Jacie Sails Is Lost

For the latest updates on my missing boat, CLICK HERE. (Updated often.)

If you have any potential information on the location of s/v Jacie Sails, please let me know in the comments below. Or hit me up via the Contact page. Or let the U.S. Coast Guard know the time and location coordinates if you happen to spot ‘er. More below…

Last known location, 10:41pm ET, Tuesday Oct 8: 25º 1.4568′ N, 82º 3.7794′ W

 

How Not To Sail

Ep. 65: Losing Jacie Sails, Pt. 1

Nov 7 2024

 

Friday, Oct 11, 2024 9:32 AM

Here at Galleon Marina, having some breakfast. There’s the obligatory life-sized pirate with peg leg, raised pistol, tri-cornered hat and jaunty mustache and goatee, standing astride a half-buried skull and treasure chest.

HOW YOU CAN HELP HOW NOT TO SAIL…INCLUDING SOME FREE THINGS

Apparently our music selection is “Maroon 5’s Greatest Hits”…which, until I made a polite request, was juxtaposed with audio from some sort of promo loop on a TV no one was watching. Maybe the pirate will do the right thing and put me out of my misery.

The boat is lost.

I don’t mean wrecked, although she probably is. I mean, I chartered a Cessna and pilot yesterday and we flew out 40 miles (and more), to Jacie’s last known position…and she is nowhere near there.

I believe the anchor line parted, and maybe she’ll be found on her side somewhere in the shallows of Florida Bay, Cape Sable, or Ten Thousand Islands. (Basically, the Everglades.)

She was anchored in seventy feet of water with only two hundred or so feet of rode. (Maybe ninety feet of chain, the rest of the rode being my stoutest docklines, bent together by one of the Coast Guard crew to my approval. I was too tired to do it myself.)

I’m sure this is gonna make a hell of a podcast; but I didn’t need “content” this badly.

I have some audio from the first two days of the voyage, not so much from the last part. By the time I started comms with the Coast Guard, I had to work in little chunks: Put on the mainsail cover, rest a few minutes. Try not to puke. Put on the staysail cover, rest a few minutes. Avoid dehydration.

(I was actually trying to get Towboat US, which was a little ridiculous. I was at least 35 miles offshore and the towboat operators had long since pulled their boats before the storm. The Coast Guard talked some sense into me.)

Once ashore, the mirror shows I must have lost ten pounds, maybe more.

I did “feed the fish” Tuesday morning. Stress plus exertion brings on the nausea. Not much came up the two or three times I retched over the side, since I’d been eating very little. And then I just felt like shit the rest of the time, even after coming ashore.

Muchos Pocos Hacen Un Mucho.

A lot of little things add up to something bigger, said Moitessier. (Quoting from Don Quixote.) That seems to be how most accidents happen. Not a single thing, but a string of mishaps. Small oversights. And why was I stranded offshore, when I have a sailboat? Well, that’s kinda part of the story.

* * *

I tried to do the right thing. Our marina was already almost destroyed by hurricane Helene: No power. No water. A large Sea Ray came adrift from its lift and blocked our pier. Someone had put a ladder on each side of its swim platform so we could scramble over it and get to our own boats.

During Helene, I watched the marina webcam as the water rose and only the very tops of the pilings were visible. And then the camera went offline. One more foot of storm surge, and most of the boats would be in a pile in Harbormaster Denis’s yard. As it was, Denis lost everything, as did my buddy John at the other corner of the marina.

And in case you’re wondering, “Why not just get the boat out of the water to somewhere safe?”…

This is a nine ton boat. 18,000 pounds. A travel lift is required to haul out a cruising sailboat. And all boatyards around here are booked weeks in advance—even when there’s not a hurricane bearing down.

So when the forecast track for Milton began to firm up on Saturday night—aiming straight for us, this time—I started thinking.

“I think I need to fly down tomorrow,” I told The Admiral. (That would be Tanya.)

On Sunday morning, I called Burnt Store Marina in Charlotte Harbor about a slip.

“That’s up to you, Cap’n…but we’re getting ready for the storm.”

“Okay. I may call you back in a few,” I said.

But I realized that not only was Charlotte Harbor not far enough from the forecast track, there’s also no airport nearby. And I needed to be in Annapolis for our HowNotToSailer meetup in just a few days. (That was my concern at the time.)

Muchos Pocos Hacen Un Mucho

Why didn’t I head north? Why did I instead cross south in front of the “dangerous half” of Milton? Several reasons:

• I’m pretty familiar with the coast from Tampa to the Keys, but I’ve never been much north of Clearwater.
• Everything up north is already torn up, anyway. There won’t be any facilities.
• I’ve done this route at least a dozen times.

That’s what I was thinking. Okay… I’m gonna have to get into Part 2 (and Part 3, and whatever) a bit later. But suffice to say, the main culprit turned out not to be which direction I chose; but something else entirely. What could possibly go wrong?

Read Part 2…and I got a couple of audio clips in this one.

Upcoming Events

• Saturday, Nov 9, 1-3pm ET: Atlanta Meetup @ 57th Fighter Group

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