Adventuress Grounding & Salvage at Bell Rock

Location via InstaMapper, click to enlarge.

Double your pleasure, double your fun - pull on two halyards, instead of just one.

I've got a strain on her.

Victoria Clipper Lookie Loos

Low Water

Our other vessels work to stabilize Adventuress

Former student, Capt. Jay Roberts, stopped by en route to Stuart Island.

Capt. Hobbs, on the Soundwatch Vessel Stops to offer assistance.

Free at last, Free at last...thank God Almighty...

SV Adventuress is a Northwest icon. She is a 95 year old 130' gaff rigged schooner. You can find out more about her at the Sound Experience website, here.

The grounding took place at Bell Rock N 48 35.8 W 122 58.7 at the East end of Wasp Passage, just east of Belle Island.

While there will be lots of speculation about the incident, the Coast Guard will conduct a formal investigation, that answers all of the questions. I received several calls from reporters, the vessels operator, et. al. what happened. Fortunately in a prior life I did a fair amount of media relations work. As a result I was able to give the facts that I knew, without additional spin. The fact is that she grounded and we got her off the rock.

The call came in about 11:50. Knowing the vessel and state of the tide, I made our best speed of about 25kts, (against the current) and arrived on scene about 12:12. The ferry Sealth, had launched its rescue boat. A Coast Guard inspector was aboard Sealth for quarterly inspections, and was placed aboard Adventuress. He stayed throughout the incident and I took him to catch the 18:55 ferry back to Anacortes.

Bell Rock is well marked by a lighted green day marker (#5.) As I arrived Adventuress was healed over about 10 degrees and the tide was still receding to about -.7 at 14:35. There were several boats on scene. I requested that the passengers and non essential crew be moved to the ferry. Several local boats assisted. Also on scene was the Sheriff's vessel Guardian. Former graduate, and Sheriff of San Juan County, Capt. Bill Cumming was at the helm.

Upon arriving I took a halyard from the main mast to put a stain on the boat. About 12 minutes later, my partner, Capt. Bill West aboard Salvation arrived and took a halyard from the fore mast. We lost precious minutes early on, in that passengers we still disembarking and the crew was working to re-rig the halyards so as not to damage the topmasts. Both rescue boats at that point could not make the halyard pull work. We called for back up. Capt. Les Soland arrived in A1's tug, Badger. Our other support vessel, a Raider, arrived with pumps, a diver and crew. It was determined that the hull had not been breached. None the less, we placed pumps in the holds just in case.

As the tide rose, we placed on tug on the stern of Adventuress and on tug at each halyard. At about 16:30 she came off Bell Rock. We escorted Adventuress to Friday Harbor for an additional underwater inspection. The CG suspended Adventuress's Certificate of Inspection until she's hauled out at Port Townsend sometime today.

It is important to note that this was a team effort. Our entire A1 Marine Services crew, consisting of four boats, four captains, and three crew made it happen.

I had about 6.5 hours in the job.

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There was lots of media coverage on this one. (there's video on the TV sites)

KOMO 4 TV

KING 5 TV

KIRO 7 TV

Peninsula Daily News
Seattle Times
Seattle PI

Lots more on Google News

This from WoodenBoat.com forum:

Capt. Richard Rodriguez, a vessel assist captain based out of Friday Harbor, was called out to help pull the Adventuress off the rocks.

He has a great blog called the BitterEnd. He put up a couple photos earlier today ... I expect he'll have a full report later.

Incidentally, the Bitter End is one of my favorite blogs. Every time he gets sent out on a call, he'll take a photo of the boat that he's towing ... then explain how the boater screwed up. Very educational. Sometimes very harsh. And almost always deserved.

While on scene, I got this message from BitterEnd reader Andre: the incident being covered on CNN Headline News:

I just saw this on CNN headline news! It made the national news, congratulations! They had an aerial shot with a view of you pulling both halyards. They made it seem quite spectacular. When I saw the vessel assist boat, I knew it was you captain!

My buddy Tim Flanagan over at Navagear covered the incident, here.

This came in from the folks at InstaMapper:

Hi Richard,

Saw your boat on King 5 news today, congrats.

I noticed that on your blog you have to explain the format of coordinates. You can now choose between ddd.ddddd, ddd mm.mmm, and ddd mm ss.s. The setting is on the "edit device" page.

Andrey

(Ed. note: We'll be sure to do follow ups as they occur. I'm off today and tomorrow for a short cruise aboard Diligence. There's a short post scheduled for tomorrow morning.)