Down to the (New) River
Yachtie poll A new monthly feature.
A22 Where to hold up, where to pass
Sail on, sail off The logistics of Dockwise transport.
A15 Vol. 3, No. 8
November 2006
www.the-triton.com
Struck by ship, Essence sinks, chef drowns
One swallow does not make a summer.
– Aristotle
By Capt. John Wampler
But seven years cruising the globe is a good start. ‘We have been lucky enough to cruise Galapagos, Greenland, to Greece, from Tobago to the Turquoise Coast of Turkey, Panama, Belize and just about every island and country in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as Canada, Ireland, France, the Azores, Bermuda, Italy, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Spain,’ said Capt. Chris Walsh from the M/Y Lord Jim. ‘I don’t know where we’ll head next. We’ve barely scratched the surface.’ See page B22 for the latest from Lord Jim and find out where they got those outfits.
See ESSENCE, page A21
PHOTO/CAPT. CHRIS WALSH
Safety at sea depends on vigilance As word of the collision that sank S/Y Essence spread around the yachting industry, so did the questions. (For some answers, see the story above.) While it may take months or even years for the exact details of that accident to be made public, From the Bridge we thought it Lucy Chabot Reed a good time to talk about safety. How many captains have been in an accident? How many know someone who has? Or are the stories we hear mostly rumors?
Quake shakes captain awake An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 hit the Big Island of Hawaii at 0707 hours on Oct. 15 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua-Kona. Capt. John Wampler was there celebrating his 50th birthday and running a 107-foot former U.S. Navy torpedo recovery vessel with a research group. Here’s his story.
By Lucy Chabot Reed The 92-foot sailing yacht Essence collided with a coal carrier in Long Island Sound on Sept. 20, sinking the vessel in the pre-dawn hours and taking the life of Chef Gina Bortolotti. Described by her captain as bright and competent, Bortolotti was awake when the collision occurred and was swimming to the tender when she disappeared under the water. Her body was recovered soon after by a Coast Guard rescue vessel, but she had drowned. Bortolotti and her fiancé, mate Nardus “Blue” Bothma, had been part of Essence’s three-person full-time crew for about two years. Together with Capt. Ian Robberts, they made the trip from Newport to St. Thomas twice and cruised countless hours through the Caribbean with the owner and charter guests. Robberts described Bortolotti as “totally professional. She was awesome.” “I treated them like my younger brother and sister,” he said. “We would have been on that boat together forever. It was a good team.” Robberts could not talk much about the details of the collision because of investigations and lawyers, but he could
B1
As always, individual comments are not attributed to any one person in particular so as to encourage frank and open discussion. The attending captains are identified in a photograph on page A20. Two of the 11 captains in the room had been in a collision, but every single captain had experienced, witnessed or heard first-hand of near misses. “It’s so dangerous out there,” one captain said. “Anything can happen, especially if you aren’t paying attention every minute.” “I don’t hear about a lot of accidents, but every day, you hear the holy-cow stories.”
The sea stories began with one captain on a trip in the South Pacific where he saw a huge ship ply the waters near Papeete with a spar hanging from its anchor, the assumption being that the ship had run over a sailboat along the way and didn’t even know it. “It’s vigilance,” a captain said. “At 25 knots, it takes less than 12 minutes to get from the horizon to your location.” “Looking straight ahead isn’t good enough,” said another. “You have got to keep your eyes on the radar and keep looking back off your
See THE BRIDGE, page A19
So yesterday I am in a slumber at 0700. In my drowsiness, I thought I heard a big wave hit the rocks just below my second floor balcony at the Royal Kona Resort followed by a low flying jet. That’s what snapped me awake because I was nowhere near an airport. The shaking and noise rose in a side-toside crescendo and just as Capt. John Wampler got I was about to bolt out of out of Kona, as he put bed, the hotel it, wiki wiki. Here he is atop Mauna Kea, 13,978 violently PHOTO/CAPT. JOHN WAMPLER shook, with me feet. flying out of bed as the television crashed to the floor. I am not ashamed to say that I was scared out of my wits. The whole hotel was moving side to side and the noise was indescribable. I struggled to get my footing and ran for the bathroom, the smallest area in my room. The trembler lasted about 20 seconds and when all subsided I went to the balcony to check the water level in Kailua Bay. I went back into my room, picked up the television and noticed that the electricity was out. I figured this would be a good time to head to Hilo. I grabbed a quick shower in the dark and started to gather my belongings. That’s about the time that the first of many aftershocks jolted the hotel. What was packed in my bags, I threw off the balcony, grabbed some clothes from the closet and bolted for the door. The hotel was being evacuated and hundreds of guests and hotel employees were gathered in the parking lot as I got in my car and headed south out of town. An unforgettable morning. Contact Capt. John Wampler through editorial@ the-triton.com.