jay_merrill
Vice Admiral
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2007
- Messages
- 5,653
So, at 2:00 am this morning, I was just about to turn out the lights and go to bed, when the marine radio in my office crackled to life on channel 16. "Pan, Pan, Pan, this is United States Coast Guard, Sector New Orleans, United States Coast Guard, Sector New Orleans. We have a report of an overdue boater in the vicinity of Lake St. Catherine. Vessel is described as ...."
So much for getting a night's sleep. I grabbed my gear, threw one of my aux tanks in the bow of my boat and headed for the nearest all night gas station. Fortunately, I was out in the bayou yesterday afternoon and evening on a photo shoot, so the boat was still hooked up to my van. After dropping a hundred bucks worth of gas in the boat and the van, I made my way to the boat launch closest to the coordinates that I had been given by Sector New Orleans.
After arriving at the launch at 4am, I inspected the ramp and got the boat in the water. A Coast Guard chopper was already in the air, and could be seen in the distance, flying in the general vicinity of the distressed boat. By that time, the family of the boater had given the USCG his cell phone number and that had been passed to me. I called him and received a verbal description of where he thought he was. As luck would have it, I have been in that particular bayou, so I had some idea of where to look. That's the good news. The bad news was that I had to find a small opening to the canal in the dark, after not having even seen it in daylight in about three years.
I did find it, and I was able to wind my way through it's beginnings until I got into the main channel. After 30 minutes of proceeding slowly I found "John Doe" in his 24' bay boat up on the bank of a marsh, with three quarters of the boat completely out of water. Well, at least the Coast Guard's description of the boat being "hard aground" was accurate!
When I asked "Mr. Doe" what had happened, he said that he was on the way back to his camp and had missed the turn in the bayou right were he went aground. He then told me that the accident had happened after dark last night and that he was going fast. Given that he had a Yamaha 225 on the boat, and length of the boat that he managed to run completely aground, I don't doubt that.
After determining that he had not been injured and giving him a good sized bottle of insect repellent, I attempted to pull hm off of the bank. Since my boat only has a 65hp engine, I didn't think it was going to work but decided to give it a shot. It didn't, and we then took a break and talked a bit. One of the things that puzzled me somewhat about the situation is that this boater seemed to be only vaguely familiar with where he was. As it turned out, he had apparently only just begin to use his boat in the area. I don't know if the camp was new to him, or he had just never gone to it from that area, but he really didn't know the waters very well.
We did eventually get his boat off of the bank of the bayou after a friend of his showed up at about daybreak, with a good sized shrimp trawler. That boat was not able to get out of the middle of the canal but I used my kicker (I was having trouble with depth too) to manuever my boat and feed about 150 feet of steel cable from the trawler to the stranded boater. Even the big trawler, however, was having trouble getting this boat free. As a final effort, the distressed boat owner lowered his big Yammy 225 down into the mud/water at the edge of the bank and put it in reverse, finally breaking the hull free. He only had to do this for a few seconds because, as soon as the suction of the mud on the bank was broken, the trawler did the rest of the work.
So, what are the lessons to be learned from this "little adventure?" The first one is to slow down at night! Even if you know the waters that you are in, there can be obstructions that weren't there the day before or even hours before. Obviously if you don't know the location well, this is especially true. Another is to have more than just the basic required items in your boat. I keep survival gear in mine, including enough food (civilian MREs) and water for a couple of days. And, one of the things that should be in that kit is plenty of insect repellent!
Another thing to keep in mind is communication. The boat in this incident probably cost the owner about $40,000 but had no VHF radio in it. He didn't even have a handheld radio. What he did have, however, is a cell phone and he happened to be lucky enough to be close enough to "civilization" for it to work. I keep telephone numbers in mine for the USCG and our state Wildlife & Fisheries Dept. While in my case, I have them because I do these searches on occassion, there isn't any reason why others can't do the same. That said, there is still the now, universal way to get help - 911.
As for booze, I can't say that it played a factor in this incident. When I reached the boater at 5am, he showed no signs of intoxication. What is puzzling about the event though, is that the USCG wasn't notified until about 2am that he had not returned to the camp, yet he told me that he ran aground at about 8pm the evening before. So, what was he doing for those six hours? Sobering up? Maybe and maybe not, but when his buddies with the shrimp boat showed up, they mentioned that they had not come out earlier because they had been partyng the night before, and had gotten pretty trashed. Obviously, this makes me wonder if he was with them and had decided to run into "town" in the boat for food, beer, cigarettes, etc.
I think the most important lesson from this particular accident is that this man is lucky to be alive. Most often, these sorts of groundings in the twisting bayous of Louisiana, occur because of steering system failure. The end result is usually occupants who have been ejected from the boat, and either seriously injured or killed. Missing a turn in the dark can result in the same outcome, and I am surprised that it didn't in this case. Probably the only thing that prevented the incident from being lethal, is the water in the bayou was shallow everywhere except the middle. As such, his motor had to have begun to drag well before the bank. I think that slowed him considerably and reduced the force of the "instant de-accelleration," when he hit the bank.
