Grounded at Cape May Point

[MQMurphy]

Hello, all -
Here is an excerpt from my diary about a recent grounding at CMP State Park. I've got no cruising experience, but hope to go on short cruises when I complete the overhaul of my project boat. I'll also add a link to another local paper article about Sid and his boat.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Well . . . lots happening in the last week and a half. There was an article in the AC Press a couple of weeks ago about a sailboat running aground out at CMP State Park. There was a picture of this guy on his boat ?Strange Bird? with a homeport of Berkeley, California. The skipper?s name was Sid Walton, and he?d bought the boat in Lewes, Delaware last spring. After a summer of preparing the boat he set out on the 28th of November on his shakedown cruise before departing for California by way of the Panama Canal and the Galapagos Islands. While out in the shipping lanes the wind died out and he found that his engine wouldn?t start. The current brought him into the ?rips? off of Cape May Point and he became grounded around 1:00 AM. Local sailors will all give different opinions on what Sid did ?wrong?, but the bottom line is that they weren?t there ? he was. This is a 30? motorsailer ketch, an English-built Fisher. Perhaps not a simple boat to single-hand.

When I first heard about the grounding I wanted to go down and see the boat. I?ll have to look at a calendar to get the chronology straightened out, but after a few days I was curious about how the guy was doing ? was he staying on the boat? We?re getting the usual December swings from balmy to frigid. I guess another newspaper article appeared about then that mentioned that he was staying at a motel up in the CMCH area and that his plan to get towed off to resume his voyage had been postponed while he got a determination about a hole in the hull. A couple of days later I went down to the beach to see what was up and found him at the boat along with a couple of guys who were part of a salvage crew helping him to get his personal items and some equipment off the boat. I think that it had become clear that the hole in the hull was not repairable, at least not where the boat lay, and the skipper was working things out with his insurance company to declare the boat a total loss. I lent a hand moving things to a waiting rented truck, and in the process I made the acquaintance of the skipper and offered him a place to stay if he needed it. He had moved from the Hyland Motel up in Courthouse down to the Victorian Motel in Cape May, where they were offering him a special rate of $40 a night until the weekend. He accepted my offer of a place to stay, and while I drove him through town I tried to explain that while I was curious about his story, I hoped he wouldn?t feel that I found entertainment value in his predicament. A few of my friends in town are daysailors and I think we?re all a little in awe of people who embark on adventurous cruises.

http://www.capemaytimes.com/life-in-cap ... ilboat.htm

I'll continue this post over the next couple of days.