a safety harness. However the line attached to the harness, correctly and firmly affixed to the boat was incorrectly albeit unwittingly, too long to prevent him from falling overboard and entering the very cold water were he to stumble on deck and lose his balance. He did just that and went overboard into the very cold north pacific ocean.

Adding insult to injury, at the time the boat was doing seven knots under engine power its maximum speed and was on automatic pilot. ** A nightmare scenario if ever there was one. Because of the significant speed there would have been considerable drag on him tethered as he was and being towed some distance astern at the end of the harness line. This would have made it very difficult if not impossible to pull in on the line sufficiently to enable him to climb back aboard. By pulling in at least some of it he was able to close the gap between him and the boat sufficiently to enable him to reach some metallic fittings which secured the engine exhaust pipe to the boat at the stern. He was able to use the fittings as a grip. He was thus also able to periodically cup his hands, one at a time, around the warm exhaust pipe. This was to prove crucial. The safety harness line would of course keep him attached to the boat should he loose his grip.

The boat’s position when he fell overboard was about a mile offshore from Bowen Island in Howe Sound, the fjord close to West Vancouver’s Thunderbird marina where he and I moored. The boat of course plowed blindly on, the autopilot doing its job of staying on the established dialed in course. The victim was of course growing colder by the minute very aware for sure that he was in an extremely life threatening situation with no way of seeking help and little likelihood given the time of year, that another boat might happen by, see him and render assistance. Possibly someone just might notice him in the water from shore and raise the alarm but highly unlikely since he was not particularly close to shore nor would he have been very visible to the naked eye. He would have known that without re-boarding the boat and given the low water temperature, his chances of surviving were slim to non-existent. 

After some considerable time and fortuitously given the scenario, the boat ran aground crashing hard onto rocks associated with a group of small uninhabited islands at the entrance to the sound. Some local First Nations fishermen heard the resounding crash from almost a mile away as, still maintaining seven knots the boat had hit hard, bounced off a number of rocks and finally grounded. She stayed aground the engine still running and the propeller still turning.  

Whilst immediately getting under way and heading to the scene at full speed, the fishermen broadcast the international emergency signal MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY on radio channel 16 our calling and VHF *** emergency transmission frequency. In doing so, that alerted the Canadian Coast Guard and any vessels within radio range to the situation. As always the Coast Guard responded immediately and at high speed headed to the grounding site which was quite distant from their base. Neither they nor the fishermen of course knew how many were aboard. Certainly they and most probably the fishermen would expect it likely there would be more than one, given it was winter with it’s potential for rapidly deteriorating weather conditions. Not ideal single handing weather.  

Arriving at the shipwreck within minutes, it appeared to the fishermen that nobody was aboard, certainly no one was on deck. To them it would have seemed likely to be a case of a solo occupant falling overboard before or after the boat hit who perhaps had already drowned. They were unable to find anybody in the water close by the boat. One of them boarded it to check below deck, this to no avail. Thinking one or perhaps more victims must have gone overboard either prior to or during the grounding, they maneuvered their boat slowly around the badly damaged vessel gradually moving out in a spiraling pattern for some distance to no effect. Returning to the boat they again slowly circled to no avail and then gradually traveling further afield also with no luck. They were flummoxed and likely thinking the worst. A single hander they would have imagined, must have fallen overboard before the boat ran aground on the rocks. He or she could be anywhere on the boat’s track or perhaps they did go overboard on hitting the rocks. If foolishly they were not wearing a lifejacket and or not clipped to a safety harness, their clothing would quickly become waterlogged and drag them down. The depths in the sound vary and are up to around one thousand feet!

The fishermen circled the boat again to no effect. With for sure nobody on board, other than the possibility that a solo operator without a life jacket was already drowned at the site and had already sunk below the surface, they would have thought it likely that they were dealing with a ‘sometime prior to the grounding’ man overboard situation. Likely they would have concluded that one and perhaps a second person had fallen in, the latter possibly in attempting to rescue the first. This conceivably could have been a long time before the grounding. The victim or victims, if afloat, could be literally miles away. Then chance intervened. 

One of the fishermen happened to notice a line leading aft from the transom. They peered over the stern one imagines with considerable trepidation. Very low in the water in spite of a basic life jacket, in a vertical position was a male body the safety harness he was wearing still attached to the boat by its overly long line. He was almost completely submerged all his heavy winter clothing being of course waterlogged. He was motionless.   

Suddenly a barely audible voice was heard. The man speaking as the high speed coast guard vessel was arriving at the site. Thanks to the fishermen’s MAYDAY distress broadcast along with the coast guard’s rapid response, he was found still alive if only just. He was of course immediately treated by the coast guard’s medical professionals. When apprised of the horrific nature of the victim’s overboard ordeal, they were amazed that he was still alive. He would live only because the fishermen, having put out the MAYDAY, had taken fast and appropriate action which in doing so had enabled them to both find the victim and to cause the coast guard medics to be on site just soon enough to save him.

In treating the victim as he became more lucid, the medics learned that physically unable before or even after the grounding to re-board, he had almost from the beginning of his ordeal been able to wrap his hands periodically around the hot but fortunately not too hot engine’s exhaust pipe. This they felt sure had provided for just enough heat to transfer into his body to save his life albeit he was in a dire hypothermic condition when they arrived. Without their immediate medical care and his subsequent quick hospitalization, very likely he would not have survived much if any longer. Indeed they estimated such at quite possibly less than fifteen to twenty minutes! He did eventually fully recover and thus lived to sail and power another day. Needless to say the first thing he did on eventually getting back to the extensively and expensively repaired boat, was to shorten the line attached to his safety harness!

* See my story: Single Handed Winter Sailing. January 21, 2023

** See the first story on my blog at www.barrydevonald.com  ‘A Flight to Remember’. April 6, 2019 also involving an autopilot.

*** VHF – Very High Frequency radio transmission.