Many sailboats have come from U.S. ports to cruise the Sea of Cortez. Some of these cruising boats meet a violent demise. I took the photo above at San Evaristo, a small fishing village north of La Paz. The photo shows the skeleton of one cruising boat that met a violent demise.

A violent demise for a sailboat more often comes from destruction by the shore, not the sea. The sea can be rough, but seldom leads to the loss of a boat. But should a boat end up on the shore, perhaps by bad navigation but more commonly by dragging anchor, loss is likely.

Strong weather and winds usually contribute to dragging anchor and the loss of a boat. The boat above was lost during a summer weather front with recorded winds in La Paz in the mid-30's. You can read about the loss of that boat, and also the salvaging of some of the boat's valuables, on-line.

Hurricanes happen here in the summer, but it does not take a hurricane to lead to dragging anchor and the loss of a boat. The force the wind exerts on a boat increases with the square of the wind speed, so any weather phenomenon that increases the wind speed increases greatly the wind force on the boat and the likelihood of dragging anchor.

In the La Paz area local evening Coromuel winds frequently come up to threaten boats at anchor. When on her way to La Paz and anchored at Puerto Balandra, S/V Ubiquity experienced Coromuel winds that went from very light to gusting into the mid-20's for hours during the night.

The San Evaristo anchorage, where the boat above was lost, is known to often have evening catabatic winds that come down from the steep mountains to the west. At anchor there last week, S/V Ubiquity experienced those catabatic winds which came up at night and gusted into the low 30's. A wind of 30 knots exerts a force on a boat almost ten times greater than a wind of 10 knots. S/V Ubiquity's ground tackle held, and the boat did not drag anchor that night. Our friends on a charter boat anchored nearby did drag anchor, but fortunately they had open space to leeward and their anchor reset.

So what about "Loud Bangs in the Night"? About 1:00 a.m. both of Ubiquity's crew were asleep, satisfied that Ubiquity was held well by her ground tackle, and with a GPS anchor alarm set to wake them should the boat drag anchor. Then an incredibly loud bang woke them both up. Her captain immediately realized they had collided with another boat and on the way to the cockpit he ascertained by looking at the GPS display that Ubiquity had not dragged.

When Ubiquity's crew emerged on-deck the catamaran that had dragged onto us was still beside us and her captain yelled over that we had hit him. I said that we had not moved and that his boat was moving. After that the crew of Ubiquity was up for several hours before finally going again to bed about 4:00 a.m.

The captain of the catamaran kayaked over to us in the morning, quite apologetic, having stayed up all night after the 1:00 a.m. impact. We compared damages. His boat had suffered broken fiberglass and cracks in the end of one hull. Ubiquity had streaks of fiberglass resin from the other boat on her hull, but when I polished them off not only was Ubiquity's hull not damaged but neither was her Awlgrip paint job.

Thank you, Pacific Seacraft, for building such strong boats, and thank you, Awlgrip, for making such a hard epoxy paint.