For all of my friends who are following this, the Regatta de Amigos is in progress in near gale conditions.
On Friday or early Saturday morning the Texas A&M University vessel Cynthia Woods, a Cape Fear 38 capsized after an apparent keel failure. Information can be found here or better yet, on the Regatta Amigos page. You can see her position on the race tracker, and there is more information on the discussion page. One crew is still missing. Please pray for his rescue. Roger Stone is one of the safety officers for the boat, and speculation is that he was at the helm when the catastrophe occurred. Details are sketchy, but it looks like the accident happened so rapidly that none of the crew had a chance to even don life jackets or deploy the life raft.
Meanwhile, Ciclon, the boat I was to crew aboard, appears to have made a turn sometime late last night and looks to be heading inbound directly towards the Brazos Santiago Pass here at Port Isabel / South Padre Island. The winds are SSE and quite heavy today (gusting over 20K now, forcast to increase to near 35) and they are only making about 4.7K on a broad reach, which leads me to believe they are either motoring or have a greatly reduced sail area for some reason. This boat is a Dehler Optima, fully capable of two digit speeds under optimal, or even reefed sail. I am fearing either a rig or canvas problem.
I am holding my breath until I hear from them. We'll keep you posted...... |
