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I am posting this here so that perhaps some good may come of the info. It is a big sh*9&7&7t storm over at Bloodydecks. In any case, Ill post just the first post by the skipper.
This may SAVE YOUR LIFE! …READ THIS! …The REAL story about the Defiance capsizing during the thanksgiving halibut classic – BY ME…THE GUY DRIVING!!!
The first line in this report: We’re all alive.
The bottom line in this story: We’re all alive.
This being said, it is time to put the dozens of rumors, second-guessing, and Monday-morning-quarterbacking aside and LEARN a few things from this terrifying day.
Mike is a great guy, runs a great event and should in NO WAY be blamed for any of this. It is the captain’s (me) decision to factor in all of the conditions, vessel, crew, tide, experience, etc….to determine what is safe and when it is safe. I take sole and full responsibility for the accident…I blame no-one or have no excuses….but there ARE several reasons this happened the way it did, and learning from it may save a life. If it only saves ONE LIFE, then it will be worth the time spent pecking away at this keyboard.
The weather reports were substantial…though, none of was even the slightest bit nervous or scared as we left the bay around 6:30. Sure, the stuff was big…but spaced out enough to make it manageable.
We were in a 12,000 pound, 29 foot (about 36 feet length-overall) Defiance pilot house, with twin Yamaha 250 four strokes. We had a full tuna-tower with second station, 115 gallon split bait tank. The floor and bow were all filled with closed-cell floatation foam. Diamond Sea Glaze storm windows. Radar, GPS, Two VHF radios, Two antennas, two hand held VHFs, two Handheld GPS units, a personal EPIRB, two flare guns, extra flares, strobe lights, standard PFDs, six cell phones, etc…etc…The reason I describe this, is the gear was USELESS in this situation! You can prepare, prepare, prepare, and then in a flash, you are upside down in the water. There is NO TIME….NO TIME when it goes bad. NO TIME….YOU MUST BE READY.
After turning up toward the crystal pier area, I pointed the boat into the weather. While I tried to control our direction at the helm, three of us tried to fish. It was un-fishable. After an hour, I made the call to go back in and fish the bay. THIS IS WHERE MISTAKE ONE OCCURRED. I should have thought about the stacked up conditions that would be present at the entrance with a falling tide, and a huge swell heading directly into the tide, two hours after the slack-high point. Didn’t cross my mind. Didn’t think the boat or crew was in danger. Not in the slightest. I have driven into that bay down-swell in dozens of different boats, dozens, if not hundreds of times….why would this be any different? IT WAS!
While we were swinging around trying to fish, we had managed to wrap about two hundred yards of mono AND spectra around the port prop…..It didn’t effect the performance of our ride at ten knots heading back to the bay, BUT IT DID AT FULL THROTTLE WHEN WE NEEDED IT….conditions were too rough to attempt clearing the prop, and it wasn’t effecting our performance….so I made the call to get inside before putting someone out on the swim platform to clear it…..Mistake Number TWO…..
The better call would have been to sit outside all day at idle until low-slack-tide, or limp around to the big bay. Stupid – but I didn’t realize it at the time….DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE – Stay alive.
He we go….I made a big, slow, gradual turn from Pacific Beach to dead-center channel. As we timed the swells, we head in….tabs up….bow up….throttles adjusting for swell-speed….the way the brain says to do it….the way we have all done it….by the book….with the feel….calling on all the experience…..anxious, but confident.
All six of us were in the pilothouse…door closed….I was on the back of a gnarly big one…timing it….it started gaining on us….leaving us behind, …I throttled all the way up to catch it, and had no thrust from my port motor…it was the spectra….we were doomed. The bow fell behind the swell and the next set picked up the stern and rolled us over……..so fast it was unbelievable. The power of those big, ebbing-stacked, twenty-footers is incredible.