As "John Doe" spends the next few days scratching the thousands of mosquito bites that he probably has, I hope he ponders the wisdom of what he did. Who knows, he might even take a few boating courses and join the USCG Auxillary!
So much for getting a night's sleep. I grabbed my gear, threw one of my aux tanks in the bow of my boat and headed for the nearest all night gas station. Fortunately, I was out in the bayou yesterday afternoon and evening on a photo shoot, so the boat was still hooked up to my van. After dropping a hundred bucks worth of gas in the boat and the van, I made my way to the boat launch closest to the coordinates that I had been given by Sector New Orleans.
After arriving at the launch at 4am, I inspected the ramp and got the boat in the water. A Coast Guard chopper was already in the air, and could be seen in the distance, flying in the general vicinity of the distressed boat. By that time, the family of the boater had given the USCG his cell phone number and that had been passed to me. I called him and received a verbal description of where he thought he was. As luck would have it, I have been in that particular bayou, so I had some idea of where to look. That's the good news. The bad news was that I had to find a small opening to the canal in the dark, after not having even seen it in daylight in about three years.
I did find it, and I was able to wind my way through it's beginnings until I got into the main channel. After 30 minutes of proceeding slowly I found "John Doe" in his 24' bay boat up on the bank of a marsh, with three quarters of the boat completely out of water. Well, at least the Coast Guard's description of the boat being "hard aground" was accurate!
When I asked "Mr. Doe" what had happened, he said that he was on the way back to his camp and had missed the turn in the bayou right were he went aground. He then told me that the accident had happened after dark last night and that he was going fast. Given that he had a Yamaha 225 on the boat, and length of the boat that he managed to run completely aground, I don't doubt that.
After determining that he had not been injured and giving him a good sized bottle of insect repellent, I attempted to pull hm off of the bank. Since my boat only has a 65hp engine, I didn't think it was going to work but decided to give it a shot. It didn't, and we then took a break and talked a bit. One of the things that puzzled me somewhat about the situation is that this boater seemed to be only vaguely familiar with where he was. As it turned out, he had apparently only just begin to use his boat in the area. I don't know if the camp was new to him, or he had just never gone to it from that area, but he really didn't know the waters very well.
We did eventually get his boat off of the bank of the bayou after a friend of his showed up at about daybreak, with a good sized shrimp trawler. That boat was not able to get out of the middle of the canal but I used my kicker (I was having trouble with depth too) to manuever my boat and feed about 150 feet of steel cable from the trawler to the stranded boater. Even the big trawler, however, was having trouble getting this boat free. As a final effort, the distressed boat owner lowered his big Yammy 225 down into the mud/water at the edge of the bank and put it in reverse, finally breaking the hull free. He only had to do this for a few seconds because, as soon as the suction of the mud on the bank was broken, the trawler did the rest of the work.
So, what are the lessons to be learned from this "little adventure?" The first one is to slow down at night! Even if you know the waters that you are in, there can be obstructions that weren't there the day before or even hours before. Obviously if you don't know the location well, this is especially true. Another is to have more than just the basic required items in your boat. I keep survival gear in mine, including enough food (civilian MREs) and water for a couple of days. And, one of the things that should be in that kit is plenty of insect repellent!
Another thing to keep in mind is communication. The boat in this incident probably cost the owner about $40,000 but had no VHF radio in it. He didn't even have a handheld radio. What he did have, however, is a cell phone and he happened to be lucky enough to be close enough to "civilization" for it to work. I keep telephone numbers in mine for the USCG and our state Wildlife & Fisheries Dept. While in my case, I have them because I do these searches on occassion, there isn't any reason why others can't do the same. That said, there is still the now, universal way to get help - 911.
As for booze, I can't say that it played a factor in this incident. When I reached the boater at 5am, he showed no signs of intoxication. What is puzzling about the event though, is that the USCG wasn't notified until about 2am that he had not returned to the camp, yet he told me that he ran aground at about 8pm the evening before. So, what was he doing for those six hours? Sobering up? Maybe and maybe not, but when his buddies with the shrimp boat showed up, they mentioned that they had not come out earlier because they had been partyng the night before, and had gotten pretty trashed. Obviously, this makes me wonder if he was with them and had decided to run into "town" in the boat for food, beer, cigarettes, etc.
I think the most important lesson from this particular accident is that this man is lucky to be alive. Most often, these sorts of groundings in the twisting bayous of Louisiana, occur because of steering system failure. The end result is usually occupants who have been ejected from the boat, and either seriously injured or killed. Missing a turn in the dark can result in the same outcome, and I am surprised that it didn't in this case. Probably the only thing that prevented the incident from being lethal, is the water in the bayou was shallow everywhere except the middle. As such, his motor had to have begun to drag well before the bank. I think that slowed him considerably and reduced the force of the "instant de-accelleration," when he hit the bank.
As "John Doe" spends the next few days scratching the thousands of mosquito bites that he probably has, I hope he ponders the wisdom of what he did. Who knows, he might even take a few boating courses and join the USCG Auxillary!
