Being stranded at sea is one of the worst fears of any boater.
When it happens in the middle of a storm it becomes a nightmare.
And a sailboat crew went through hell to survive this insane disaster in a hurricane.
Damaged sailboat crew rescued after surviving a hurricane
Sailor Nathan Thomas and his friend, Adrian, traveled to Marathon, Florida in the Keys to pick up a 34-foot sailboat he bought for $5,000.
Hurricane Debby was headed toward Florida, but Thomas thought that he could sail home to the Tampa area in time before the storm hit.
That ended up being a nearly fatal mistake for the 69-year-old.
“The storm came across faster than I anticipated. I knew it was there, but I thought I could beat it,” Thomas told ABC News. “I played the cards and guess what? I gambled wrong. I lost that hand.”
Adrian, a retired Merchant Marine, was not accustomed to operating that type of racing sailboat.
A hard turn caused a cable to snap rendering the main sail inoperable.
“You can’t panic. That’s the last thing you can do,” Thomas explained. “If s**t goes wrong, maintain it. Be in control. Even though it goes wrong and stuff, you still have to maintain what’s going on. The minute you panic, it’s over for you.”
The sailboat was adrift in the Gulf of Mexico 35 miles northwest of Clearwater, Florida.
And Hurricane Debby was making its way toward the Gulf Coast.
Turbulent 20-foot waves were crashing into the boat.
Thomas described it as “like being in a washing machine.”
The Coast Guard comes to the rescue
Thomas missed a scheduled check-in time with one of his friends on shore.
That friend called the Coast Guard who began a search and rescue operation.
And Thomas managed to radio into them for help too.
“I knew that if the Coast Guard didn’t get to us, we had less than a 50% chance of surviving,” Thomas stated. “I knew that.”
Florida Coast Guard District Seven Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hooper said that Thomas’ friend made all the difference in the rescue mission.
“Some of the most important factors in any rescue case is accurate information and safety equipment,” Hooper said. “We received an updated satellite position from the boaters’ friend, which led us to them being successfully located.”
The sailboat was found in 60-mile-per-hour winds and choppy water from Hurricane Debby.
A Coast Guard plane located them, and a helicopter was sent in to retrieve them from the damaged vessel.
“The fixed-wing found us and circled us until the helicopter snatched us out of the water,” Thomas said.
Thomas made the painful decision to sink his new sailboat before he was rescued.
“I scuttled my own boat is what I did,” Thomas explained. “I’m not going to have my boat run ashore in some protected area.”
The veteran sailor said that he never thought that he would have to be rescued.
“When I was rescued, I told the Coast Guard, ‘I never thought I’d be rescued by you guys,” Thomas recalled. “I’ve been through too many storms, and this storm actually got me.'”
But that harrowing ordeal is not going to stop him from getting back on the water.
“I’m getting another boat, trust me,” Thomas said.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
