Crew Overboard Drama in Delta Ditch Run

On the Chris White Explorer 44 trimaran Caliente, we were doing well and pushing hard in the Delta Ditch Run on Saturday, June 8, chasing the smaller F-25c trimaran Soarin in 16-18 knots of wind, with similar boat speeds, when Caliente lost a crew member overboard.

We had done countless very smooth jibes in the race by that point. However, just after the big turn in the river after the Antioch Bridge, we had re-hoisted the spinnaker, and we were in the middle of a starboard to port jibe near red marker 36, when a gust hit us. The spinnaker sheet loaded up suddenly, and one of our crew members, who had their hands on the sheet at the time, got flung overboard.

The Bay Area Multihull Association has done many live crew overboard training events (we try to do one each year). It’s exactly for this purpose. Not everybody on board had participated in those training events, but we had talked through the crew overboard recovery procedure in detail with everybody as part of the standard safety briefing on board, and everybody pretty much knew what we needed to do. This was the first “real” crew overboard situation on my boat, and the crew reacted well. We got the asymmetric spinnaker down quickly, started the motor, turned upwind, and started approaching our overboard crew member.

Just as we were making our approach, we saw a Melges 24 that was heading for a jibe in the same spot. We used our air horn to sound several warning signals. The crew on the Melges offered to stand by, which was much appreciated, but we felt like we had the situation under control, and told them to continue racing. The crew of the F-31 trimaran Waterwings hailed us on the radio and also offered to stand by to help.

We motored up from downwind, got alongside (starboard side to), and managed to get our crew member back on board on the first try! A few things that helped:

• Everyone on board was wearing a PFD. The PFD inflated just as it should, providing flotation and a bright yellow target, making it easy to spot our overboard crew member.
• We had a crew of six in this race, so even with the overboard crew member, we had five people left on board to help bring down the spinnaker, get the boat turned around, and help get our overboard crew member back on board. With a couple of people pulling, we were able to quickly get our overboard crew member back on board simply by pulling them up, without needing to deploy the hoisting tackle.
• We had warm and flat water, so no issues with hypothermia, and it was easy to see our overboard crew member. The boat was stable and not bucking in waves when we came alongside.
• We were well ahead of much of the Delta Ditch Run fleet, so there was not a huge amount of traffic around us when this happened.

A few things that could have been improved:

• We never got around to deploying any of our crew overboard gear, including not deploying our crew overboard module. That was a definite miss, but turned out to not be a huge issue here, as we could easily spot our overboard crew member. However, this would have been very important if had there been waves. Distances increase quickly at these speeds with the spinnaker up.
• I should have immediately asked somebody to just point at the person in the water, so as to not lose sight of them. One of my crew took on this role on their own initiative.
• We were in an awkward spot for the recovery, right next to that fixed mark, only about 15 feet away from the mark when we had our crew member back on board. It would have been better if we had not jibed so close to the mark.

Unfortunately, our drama was not quite over when we got our crew member back on board. In the midst of the scramble to recover our overboard crew member, a button on the control panel for the autopilot somehow got pressed. As we turned downwind, we found that the wheel was completely stuck at full lock to starboard. After a few wild 360s near that fixed mark, we finally got the boat into the wind in irons, deployed the anchor, and got our mainsail down. We thought maybe we had gotten a line wrapped around the rudder during the recovery, but when we dove on the rudder, we found nothing wrong. After investigating further, we found that the autopilot was holding the rudder at full lock!

Our race was over at that point, so we resumed with an easy cruise the rest of the way to Stockton Sailing Club for the party. I’m very proud of my crew and how they responded. Crew overboard events are stressful, particularly in breeze with the spinnaker up. Training “for real” is very important, and with more than just a fender and bucket. It’s very different to recover a real crew member from the water than some random object. And we were glad that we were not shorthanded when this happened!

Editor’s footnotes about the multihulls in the 2024 Delta Ditch Run:

• Waterwings, an F-31 trimaran, ran aground twice and had to drop out.
• Papillon, an F-27 trimaran, actually capsized. Fleet members and other boaters overheard the Coast Guard response on VHF. Truls reports that “It’s rare to have a capsize, but they do happen. Fortunately, they were able to right Papillon again on Saturday, soon after the capsize. It looks as if the damage to the boat may be lighter than one might expect.”
• Soarin, the F-25c, had a much more successful day, finishing first and winning the Multihull Division.
• All of the multihulls were BAMA-rated trimarans. No beach cats participated this year.

Read more about the Delta Ditch Run in the July issue of Latitude 38, coming out on Monday, July 1.