A few minutes earlier I asked one of the crew to get all of the life jackets out of the bags and out of storage. How many of us have stowed-away PFD’s?....In a 36 foot-LOA, fully-enclosed pilot house….would you be wearing them in these conditions? ….I thought so too. READ THIS CAREFULLY OR YOU WILL DROWN!!!!!! We had all the PFDs next to each of us as we went in. I had a self-inflating C02 PFD snapped on as I stood at the helm.
When the boat rolled over, the cabin door slammed shut. The water pressure from outside held it shut. Bo Palmer wedged his arm in the closing-door first, but as we all tumbled, he lost his footing and it slammed. He thought this sealed it for us….we were dead…… Somehow with the help of adrenalin, courage, help from GOD, and the assistance of Jared at the other end, he pried the door open till it clicked into the auto-latch…… OPEN!
The water rushed in filling the dark, upside-down pilothouse in five seconds……the five crew who were NOT WEARING PFD’s were ABLE to swim down through the doorway, out into the cockpit, and out from under the boat…….those crew NOT WEARING PFDS!!!!!!.....Crazy huh?....Had they put the jackets on, instead of holding them, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN PINNED AGAINST THE UPSIDE-DOWN HULL AND DROWNED!!!!!.... AGAIN, read this part carefully OR YOU MAY DROWN!!!......CARRY A KNIFE….OR TWO….CLIPPED ON YOUR PFD OR BELT OR BOTH….My auto-inflator, did its job, and floated me to the underside of the cabin floor……I watched all five crew members swim out the door, and I was pinned to the cabin floor by my inflated PFD, with about eight inches of air above my neck. There was so much pressure around my fat head and under my arms, that it was impossible to un-buckle the vest…….My mind raced, and I realized my Spiderco stainless knife was clipped to my pocket….I grabbed it, popped both cells of my PFD, took one last breath from the air-pocket, and swam down out the door, around the bait tank, and up the side of the over-turned gunnel.
I remember screaming for a head count was first. Two were on the hull bottom…two more were holding onto the anchor pulpit. One was swimming toward the end of the jetty, and I held onto the prop and skeg…..THEN….the next monster-breaker blew us away from the boat like we were feathers. I was able to make it back between sets…Bo made it to the other inverted motor. My son Steven was twenty yards down swell, in water-proof pants and tight extra-tuff boots….ANOTHER LESSON……Get your boots off FAST! Do NOT wear any WATER TIGHT CLOTHING!!!!.....You will DROWN!....He is young, athletic, and in shape…but…He was barely able to keep himself afloat for the 15-20 minutes it took for the rescue boat to arrive. He was barely conscious, and on his last couple of breaths when the rescue swimmer got to him…..He did not regain consciousness until he was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital----he coughed out tons of saltwater….GET YOUR BOOTS OFF AND BUY THEM ONE-SIZE TOO BIG!!!!
Jared made it out with a PFD…He was ok. Feller made it to the Jetty. Kerry was aware enough to get out of her boots and sweatshirt, and swim to the rocks….she was exhausted, but alive.
Bo and I were dragged into the little whaler after Steven as the best trained, most heroic SD Lifeguard rescue swimmers I have ever witnessed saved our lives. THESE GUYS ARE HEROS!!!
The lessons here are many. It is my hope that you will read, and re-read these scenarios and play it out in your mind to stay alive when something like this runs up on you.
The boat did what it was supposed to. It floated. We crippled it, then asked it to do what it couldn’t, but it floated like it was built-to until help arrived. We lost the tower to the bottom, the rest of the boat is totaled……who cares…..We’re alive.
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"a doughnut is only one step above a rent rod"
Thanks and as said glad all are OK, thanks for your description of how it all went down there is a lot to be said of a man that try's to teach others from his mistake in turn that may some day save someone else's live my hat is off to you. My old home port was Winchester bay Oregon the Jaws there have a lot of stories that will not be told as a retired commercial fisherman not by choice
Goddam... Hope that never happens to me. Thanks for posting this and I hope it help someone in the future. I cannot imagine your horror as your son floundered thats just unbearable even to think about for me.
