UNBELIEVABLE 1 of 3

My sailboat capsized.

The story:
Saturday was going to be sunny with 8-10mph winds ENE. So I figured a great day to go out to Looe key about 5 miles out in the Atlantic. Around 2-3pm the wind would start blowing from the WNW, good wind to come in on and I was going to sleep on the boat just south of big pine at a place called the coral heads, about 4-5 miles west of the boat ramp. Clear all night, but around 8 am a storm would blow in from the west blowing at about 20 mph.

The plan was to wake up at sunrise, eat a grape fruit, run with the wind all the way home. Everything went perfect until about 8:00 am, rain started to fall. I was running with the wind with just my jib sail, the front small sail. The wind started blowing CRAZY hard, (later found out 37mph with larger gust) I've never seen it like that before. My sailboat was skipping across the water. It felt like I was on a wind surfer. It was excitingly scary. The boat was going faster than the waves and the bow was slamming into the waves in front of the boat and it was causing the bow to nose dive under water to the point it felt like the whole boat will flip over.

It was way too much action! So I popped the jib loose to take the force off the boat. The jib was flapping violently and the boat was starting to flip with all the wind blowing against the mast and the flapping sail. I FROZE at the unbelievable situation happening in front of my eyes. I leaned hard on the high side of the boat and it stabilized for a few seconds. The brain kicked back in and I tried to turn the boat into the wind. I pushed the tiller as hard as I could away from me and as the boat turned it also heeled over and CAPSIZED!

I had on 2 jackets and nylon paints, because it was about 60 degrees and the water was cold, so it made maneuvering around the boat very difficult. I was completely unprepared for a capsize. nothing was tied down and all the hatches were loose. Never dreamed of capsizing while running with the wind using just my small jib sail.

I tried to turn it back over, but the rope attached to the top of my mast was wrapped around the mast to keep it from flapping in the wind. I managed to secure a lot of stuff to the boat. and realized I was about a half mile from shore and I felt sure that nobody could see me. I had a radio in my dry box, but my dry box was now tied off in the cab and that was in the water getting slammed by waves.

Moment of decision! Wait on the boat and drift out to sea, or try to make it to shore swimming against the wind. I realized then that this is serious. The number of things that could go deadly wrong are increasing faster than my brain can think about them. I don't want my wife to be a widow and my boy never knowing me. I made the decision to swim for it. The thought of waiting to be rescued didn't appeal to the survivor side of me.

I grabbed my big dry bag and dry box, they both were floating really good. I attached them together and put on my life vest and started swimming. I got about 50 yards from the boat and thought about the current. PANIC! Is it going out or in? I'm right in the middle of the fastest current channel in the keys. 50/50 chance on not so easy swim or floating in the water until good or bad happens. I kept swimming and realized it must be going in because I'm a pretty good distance from the boat.

I don't know how long I swam, but I got to shore a little past 9 am. I walked to the Big Pine Fishing Lodge, along the coral beach, which was painful. I went into the office and asked if I could have some coffee. I didn't know what else to say. They asked me if I was in the sailboat that capsized. I said yes! They had called the coastguard, and they said they would send either a boat or a helicopter, but nobody had heard anything from them and I didn't see nothing. She called them back and another lady got me some coffee and some towels.

The rest is pretty much small talk and will come out later. A friend of mine that works for FWC found my boat and drug it about 40yards from shore after taking me home. I got to go assess the damage and try to save my camera and GPS.