Riding The Wave

[Bill]

There is a 'must see' slide show posted on the SF Survey website of a
Santana 22 riding a huge wave under Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco -
right up onto the beach. Happily, surfers came to the rescue, and saved the
two sailors. Do yourself a favor and invest five minutes in this remarkable
113-image, photo essay by Wayne Lambright.

http://sfsurvey.com/photos/sail/imagepages/image1.htm

[eric (deceased)]

:eek: its amazing how the hull remained remarkably in tact.the keel on that boat must have at least 12-1300 pounds of lead,and it stayed in one piece.(thats one peice here,one peice there....)did the person behind the tiller know what he was in for?

[commanderpete]

Wow.

Breaking waves very bad. Things started going south at this point.

[ebb]

OK sailors!
Maybe lost his steering or something...

But is there ANYTHING they could have done?

[commanderpete]

Well, other than being somewhere else....

Could have buttoned up the companionway. Wouldn't have sunk

[mbd]

Deploy a sea drogue until they're through the breakers?

Why are they going through breakers anyway?  Is that what it's like going under the GG bridge or did they just decide to go on the edge of the channel for some reason??

[c_amos]

1 minute before the roll, he was thinking things were gonna be fine.

  I admit I have never sailed under the Gate, but I have spent a lot of time up above it on the headlands, looking down and dreaming of sailing.  

  Not, however, dreaming of that particualr day's sail.   :eek:

  I bet he was trying to get out of the current, and just choose to come in too close.  A decision that was not as apparent from the cockpit as it was from the shore until much later.

  Glad he had the surfers close by to help push the stern under......  :rolleyes:

[ebb]

You're right I betcha,
if the tide was going out, he may have been trying to find the counter current!

[commanderpete]

Class 5 rapids

Cool

[Theis]

Raises some interesting questions.  

Why did everyone, including the surfers jump on the stern of the boat.  It seems to me that the added weight in the stern would fill up the cabin and help the boat go down..

Secondly, with all the help that came, a CG heliocopter, the Coast Guard boat, the Police boat, etc., it seems they just came by for a look-see, popped a couple beers, and went on their way.

Soes anyone know if the boat sank ultimately, or how they got it out?

I was disappointed that the photographer insisted on showing every picture he took for the past whatever, rather than editing and pulling out the ones that don't add to the story.

[Mike Goodwin]

I was disappointed that the photographer insisted on showing every picture he took for the past whatever, rather than editing and pulling out the ones that don't add to the story.

I was gald to see the complete sequence of events , 113 photos didn't take long to veiw for me .

[Theis]

Maybe it took a long time because of the transmission speed.  Here in northern Illinois we just got SBC's latest of what SBC considers a broadband offering - it seems like 1200 baud (but hey, no complaints. It is better than 300 baud).  A bunch of retards.

Just kidding - but broadband is not being promoted (or available) in the area.  If you want to be third world, we have to give up something,  Right?  After all, isn't that privilege what our exhorbitant property taxes pay for?   And in South Korea their broadband is 20 meg, over ten times the US T1 broadband.  I wonder how much they hav to pay for taxes.

[eric (deceased)]

it appeared to me as if the boat was headed somewhat down wind.if steering was lost weather helm would have weather vaned the boat into luffing :cool:

[Theis]

What do you think broke his spar?  It had to have been something more than a jibe, I would think.  At the start of the sequence he was going wing on wing.  Then the jib went over and finally the main jibed.  But the jibe didn't break the mast - The upper portion of the mast broke a bit later, followed by the lower half disappearing.  And the mast at the time it broke was not immersed.   So was it the jibe or the water that broke the rig?

The pictures really show the problem with aerated foam.  It doesn't support anything - either a boat or a person.  Rather than popping to the top, the aerated foam rolls over the boat without lifting it.  Moral:  Stay out of surf!

[Mike Goodwin]

a 30' mast and 10 to 15 feet of water with the boat upside down, you do the math .