Key West 2006 - Hammered at the Dock

Filed in archive Sailing on January 16, 2006

By thefluidpen

Note: The storm-related events at Key West and their impact on C Squared and other boats made it necessary to postpone the Conch Republic episode.Three loud raps on the hotel room door at 7 a.m. rarely bring good news. "The boat's slamming into the wall and is getting damaged." The alarm in Sue's voice rousted us in a hurry. Forget the late night at the tiki bar. Forget all the vanity projects for a lazy day at the dock. This was serious business with nothing less than the boat at stake.

Around 6 a.m. Charles sensed the danger the forecast 30-knot northwesterly breeze could bring to his boat and went down to the dock to check on C Squared. It was in the nick of time: Three lifeline stanchions on starboard already had taken a licking, but the anchor he had set off the port beam the previous evening had held and prevented damage to the hull. It continued to be a godsend because it was used to kedge the vessel off, so she could be taken across the harbor to relative safety.

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," was only half the truth. The other half was spelled out by NOAA weather radio, which forecast a blow from the northwest. Yet all the race boats that were docked in Key West's exposed cruise ship basin elected to spend the night on the eastern wall, which the storm quickly turned into a nasty lee shore. Looking across to the far side of the harbor, the picture wasn't much more reassuring. Waves crashed into the rocks on the outside, sending up spray that engulfed portions of the pier. On the inside, the wind-whipped water was only marginally smoother, but at least the boats that tied up there would get blown away from the pier, not into it. Some competitors already had done just that and others, like us, followed in a hurry.

Damage, however minor, to a pretty new boat like C Squared is painful to accept, but at the same time it could have been worse. Much worse. Hardest hit was In Theory, a modified Kiwi 35 from Newport, Rhode Island, that was holed and sunk by the vessel docked in front of them, Bruce Schwab's famous Open 60 racer, Ocean Planet.

While waves crashed across her submerged hull, In Theory with her mast up and a spinnaker tangled in her deck gear, precariously hung on taut dock lines that prevented her from sinking 60 feet to the bottom. "I came down here at 8:30 and she already was a foot under water," said Chris Mulvey, one of the crew. He and his colleagues had hustled the boat down to the crane the night before and were happy to get launched just as darkness fell. "I guess launching on Friday the 13th caught up to us," commented Jared Lazor, In Theory's crew captain.

Schwab, who also raced Ocean Planet in the feeder from Lauderdale to Key West, was deeply disappointed, not just about the collision but also because his boat sustained damage that forced him to pull out of Key West Race Week. "All fenders collapsed, the dock lines chafed through so the boat banged against the wall and into the boat behind us" he later said. "By the time we got here, the damage already was done and our only option was to leave as quickly as possible." Instead of devising race tactics, he'll have to deal with the insurance and the repairs. The same goes for the crew and the owners of In Theory who were hoping to salvage her while looking to charter another boat for Race Week.

Ironically, Ocean Planet had come away unscathed from two grueling single-handed races around the world that included the notorious Cape Horn and the formidable storms of the Southern Ocean. But a night at the dock in the wrong spot proved nearly disastrous. The first survey revealed damage to the starboard sheer, five snapped lifeline stanchions, a bent stern rail, and an aluminum radar mast that had to be cut away.

Schwab had raced Ocean Planet in the Around Alone and in the Vendee Globe, becoming the first American to finish that grueling single-handed contest. This incident could not have come at a more awkward moment for him since he had entered Ocean Planet at Key West to race her with a crew of 17, most of them paying guests.

C Squared was kept out of trouble by her crew who made sure she was properly tied up and protected with large fenders. To play it safe, Robert volunteered to spend a rough night on board so he could be there in an emergency. The winds were forecast to ABATE by evening, which was welcome news. The bad news was that they were predicted to shift to an easterly direction, which would repeat the whole lee-shore drama on the far side of the harbor. Hard to imagine that anyone would like another taste of getting hammered in this way.

PS: How did C Squared do in the race? We finished fourth in class and 20th overall, right down the middle in both cases. Not bad for a shakedown with a small delivery crew, but nowhere near her potential. How was the party? They'll have better ones at Key West Race Week.