I know those, but do you remember El Tigre?
I have actually fished that wreck, which is now mostly gone. I will never forget one time we went to it and the were hundreds of yellow tropical fish swimming around....
I pulled this little bit of the story from a website several years ago.....
EDIT: Found the original link....
http://forums.nexuswar.com/viewtopic.php?p=306892
Location was:
29 46.100N 083 58.200W
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El Tigre
This all happened early last summer. This was originally a reply to somebody asking me for more information on the boat, El Tigre, which they had found while diving off the Florida Coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Here it is for y'all to read. Enjoy. I did.
Heh. I haven't heard anything about her for quite some time.
I was sailing solo from St Petersburg to Carrabelle, anchoring out in 40ft of water overnight. It was my third day of sailing, making about 5-6 knots in 15knot winds and 5ft seas. Taking my mid-morning nap in the cockpit, letting the autopilot steer, when *THUNK* OH FUC-
I hit a bright red/orange shipping container. Bounced off it on the keel, then it bent my rudder shaft, and snapped the upper and lower mounts. I kid you not. The rudder didn't fall off, but there was absolutely zero steerage, or chance of regaining steerage.
Drop sails, drop down the anchor and all the chain & line I've got(60ft chain, 250+ of good Nylon). Not going anywhere, except down.
Cue the flood of damage control gear(there are some advantages to having taken 4 years of JROTC in High School - like getting to go to the USS Buttercup Sinking Ship Simulator and being trained in damage control techniques), lots of cursing, pulling away woodwork. Nope. Nothing. A little slowage of the leak from stuffing various blankets & pillows into the hole, but the rudder is dead, and this thing is going down. I didn't feel like rowing home in the dinghy. So...
I contacted the USCG, who, being so far away, had to bounce me between their Panama City and Clearwater stations depending on how my radio antenna was pointed(5ft seas, remember?). They first sent out a Dassault Falcon 20 jet to come visit me, and maintained overhead VHF comms while the HH60 Jayhawk helicopter lumbered its way on out there from Clearwater to come pick me up. I spend some time prepping the abandon ship bag, liferaft, et al. Wrapped up my trusty navigational laptop in a couple garbage bags and lots of duct tape.
Deploy the life raft when the batteries went underwater, hopped in with my back pack & survival bag(including the GPS I still have with me! Garmins are built SOLID!), and tail back 100ft from the wreck of El Tigre, waiting for a pick-up.
Helicopter arrives, they do a quick flyaround(I later learned they were videotaping the whole thing for training purposes). Swimmer jumps, comes over to visit me, explains how the basket pick-up works: He grabs me, jumps out of the raft into the water, and tows me to the basket. Sticks me in. Keep all appendages inside, and wait until you're in the chopper before getting out. Then head for the first seat you find. And stay put.
Swimmer sends up a basket-load of my valuables(the laptop! Yay!), pops the life-raft(FOOF!), and rides up himself. We circle around a bit, and see a pair of SeaTow boats coming "to the rescue". Start the trip back to the airport. Talk on the way home, turns out the Flight Mechanic, guy by the name of Robert E. Lee(again, I kid you not), is transferring to Houston in a few days. My father is living onboard his 50' sailboat in Baytown, one of the suburbs. No, it wouldn't be a problem for me to hitch a ride with him. Score.
Show up in Clearwater, where there's a half-dozen television crews waiting on the tarmac for us. Oh dear. They have to wait until I finish taking a huge piss after getting out of the chopper. Oh, and I don't have any shoes. You see, you kick off your shoes in the water so they don't become waterlogged. Otherwise, you sink. That's bad. However, I have two words for you: HOT asphalt. Medics declare me sound and good to go, aside from a ridiculously high blood pressure("How long have you had high blood pressure?" "About three hours" "That's normal")
Spend an hour repeating myself for the camera crews, then go inside to the pilot's lounge for another session of repeating myself to the Red Cross people. Apparently I qualified for "disaster assistance", on account of having just had my entire home and livelihood sink from under me, and receive a $200 cash card and 3 days in a hotel room. Not bad, I say.
SeaTow contacts the Coast Guard, in order to try to get ahold of me. Apparently they cut the anchor lines, and manged to get her half-dewatered, then put a tow line on her. He asks me about the value of the boat. "Oh, about $10K." "What?" "Ten thousand or so, at the most. It's really a throwaway. I wouldn't bother if I were you guys" " " *muffled laughter*
One of the coasties gives me a ride to the local Rite-Aid where I make my first purchase with the Red Cross card - a $3 pair of ugly green flip-flops. First shoes I've worn since I left the boat. So very nice. Then onto the Days Inn across the street, where I check into my room with free HBO, a King-size bed, and a glorious, glorious tub. No pool, but what do you expect for free? *tips hat to the Red Cross*
Walk back across the street, buy a $30 phone card, stop at Burger King and order a sickeningly large whopper. Go up to the room, stuff my face and call everybody whose number I can remember, let them know that I'm still alive. Call SeaTow. Turns out they screwed up on the towjob, and managed to FLIP OVER one of their boats in the process. Everybody is okay, though, and they got the boat rolled back over and are towing it ashore with the other boat. Left El Tigre out there to sink. I hang up the phone, and laugh. The girl wanted to go down, and she put up a fight! I guesstimate SeaTow's losses at about $50K, between the wrecked boat and sunk gear. Ouch.
I spend two nights in the hotel, and Rob picks me up on Friday morning. We stop back at the Air Station for a check-in with the flight crew, and a trip to the base store, where I pick up two US Coast Guard shirts. Then the road trip to Houston in his pickup, hauling a trailer full of his stuff. My possessions consist of a backpack and a small duffel bag, plus four books I picked up from the local library's 50c sell pile. I read.
Show up in Baytown about 3AM, and stumble down the dock onto the boat. What a hell of a trip.
I'm not sure if the mast is poking up out of the water or not. Either way, I'd appreciate it a bunch if you'd contact the Coast Guard and notify them of her present location, so they can chart it as an underwater obstruction. The GPS locations they had on file are for where she anchored and I was picked up, not where it actually went down.
Kade tells me he found it about a week after it sank. I had a T9.9 Yamaha on the back(the inboard Atomic 4 was dead), which he salvaged, and is still running. Bra-vo!
I'm sure she's fouled up a bunch since the last pictures I had of her, and I'd dearly love any information / more pictures you have of her. Is the mast still standing? How bad is the growth? Can you still read "El Tigre" on the bow? Would it be too much trouble to ask you to scrub all the crap off so it is still visible, if you should ever go down to visit again? I do love getting these contacts. It amuses me.
All in all, it turned out to be about a $12,000 day on my part(boat, gear lost, all that crap). I'm not about to calculate the Search & Resuce costs - that's taxpayer-funded, and god bless 'em. I had fun, in the end. Really.
Lessons learned for those who may be in need of a rescue:
* Pack some flip-flops in your ditch bag. You'll love them.
* Bring a snorkel and face mask. Will come in VERY handy when the rescue swimmer tows you through the water
* My Type III life vest was nice, but a goood Type I would have been better at keeping me up out of the water. Cross your arms over your chest, and hold the jacket down on your body. It'll bring you farther out of the water.
* Take a piss before going into the basket. Really. Holding it for two hours on the chopper sucks.
* Don't be afraid to ask the coasties for help. That's their job. I scored a ride home!
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