CLOSE CALLS

Sharing the hard-learned lessons from near disasters at sea, and how you can be better prepared 

- BY CAPT. KARL ANDERSON

There is never a good time for bad things to happen, but if you've been on the ocean long enough, stuff is bound to happen. What you do under pressure, how you handle the situation, and what you take from those lessons moving forward will either serve you well, or they could end your career.

LESSON 1: SINKING

Back in the early 1990s, my friend and deckhand Capt. Barry Robinson and I were on our way back to Florida from San Salvador in the Bahamas. We were reaching for Highbourne Cay with about 20 miles to go in the very deep Exuma Sound. It was nearing the end of our maiden trip on the then-new-to-us 1971 45-foot Rybovich Brier Patch.

Having recently passed survey, we were just getting to know the boat during the trip and liked what we had. Over time, we planned to continue the improvements that the previous owner had begun, focusing on the mechanical aspects of the boat because the cosmetics were in pretty good shape.

Our first-day run was slated to be a relatively easy one. After getting the boat's owner off to the airport that morning, we headed out for a roughly 140-mile run to Highbourne Cay. There was a slight breeze out of the southwest with a 2- to 3-foot sea and an occasionally larger set, but all in all, pretty good traveling weather. As the late-afternoon sun dropped, we felt the boat getting heavy and sluggish, so I pulled back the throttles and had Robinson hold the wheel while I ran below, hoping to find a stuck float switch on a bilge pump.