By Wednesday morning, August 8, I was inside the Archipelago of the Azores, passing to the north of Terceira Island, on course to pass South of Graciosa en route to my turning waypoint just off the Western tip of Sao Jorge. My ETA into Horta was between 23:00 and midnight, so I concentrated on getting a couple of short naps before mid day, as I did not want to sleep once I was within 15 miles of any of the islands. By the afternoon, the wind had started to drop steadily, pushing my ETA to around 01:30 Thursday morning. I finally passed the island of Sao Jorge around 21:00 with only 19 miles left to reach the finish line. I set the pilot to the new course, but soon noticed there was a strong current setting the boat to the west, right toward the northern tip of Faial. To compensate I had to initially alter course by 35 degrees to port, but over the next 9 miles in a dying breeze, the current started to abate and I was able to come back to within 20 degrees of the proper course. By now it was midnight, the wind was down to 2-3 knots, the boat was barely managing 1.5 knots and my ETA had moved out to 06:30. Given the delayed arrival, I was long overdue for some rest and decided it would be safe to take a short nap, as I still had 6-7 hours before arrival.

I was so exhausted, I never heard my freight train alarm clock, but was abruptly awakened by the impact of Zonda against the rocks. As I jumped up and put my head outside, I saw the massive black volcanic rocks towering above my head and hoped I was just dreaming. I closed my eyes and opened them again, but the rocks (and the crunching noise) were still there. With the wind holding me against the rocks, I immediately dropped the genoa and looked for ways to push the boat away from the rocks. But I soon realized I was being held firmly in the U-shaped Deitado Islet by the wind and the rip currents, and that my mast and rigging were being caught on the jutting rocks above my head. After several attempts to push off the rocks with my boat hook I quickly realized the situation was beyond my control.

Initially, the boat was being held broadside against the vertical shoreline and there seemed to be some hope of towing it out with only minor damage. As I waited for the rescue boats, the tide began to fall and the rip currents became stronger and stronger. The crashing of the hull against the rocks became more and more intense and soon the VHF antenna and tricolor light on top of the mast had been ripped off by the rocks above. Luckily, one of the safety items required by the Class Mini is an emergency VHF antenna, which I fixed to the end of my boat hook and held up in the companionway to maintain contact with Horta Radio. As the waves and rip current increased, the boat surged back and forth, and was eventually pulled into a seemingly impossible position between the shore and four massive rocks. At that point, the crashing became more violent and abrupt as the boat was bouncing off the rocks on all sides. It became almost impossible to hold the emergency antenna up as I was thrown across the boat with every impact. I advised Horta Radio that the situation had deteriorated badly and that the objective was now to get me off the boat ASAP as recovering the boat no longer seemed possible.

I was very relieved to see a flare go off over my head and even more happy to look out and see three Zodiacs and two Portuguese fishing boats standing off just beyond the rocks and waves. After a quick discussion on the radio, it seemed I may well have to get into the water amongst the rocks to swim out the rescue boats. I scrambled to get my survival suit on and grabbed a waterproof dive bag with my passport and boat papers and carefully crawled out on deck as the boat lurched and rocks tumbled down from the mast repeatedly hitting the wall above me. Luckily, one of the fishing boats was able to take up a position just opposite the large rock in front of my bow. One of the volunteers, Pedro Menezes Rosa, climbed onto the rock and instructed me to jump from my bow onto the rock to join him. He caught my dive bag and then just managed to catch my hand as I hit the rock and started to slide down. >From there, I was quickly onto the fishing boat and then transferred to one of the Zodiacs for the three mile trip across the channel to Horta. The short trip felt like an eternity as time seemed to stand still with the image of the stranded Zonda burning in my eyes.

What Happened:

When I found myself on the rocks, I immediately checked my GPS to see where I was. I noticed an abrupt course change to port near the position where I had gone to sleep. And when I calculated the distance I had traveled, I realized my boat speed had increased significantly. It would seem that shortly after I fell asleep, the tide changed and the current that had been setting me in the direction of the finish line was now steering me directly toward the island of Pico and Deitado Islet. With the change in the current vectors and a couple knots more wind, my speed over the ground had increased significantly and I arrived on the rocks over 4 hours ahead of my ETA to the finish line.

Hindsight:

In hindsight (and after some long hours of sleep) I have had several insights into the accident and come to some now obvious conclusions. First of all, days earlier during the race, my autopilot had twice shut down due to some electrical failure (most likely water in the connectors). When this happened, the only solution was to reinitialize the pilot and all the communications settings. However, after the second "reboot" of the system, I was not able to reestablish the NMEA connection between my GPS and the autopilot. At the time it did not seem important as I rarely used the "Steer to Waypoint" feature of my pilot. The night of the accident, I was too exhausted to consider that the current was most likely tidal and likely to change directions (I'm accustomed to the rather constant Gulf Stream in Florida). But even if I had realized it, the GPS feature of my pilot that would have adjusted course for the changing current was not functioning. Among the lessons I learned on this trip, the most important ones are: 1) Always make sure all of your electronics and instruments are functioning properly, even if you don't think they are necessary, 2) When being set by a current, always steer to a waypoint rather than a compass course if you plan to sleep, 3) Always have a tide table on board for your arrival port, 4) never trust fluky light winds in an area you are unfamiliar with, and 5) Remember that sleep deprivation is likely affecting your judgment, so these simple lessons (and all the others you've ever learned) can be very hard to remember when you need them most.

(Complete race report and photos can be found at www.abel650.com)

Thanks,

Andy

09/07/06