A Raft of Wreckage

An afternoon raft-up ends in disaster when the weather turns fierce.

Issue 146: Sept/Oct 2022

It was the first day of “The Voyage to the End of the World”—the North Flathead Yacht Club’s 13th annual event on Flathead Lake, Montana. My lovely bride, Carrie, and I had been looking forward to joining with Irish Eyes, our standard-rig, swingkeel Catalina 25. We were new to the club, and this would only be our second year attending this event.

The voyage would take sailors down the lake’s 35-mile length from the club in Somers, south to Kwataqnuk Resort in Polson, where they would share experience and wisdom over libations on the patio. Then the fleet would head back north to The Narrows, a group of beautiful pine- and fir-covered islands. The plan was to raft up beneath Bull Island, enjoy further sharing of experience and wisdom, and then disband to anchor for the night, sailing back to the club in the morning.

As it turned out, Carrie and I got a late start, and after realizing we wouldn’t get to the resort in time for the gathering there, we adjusted our plan to stop at The Narrows on the way south, relax for a spell, and await our friends.

We anchored in a small bay on Bull Island’s south side where we had all rafted up the previous year. Carrie and I checked the weather. Forecasters were calling for storms moving through from the south later that evening around 9 p.m., with wind up to 13 knots. No big deal.

We discussed the wisdom of rafting up on a lee shore with incoming weather, and then, under beautiful sunny skies with scarcely a breeze blowing, we settled in to enjoy an afternoon of swimming, reading, relaxing, and eating.

Irish Eyes was looking her best. We had just completed six years of “a little of this and a little of that,” her topsides and hull clean and white, her bottom blue. She sported a pretty, scalloped-edged bimini that turned her cockpit into a most excellent lounge, and she was flying a large American flag from the forestay. She looked terrific.

I was a bit concerned about showing up first, being in the prime spot, anticipating that other boats would want to raft up with me and make us the main anchor. Though I was confident in Irish Eyes’ anchoring setup, I wasn’t comfortable holding an entire raft. My worries seemed resolved a little while later, though, when a few boats came in together, and Doug and Bev on their Catalina 30, X-Static, volunteered to anchor the group.

We merrily rafted up, five of us, less than 50 yards from shore. We discussed the weather, took a poll, and assured ourselves that it wouldn’t get too bad. We were certain that we would have time to react if the weather began to act up.

We enjoyed the easy company of friends for a time. Then a light rain started to fall, and a little breeze came with it. Someone suggested that we go below to avoid the rain. The crew on Gayle Force offered their cabin, and Carrie and I followed along. Two of the more concerned sailors stayed topside, keeping an eye on the changing conditions. We heard thunder in the distance, a long way off, over the mountains to the east.

It didn’t take very long. I felt the boat lift and settle, a pattern quickly formed. We’d been belowdecks no more than a few minutes. All at once an anchor alarm sounded and one of the sailors on deck yelled down the companionway, “We’re dragging!”

Sailors rapidly poured out of the companionway into a near instantaneous gale. We later learned that the initial gust that hit us measured 45 knots and had built an impressive fetch as it traveled the few miles across the shallow end of the lake before it reached us. The waves were building surprisingly quickly.

I stepped across to Irish Eyes as the boats violently jerked and tugged against each other. The two biggest boats, Catalina 30s, started their engines in seconds and began powering into the building surf, attempting to hold all of us off the approaching shoreline.

I grabbed my knife, which I kept sharpened and unsheathed in the gunnel. Not waiting for Carrie, and with the mass of boats continuing to drag towards shore, I felt I had to act fast, so I cut one line, and Irish Eyes’ bow began to swing away. I was thinking, “Sorry, Dick, I owe you a couple of lines.”

Looking up, I could see Carrie on Gayle Force, considering stepping across, but we were heaving too much by now and drifting apart. We quickly concluded it was best for her to stay aboard the Catalina 30 rather than attempt a leap.

Five frantic pulls and my outboard was running, and I realized I had swung broadside to the shoreline. The waves were lifting the boat’s 5,000 pounds and throwing us at the rocks to our port. I looked up and saw rocks and trees that were impossibly close—it was happening so fast.

I tried to drag the stern away from the rocks by hugging the outboard, in reverse, hard over into the wind. I felt the prop gain purchase. The Honda four-stroke 9.9 had been a good engine for me and this boat with plenty of power.

A few minutes into the event, the waves were huge— they’d built from nothing to 4 feet in so little time. The storm continued to build. The little outboard was working hard when the prop was in the water, which was only part of the time. A wave would roll up beneath Irish Eyes and lift her stern, the outboard would come out of the water, and the wave would throw us towards the rocks.

Still, I was making a little progress. Irish Eyes was coming stern into the waves little by little, inching away from the rocks that reached for us from the shore. Every wave would swing the roaring outboard to port, violently wrenching it from my embrace. I fought it back around again and again.

Then we dropped into a particularly large trough, and a wave smashed into the stern. The outboard’s tilt lock failed under the force, and it swung upwards, snapping the tiller in two and crushing my hand between the cowling and the transom. I felt the keel bump the rocks 41/2 feet beneath me. Irish Eyes heeled hard as a wave washed over the outboard, cowling ajar, and it quit running immediately.

That was it.

