This is a shot of Krista at one of the resorts on the east side of St. Lucia.
We’ve enjoyed a significant amount of time lately with the two Johnnies, aboard Stopp Knot. We typically meet for one meal or another during each day.
Night before last, we had some excitement in the anchorage. We were awakened around 4:30 a.m., with someone asking for assistance on the VHF radio. It was a Quebecois man, screaming he was sinking in Rodney Bay, and asking for help from someone with a pump to assist in keeping the boat afloat. The Martinique emergency radio personnel were responding, and attempting to find out the nature, severity, and location of the problem. The skipper was screaming into the microphone that his 31’ boat had two feet of water in it, and that it was located in the south of the bay. He was being asked for GPS coordinates, but explained his GPS was not working. The exchange with the French emergency officials switched from English to French throughout the exchange. The French official was having a little trouble with both the English and the Québec French, and the exchange was outrageously strained. At one point the skipper even spelled south in French, “SUD”, to get the official to understand. When asked where he was from, interestingly the skipper said Quebec, not Canada.
Dawn and I got up, and decided to offer our assistance. Although my education included the rule that you do not begin to bail a sinking boat before you find where and how the water is coming in, I kept that to myself, and called: “Samiel, Samiel, Samiel (name of the sinking vessel); this is Canadian sailing vessel Cat Tales, presently anchored in Rodney Bay by Pigeon Island. I do not have a pump, but if you can use a man with a bucket, I will make my way over. Have you use for a man with a bucket?”
He screamed: “Yes, yes. Come, Come. I am the only one with navigation lights on”. I put on my Leatherman (knife tool), we dropped the dinghy, threw in through-hull plugs, flashlights, hose tape and clamps, and of course, some buckets; and headed towards the south of the bay.
We found other dinghies running around with lights on, looking for the stricken vessel. As we got close, however, another boat passed us heading the other way, saying the water was receding and the skipper seemed to have a handle on the problem. We continued anyway, I climbed aboard, and met the skipper, while Dawn stayed in the dinghy. He was a man of about 40 years of age, highly excited, and wearing only a tee shirt (no, not excited that way). The water had receded to only the sump over the keel, and the pump was soon sucking air.
He showed me how high the water was, and it seemed to me it was about 18” above the floor boards. I asked him if it had happened while he slept, and he said he had just returned to the boat from partying on-shore at 4:00 am. This made the fact that he was without pants and underwear rather curious. I always seem to miss those kinds of parties! At any rate, knowing that officials and other boats were on their way, I said that it looked like the emergency was under control, and that he had time to put some pants on. He concurred and looked for something to put on.
He volunteered that he had got around to shutting off his through-hull fittings. I asked if his batteries were good, and he said they were. I noted no water was running from the engine area, and asked if his engine would start. He said that he thought so, and gave it a try. It did (I didn’t think to ask him if he had shut his Kingston Cock , and hope he didn’t cause his engine any harm if it was at this time running without sea-water cooling). I asked him to think about where the water might have come from, and suggested he go through his systems. I suggested he might start with the toilet – to check if he had left the lever in the wrong position. Well, the toilet, well up the wall and above the flood-line, was full of water, having trapped water in the bowl after the through-hull fittings were closed. Likely, the lever was in the wrong position, the water seeped into the bowl and onto the floor as the monohull rolled, and slowly, the boat got lower over the hours. The full toilet was the “smoking gun”.
Dawn and I exited the scene just as others, including the St. Lucian Marine Police arrived. Just as we were untying, they requested a light, and Dawn offered a flashlight. “No,” the official answered, “I mean for a cigarette.”
Throughout the radio communication, John Fallon was listening on Stopp Knot, and finding it all rather humorous. In the morning, we heard the hail on the radio: “Man with a bucket, man with a bucket, this is Stopp Knot.” Dawn responded for us.
Later in the morning, we heard the skipper of Samiel ask for dock space in the marina. He had likely awakened with a hangover in a hell of a mess, and it was time to hose down the salty interior.
