The mystery of the abandoned sailboat
October 1st, 2009 | Life at Sea Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
Sailors from the destroyer Cole prepared to board an abandoned sailboat they found at sea Tuesday // MC3 Matthew Bookwalter/ Navy
Nothing can chill a sea dog’s blood faster than discovering a vessel abandoned on the high seas. The maritime mind begins to picture all the ways it could’ve lost its crew: Savage, rum-fueled mutiny? Kraken encounter? A devastating outbreak of scurvy? There are lots of unpleasant things that can happen when you’re out there all alone.
The crew of the destroyer Cole may have begun mulling over all those eventualities and more this week after discovering an abandoned sailboat adrift in the Atlantic. A team boarded the abandoned vessel on Tuesday and… that’s all we know so far.
Scoop Deck shipmate Brendan McGarry, an enthusiastic yachtsman who sails Washington’s raging Potomac River aboard his own sailboat, theorized that the abandoned boat’s crew may have jumped ship because of high winds. The boat’s jib is wrapped up, and its mainsail has clearly been damaged, McGarry said, which could mean its crew was flying only the mainsail to keep stable while getting power in high winds. That might have caused it to collapse onto a sun shelter rigged aft of the cockpit, if that’s what those brown sheets are at the stern.
But the seas couldn’t have been too rough, McGarry said: The boat’s lifelines are intact and the launch tied down forward hasn’t been disturbed. So why didn’t the people on board take the dinghy?
What do you think happened?
Comments
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The Scoop Deck – The mystery of the abandoned sailboat « Sail Boating Says:
October 1st, 2009 at 9:02 pm[...] More: The Scoop Deck – The mystery of the abandoned sailboat [...]
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Sean Says:
October 1st, 2009 at 10:47 pmMaybe it broke loose from a mooring and ran adrift?? The mainsail lashings could have come undone in the high winds, maybe no one was even onboard?
Maybe they blew an inflatable life raft and abandoned, thus not even needing the dinghy.
Just optimistic hopes, I suppose…
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Michael Squires Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:21 amKraken. Definitely the kraken.
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The Scoop Deck – Royal Navy denies central sea monster archive Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 10:14 am[...] stacks of leather-bound books with reports about ships battling giant squid, or sea dragons, or the dreaded kraken? Are there pages upon pages of hand-drawn sketches or official — but censored — [...]