Ocean Signal EPIRB1 Rescue Saves Four Sailors

What happened?

We were en route from St. Croix to Khema, Texas, on a beautiful January morning. I was sailing with my brother and two other crewmen, and Navionics showed that there was plenty of water beneath the keel along our planned route.

Unfortunately, the submerged rocks we struck seemed not to have received that information.

The impact breached the hull, and water began entering the boat faster than the four of us could bail it out. It quickly became clear that we could not keep pace with the flooding. We deployed the life raft, abandoned the boat and took our Ocean Signal EPIRB 1 with us, the same EPIRB I had purchased shortly before beginning the voyage.

We were approximately 100 miles north of the Dominican Republic, but after activating the EPIRB, a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft was circling overhead in less than 20 minutes.

The Coast Guard coordinated our rescue with a nearby Dominican fishing boat, whose crew picked us up from the life raft. We were then transferred to an American-flagged container ship, which carried all four of us safely home.

Buying that EPIRB before setting out proved to be an incredibly important decision. When the boat was taking on water and we had no choice but to abandon it, it gave us a direct way to alert rescuers and helped bring assistance to our position remarkably quickly.

Words of wisdom

While we had a few instances of Navionics running at the time, it may have been good to have at least one other source of chart/navigation information running. Also, SO important to go over this kind of procedure with the crew before getting underway.

Thank you note to the Ocean Signal team

Thanks for designing and building such an incredible lifesaving device. When it really must work… it really does work!