Wrecked by Hurricane Odile in Mexico
15 September 2014 | Cabo St Lucas
Bernie
The once proud racing yacht after the hurricane.
While sailing down the Adriatic I received an email from Simon asking if I was interested in being the engineer on an Open 60 racing yacht that was to be delivered from LA to Panama. I had worked on this boat prior to the 2011 Sydney to Hobart Race so had some understanding of the systems. I accepted and flew to LA.
Welcome to the US of A it was not! I was detained for three hours and questioned about why I was there. In that time I observed the authorities at their worst, treating detainees as guilty and with little respect. I was finally cleared to go, but received no explanation as to why I was detained. I connected up with the other three guys doing the delivery and we set to work preparing the boat the 3000nm trip south. We took a keen interest in the weather down the coast to Panama as it was Hurricane season. Finally we got the boat ship shape enough for the passage and departed LA.
Hurricane Norbert had formed and was heading north to meet us, so we pulled over for a couple of days into San Diego. Back at sea again we headed south with light northerly winds and made slow progress, once again keeping a close eye on the weather south of us. After 4 days it was apparent that another hurricane heading directly towards us had developed significantly and now had a name, 'Odile'. We had a choice to either head west into the Pacific and skirt around the perimeter of the hurricane or head for the nearest port for shelter. The nearest port of Cabo San Lucas on the tip of the Mexican Baja peninsula was chosen. We arrived there in the early hours of the morning, secured the boat in a marina and stayed the rest of the night in a hotel. The next day was spent preparing the boat for the arrival of the hurricane due the following day. Due to the 4 m draught of this yacht we could not tuck into the sheltered sections of the marina, instead it was rather exposed to the entrance and potential surge created by the hurricane. As the second day wore on the wind steadily increased until late in the afternoon it was gusting 30 + knots. The two other crew members and I were preparing to add a spider web of additional mooring lines to secure the yacht against the anticipated winds and surge, when to our amazement the skipper showed up and rejected all of the additional lines and ordered fenders to be moved to only the port side instead of both sides as we had arranged them. We were amazed at this, but should not have been, given his performance of botched manoeuvres and crazy team management that seemed to be more about having the final say rather than making the best collaborative decision. This was a defining moment! We retreated to the hotel picking up some final provisions along the way - the wind was now whistling through the streets of Cabo. The hotel was a substantial building, but the windows were bulging in on the windward side as the wind pressure built. Some eventually yielded on the upper floors, shattering and letting in a torrent of water. Then torrential rain was blasted horizontally along with more and more debris as the town was demolished. At around 10PM the wind rapidly dropped from a roar to nothing - we were in the eye! We tentatively went outside so see what remained, a scene of devastation greeted us. Some buildings were no longer there and the ones that were, including our hotel, showed the battle scars. After less than 30 minutes the wind quickly ramped up to a scream from the opposite direction and all the debris came flying back, some crashing into the hotel on its way.
As the night wore on the wind slowly abated and by early morning it was down to less than 20 knots. The skipper and one of the crew had been down to the dock early and came back with the sad news that the yacht had been dismasted and badly damaged. The mooring lines on the port side had all broken allowing the yacht to hit the pontoons on the starboard side (without fenders!!) severely abrading and holing the topsides. We spent the next few days tidying up the mess and working a number of options to extract ourselves out of the chaos of looting and lawlessness.
The majority of houses in the area had been destroyed, there was no power, water or communications, so people became progressively more desperate. We had provisions for a few weeks plus water and diesel, so we were in relatively good shape and were able to provide some diesel to our hotel so they could run their generator. With our satellite communications intact we were able to communicate with home base and also assist an American guy holidaying with his family to arrange a private flight out for them. We were lucky to get seats on this flight and flew to Tijuana in Mexico before walking across the border into the US. I flew to the UK to join Simon and debrief with the team back at headquarters. In summary there were some technical challenges with this delivery and then of course hurricane Odile had the final say. It was not the best sailing experience I have had, but that pales away when I think of the locals at Cabo St Lucas who had lost everything.