Tuesday, October 8th, 6:35 p.m. A few hours before the outer bands of Hurricane Milton are due to arrive, I hop off my sailboat onto a USCG 45-foot Fast Response Boat, 35 miles offshore. The boarding officer hands across my backpack and a suitcase to another crew member. And we speed away south, away from Jacie Sails and away from Hurricane Milton.
We leave her anchored in 70 feet of water, with 200 feet of rode, 90 feet of it chain. Not much scope for the 10- to 12-foot seas and 40 knot wind expected.
After the storm, I charter a Cessna 172 and pilot, and we search Jacie’s last coordinates. She is nowhere to be found. I hang around Key West a few more days just in case, drink beer and eat fried seafood, interview some of the Coast Guard crew for my podcast…and finally fly home, with my chartplotter and a few other pieces of gear in my suitcase.
I’d done my best to move my boat away from Hurricane Milton. (After all, Hurricane Helene had almost destroyed my marina near St. Pete just a few days before.) But I didn’t quite make it to the slip I’d booked in Key West.
Somehow, I managed to make a few mistakes.
First of all—and probably most important—I didn’t realize that Hurricane Helene had clobbered not only the ports north of me toward the Big Bend; but also ports south…including Venice, where I’d planned to stop for diesel.
Second, somehow my math was wrong. I had in my head the number 32: 32 hours to motorsail or motor from my marina to Key West. I’d done it several times before, and I think I even mentioned “32 hours” in my video about sailing to the Keys and Cuba. Looking at the distance now, I think even 36 hours is pretty optimistic.
Especially with 28 knots of wind. Not on the nose, but forward of the beam, which made the leg south past Longboat Key slow and not fun at all.
In short, by the time I was 40 hours or so into this “32-hour” dash (and still hours from Key West), I had successfully:
- Run out of fuel
- Run out of wind (the ol’ “Calm Before The Storm”)
- Ripped my sails
- Thrown up a little
I didn’t initially ask the Coast Guard to come get me. I just wanted them to call Towboat US, since the USCG was the only station that could hear me. Unfortunately, Towboat US had already pulled their boats before things started getting sporty. So the nice fella on the radio asked me if I wanted them to come get me, before they too ceased operations.
“Let me think about that for a minute,” I said.
And then I did the right thing, in my case. I abandoned ship. Dehydrated, without working sails, without fuel, and a lot of wind and waves on the way within hours.
And for a month, I waited to hear news of Jacie Sails being found somewhere on the coast of the Everglades, holed and full of water. Or stripped and left on a reef.
Wednesday, November 13th, 3:46 p.m. I happen to see an email in my inbox, from the evening before. It’s a notice of a missed call from the Coast Guard.
“Good afternoon Mr. Rogers. This is Ensign Agar with the U.S. Coast Guard calling about your vessel Jacie Sails. The vessel was found recently and we’d like to get back in contact with you.”
I immediately called the Coast Guard back, who said she seemed in good shape; and sent me an email…with pictures! There she sat, lightly aground in the shallows near West Harbor Key. The blue canvas bimini looked a little messed up, but otherwise, she looked in pretty good shape.
So I booked a flight for the next day to Key West and called Towboat US with the good news.
“I need you to go grab ’er before somebody else does.”
I couldn’t tell from the photos if anybody had been aboard, so I was pretty damned nervous. There she was, only 5 miles north of Key West, after being lost for over a month. Would she still be in one piece, or would all my tools and electronics and everything else of value be gone?
I thought I could see the radar dome in the photo, so I took some comfort in that. But I couldn’t tell if the companionway had been opened or not. And I wouldn’t know for sure until I could see her in person.
I gave Towboat US the go-ahead to go pull her while the tide was up; hopped on a flight, and took a taxi to the marina…where, after thinking my floating retirement home was dead for the last month, I watched the towboat pull her slowly up the channel at Stock Island…and back into our lives.
Bradford Rogers is the host of the How Not To Sail Podcast. You can read about the recovery of Jacie Sails and listen to the podcasts (including episodes with Bob Bitchin) at HowNotToSail.com.