I steadied myself in the cockpit as our beautiful sailboat with her new sails, new cushions, and shining brightwork bounced ever more firmly on the rocky prominence sticking out from the center of the bay. Lift and drop, lift and drop. A few short minutes after my fight to save her began, water was coming into her.

She lay hard on her port side, a tree jabbing into her shrouds. A particularly large wave lifted her again and set her high on the rocks, and there she stuck, rocking with every wave.

I climbed into the cabin, threading my arms into a life jacket. What a mess! The dinette was half submerged, belongings floating all around. I grabbed the emergency radio that I keep in its charging station. It was almost dead. I had not been keeping up its charge. I carried it into the cockpit.

I called a Mayday on Channel 16, “Irish Eyes on the rocks south side of Bull Island with four other sailing vessels!” A reassuring voice answered immediately, clearly copying my information. Lake County Search and Rescue had been notified and were on their way. The person at the other end of the radio asked me to confirm this message, but as I keyed the mic, my radio went dead.

Approximately 30 minutes had passed, and as I looked east over my bow, I could see Carrie and our friend, Dick, in the companionway of Gayle Force, also laying on her port side with her mast in the trees, rocking and grinding on the rocks with each wave.

The wind was randomly gusting high and then it would lull a bit, then it would scream again. From her perch now high on the rocks, Irish Eyes moved a little less with each wave. By this time, I had packed dry clothes into a bag along with water and Carrie’s shoes. What technology we owned was somewhere on board; remarkably, most of it would be found later in good order.

As I was now solidly aground, I easily stepped off Irish Eyes and onto the rocks as she lay on her side. I saw Doug and Bev still working hard to keep X-Static safe; perhaps 50 feet from shore, they had deployed their anchor and had their engine running to keep the bow into the wind and waves.

Farther down the bay, I saw Shelby and Lori fighting for Kona Kai, a beautiful 24-foot trimaran. She had come up broadside with one of her amas against a tree, every wave attempting to snap it like a breadstick. They had fenders between the tree and the ama, but the waves were very strong.

I ran over to help them get the boat’s bows into the waves. It was tough going. We would make a little ground and then a large wave would send us back to zero. As the wind and waves lulled briefly, we aggressively fought and managed to turn Kona Kai a few degrees off the wind—it was working! She was bow to the wind, and we were making progress out into the surf.

Then it seemed the waves came back with vengeance as the gusts again intensified. We faltered, and Kona Kai rushed the shore backwards and slightly to port, knocking Lori beneath the water between the hull and an ama.

Kona Kai lifted as another wave crested over Lori’s head, keeping her submerged. The boat’s hull came down hard against the pebble beach, right next to Lori! I reached down and she grabbed my hand. She paddled with her feet and made her way backwards, floating on her back, up the beach as I pulled. With no small effort she was clear, and Kona Kai had remained bow to windward, backed up on the beach.

We regrouped, found our opportunity, and pushed the boat out into the waves. And then I smelled smoke. Fire. Plastic burning.

I looked back at the three boats on the shore to the west. The winds were again so high. I could not see any smoke. Carrie was over there somewhere. I bade Shelby and Lori good luck as they pushed out into the surf, and I headed down the bay back to the other boats.

I yelled to Dick over the noise of the wind and waves, “Are you on fire?” Alarmed, he shook his head.

It was Doug and Bev on X-Static. Smoke was coming from their engine compartment. They extinguished the fire promptly, but Doug had lost his electrical system and his engine. Their anchor was keeping their bow into the wind, though their keel was firmly set in the sand and rocks below, as they had been blown backwards toward the beach.

Meanwhile, Gayle Force and Irish Eyes continued to grind away on the rocks with every wave, though when I looked back to Kona Kai, I could see Shelby and Lori motoring her safely into the bay. Free!

Two hours after my call for help, Lake County Search and Rescue arrived with two impressive aluminum jet-drive rescue boats, landing them on the shore recently occupied by Kona Kai. The rescue crew assessed all of us for injuries, and all of us were accounted for. Remarkably, the worst injury was my hand, and I still wear a small zigzag of scars behind my first and second knuckles after almost three years.

Eventually, a group of us, cold and wet, left our sad and broken boats on the beach, and the rescue boats ferried us to Polson. After thanking the rescue crews, cold and wet we hiked up the hill and across the street to a laundromat to await our respective rides home.

Two days later, Irish Eyes lay ahull on the deck of a barge owned by a salvager we’d hired to retrieve her. Though he took great care to lift her off the island, barge her to land, and then place her on her trailer, his boom hooked the boat’s backstay at the very last moment, knocking down the rig. I couldn’t believe it. And, as it turned out, he was uninsured.

Estimates to repair this rigging damage alone exceeded $21,000. This was the coup de grâce. Irish Eyes would not see water again.

Over the following days, she was stripped of all salvageable hardware, many parts of which live on in current club boats. Her hull was deposited in the landfill. I couldn’t watch as the bulldozer crushed her.

Mike P. Frey was born and raised in Montana, where he and Carrie live with their two children. They taught themselves to sail aboard a 12-foot Sea Witch while caretaking at a private resort. They’ve continued to learn, racing and cruising on Flathead Lake for the past 18 years. They are currently refitting a Hans Christian Christina 43 and will be cruising for the foreseeable future. Previously, Mike was a ship’s engineer in the Caribbean and a paramedic in Denver.

 

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