Thanks for letting everyone know about your story. Thank god you are all okay.
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24' Grady White - SOLD!
13' Boston Whaler
thank you for that ! I appreciate you taking the time to write ths as Ive read it 3 times and almost felt like I was there . all good points especially the boots (getum big) glad you and the crew are alive - you did a good job skipper !
I always keep a mask, snorkel and dive knife designed for cutting fishing line on board for that very reason and only had to use it once. Makes you realize how much a bunch of small factors that may be insignificant on their own can add up. Glad everyone is ok.
# 2) - the Mission Bay inlet w/ a pic of the 2nd coast guard boat to the rescue & the nasty waves
#3) - a small BW was the initial coast guard boat that was at the scene, and also capsized (don't know the circumstances of the 1st rescue boat capsizing)
Awesome report. Please describe pictures #2 and 3#
To put those pictures in perspective, I have attached a photo of the Mission Bay Channel on a nice day. The channel runs in an east/west direction and the attached photo is taken looking west. The worst seas during our winter months usually come from the northwest, as they did on the day of this capsizing, and inside the jetties, the swells pound the southern jetty.
Photo #2 of the OP shows the capsized boat under tow with the south jetty in the background.
Photo #3 of the OP shows an earlier attempt by the San Diego Lifeguards to salvage the capsized vessel ... they capsized as well during the attempt.
4-5 years ago in the same After Thanksgiving Halibut Tournament we had similar conditions with periodic hugh swells breaking in the entrance of Mission Bay. I was one of the few boats who attempted to go outside that morning to try for the $4000+ 1st prize. The waves did not look that big as I neared the mouth. No different than a usual crappy windy day in Fall when big swells come down from storms in Alaska. THEN a giant swell in the 20' range started building where it was about to break on my Cabo 216 boat. I gunned it up its steep face at what appeared to be over a 45 degree angle and shot into the air off the backside. We fell for what seemed like forever down the steep backside of the wave and hit with a violent crash. It was a surreal slow-motion fall, like the world just stopped. Somehow the motor did not break off the stern waterwell. The fall was I'm guessing 10'. With more hugh waves coming in 8 second or so periods i did not have a chance do anything other than ride out each wave in a 4-wave set. But fortunately these waves were not breaking, just hugh and powerful, so I road them up and down. I waited outside for about two hours until the swells decreased in size then attempted to come in just like the Defiant did. The power of my F150 motor saved my ass that day.
I too had been through this channel many many times in the past. But i have never been through there again electing instead to moor my boat in San Diego Bay which has a much safer bay entrance. The winning halibut that year was only 25" (5lbs) and was caught inside the bay! I do not fish this tournament any more due the requirement that all boats must meet and start at the same time inside Mission Bay and have to exit this entrance to reach the fishing grounds.
Again glad you're all safe. Thanks for sharing your story. Need any assistance with anything give me a PM on BD.
Thanks for the story . I take from it the life vest situation. I am a weak swimmer and always wear my lifevest. I never thought of how my lifevest could be my deathvest pinned to the cabin of my boston whaler's cabin. I will attach a knife to each lifevest. Also my friend loss his 2 year old son at the mouth of LA lite when his boat flipped over by a passing catalina shuttle. He was pinned to the cabin by the pressure.
Again, thanks and very happy all is safe. lesson learned! Lesson heeded!
Man. That is a a story. I am super glad you and your friends/loved ones survived.
You are alive. Im glad.
The question that I want to ask is are you going to get a new boat? If so, how are you going to "rig" or "supply" it to help you out if by some horrible chance this happens again to you?
Again. I'm glad you are ok.
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"Im only comfortable with a three man brain trust." -The Janitor
Capsizing in San Diego
Thankfully evryone was OK
