Ka-Em-Te Makes it to Hawaii

Regular readers will remember the story of Doug Merrell and Trish Kelsoe of the Buccaneer 30 Ka-Em-Te. At the end of June, the couple, along with Doug’s sons as crew, were sailing the clipper route from Mexico, where they’d lived aboard and cruised for three years, back to Oregon so Doug could have better access to cancer treatment. Ka-Em-Te‘s steering failed after hitting a submerged object, and the boat was taking on water slowly, so Doug and Trish made the tough decision to abandon their boat and board a Chinese freighter that delivered them to Hawaii. Trish said her biggest regret was forgetting to cut a water line so the boat would sink quickly. "I hate to think she may have been a hazard to navigation even for a short time," Trish said at the time.

Maybe providence had other things in mind for the little boat — or as Doug and Trish call her, "The Little Boat That Would Not Die." Last week we got an email from the couple reporting that Ka-Em-Te had been found 800 miles off Hawaii and had been towed to port. She was dismasted and has water over the floorboards but is relatively intact.

"We really don’t know any more yet but we’ll be flying to Honolulu soon to get our stuff," explained Doug. "The marine salvor is going to let us stay on his boat while we pack up our personal gear and, due to my condition, is even going to have one of his crew help us. He’s going to store the boxes in his warehouse until we can arrange shipping for it all. He just wants to help a fellow boater and help keep our cost down."

We hope to have a full report of what Doug and Trish found on Ka-Em-Te in the October issue of Latitude 38.