Navy crew rescues lone sailor left adrift after storm

NORFOLK

The crew of the destroyer Gonzalez rescued a lone sailor aboard a storm-damaged sailboat Saturday after the man drifted for four days about 200 miles off the Virginia coast.

Sailors spent about six hours aboard and under the 56-foot sailboat Gypsy Dane repairing the rudder and hacking away line from a fouled shaft and screw. The ship was piloted by a 64-year old Canadian sailor bound for Charleston, S.C. The Navy declined to name the civilian.

"He had plenty of food and water," said Cmdr. Brian Fort, captain of the destroyer, in a ship-to-shore interview. But, he said, "He had been bobbing in the ocean for up to four days."

The Gonzalez is in the middle of two weeks of training in the Atlantic.

About 9:30 a.m. Saturday, the 500-foot guided missile destroyer passed a merchant shipping vessel. The civilian ship alerted the Navy to a sailboat in distress about 10 miles away. The sailboat had limited communications and no power, Fort said.

The Gonzalez reached the boat about an hour later and sent eight sailors in a small craft to assess and fix the problems, he said. The sailors arrived to find the sailboat rocking and rolling in 10-foot swells. A storm earlier in the week had damaged the two-masted ship.

The rudder had been taken apart, with some of its pieces badly broken, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Kokos, 23, an engineman sent to make repairs. It was "a big giant mess," he said.

The Gonzalez sailors built new parts and overhauled the rudder, he said.

Underneath the boat, a line had twisted 40 to 50 times around the propeller and shaft. Rescue swimmer Thomas McCabe and another sailor spent an hour cutting away the line. Holding on to the boat in the rough seas was difficult, said McCabe, 23, a petty officer second class.

Added Kokos, "That was the first time I ever felt queasy on a boat."

The repairs took about six hours. The Coast Guard cutter Seneca arrived just as the sailors finished up. The Coast Guard crew checked with the sailor and deemed him fit to continue to Charleston, Fort said.

The rescue was an unusual mission for the warship, but the crew was well prepared for it, he said. "It's one of the responsibilities we take very seriously," he said.

The Gonzalez will continue its training mission, Fort said. It returned in August from a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean.

Louis Hansen, (757) 446-2322, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com