The EPIRB

For those of you that don�t know, an EPIRB is an electronic device carried by most boats that transmits an emergency signal when activated. This signal is picked up by satellites and received by the nearest Coast Guard station (US or International). EPIRB stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (I�m pretty sure that is the actual acronym). This rather simple device is probably one of the most powerful pieces of rescue gear on a boat as it can alert a search party to your location with GPS accuracy. The EPIRB signal is specific to each boat and carries with it the necessary information to contact the vessel, owners, and/or captain.

Our EPIRB activates automatically in water and we keep it in one of our cockpit lockers that holds all of our emergency gear. This particular locker has kept our various emergency gear bone dry for my last year and a half on the boat even in the heaviest of rain and deck water situations.

When the waves get as big as they were they frequently crash at the top, almost as if they were crashing on a beach, but it is the top 5 feet or so of the wave crests and the wave keeps on rolling. Following some of our surfs it is not uncommon for the boat speed to drop way off as the next wave catches us. On one occasion, what I consider the largest wave of the evening came up behind us right as we sat at only 6kts after a surf. I remember it with terrifying clarity: the boat a sitting duck and this wave illuminated by our stern light marching up behind us and we are not ready to surf again. I watch as the top of the wave crests almost as if we are backing into it. I know what is about to happen but I almost don�t believe it. Visions of this crashing wave rolling the boat, or kicking us so far off axis that we can�t recover flash through my head. I have never seen anything like this. I am not prepared for this. My heart is in my throat � the wave crashes over the transom and we become like a surfer flipping upside down to let a wave go by. I turn my back as the entire wave smacks me like I am standing on the shore in Hawaii bodysurfing. The wave fills the aft cockpit and half of the forward cockpit with water. The force is difficult to describe. The scupper drains in the cockpit struggle to keep up. But we sail on.

So while the lockers in the aft cockpit have been dry to date they filled in an instant with this wave setting off spare lifejacket auto-inflators and triggering the EPIRB. I don�t even know this has occurred as I am still keeping the boat going. At 0230 the signal goes out. A chain of events is activated. The Portugese Coast Guard tries to contact us, they notify all local boats in the vicinity, they put emergency aircraft on standby. Over the next 1�2 hour they notify the previous captain who registered the EPIRB, and they call the owners of the boat at home.

I remember how I was shaken by that wave, but I can barely imagine what it would be like to get a call at 0230 that your loved ones had triggered their emergency beacon and no other information was available. I can�t imagine what that must have been like for my dear friends Clive and Ruth, the owners of this amazing vessel, to sit and wonder, helpless, what had become of the boat and crew.

If I could change only one thing on this trip � this would be it. I would take away the hour between when they were first contacted and when they heard back from the Coast Guard that we had checked in. I know their only concern would be for the crew. I can�t imagine how long that hour must have been for them. I love you guys and am sorry I put you through that.