Lifesdream
Is Found!
November 19 – Oahu, HI
Here’s a wild sea story with an improbable
but hopeful ending. In 1989, Harvey Owens, then 35, started what
would be 10 years of work finishing off a Stan Huntingford 54
hull in Everett, Washington. Then two years ago, he and two friends
sailed the ‘Seahawk 54’ to Hawaii, where he took up residence
with his wife Krista and her then 9-year-old daughter Taysia
at Ko Olina Marina on Oahu.
The real drama started in May 2 of this year, when the three
of them took off for California to begin what was to be the start
of a two-year cruise. Alas, they got clobbered by a severe three-day
storm. They lay ahull on the 17th, and when they awoke on the
18th, the rudder shaft had broken and a line had gotten into
the prop. At 4 p.m. on May 20, while 585 miles from San Francisco,
they abandoned
their boat and were taken aboard a ship. For a man who had spent
10 years of hard work on the boat, and for a family that “have
the sea in our blood,” it was devastating. What made it
worse, said Krista, is that the Coast Guard asked their buddyboat
to backtrack 17 miles to help. The skipper reportedly said it
was too rough and continued on.
Just before they left the boat, Lifesdream,
Krista took a black marker and wrote the following on a bulkhead:
“If found, please contact us at 808-277-5953 or 808-389-3111.
Take what you want, but leave us our home.”
Photo Courtesy Rob Coleman
“Never in a million years did we think
we’d see our boat again,” said Krista. “And for Harvey,
not having a boat was like not having a life.” The only
small indication that they retained any hope of seeing the boat
again was that they decided to keep the same Hawaii telephone
numbers until the end of the year. Unable to live without a boat,
Harvey and Krista bought a Fuji 45 ketch in Samoa. On October
27, Harvey and three men from the Ko Olina set sail on her for
Hawaii via Penrhyn and Christmas Islands. Krista, along with
her daughter, remained at home in Washington.
On November 8, Krista got the call from
the Coast Guard. One of their aircraft had spotted Lifesdream
adrift 90 miles south of Maui! She couldn’t believe it. When
Harvey called Krista from Penrhyn the next day, he couldn’t believe
it either. “It had been so emotional,” said Krista,
“that he was in a state of shock. He couldn’t believe he
was going to get his home back.”
But it wouldn’t be easy. For one thing,
Harvey was in no position to help. Secondly, the Coast Guard
couldn’t continue to monitor the position of the boat. So as
each day passed, the last known position became more out of date.
It fell to Krista, back in Washington, to organize a posse to
try to recover the boat. Mike Christie, a shipwright, fisherman,
and good friend of the couple’s from their two
years at the Ko Olina, was kind enough to spearhead the effort.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to come up with a boat and crew
for a week, by which time searching for Lifesdream would
have been like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.
In a story turn that even Hollywood would
reject as too improbable, on November 18 the Coast Guard called
Mike Christie to report that Lifesdream had been spotted
drifting just 14 miles from the Ko Olina Marina! So in two days
less than six months from the time she’d been abandoned 585 miles
from San Francisco, the ketch had managed to find her way back
to within 14 miles of where she had started the passage from!
Lifesdream was taken in tow by the skipper of the fishing
boat Mazeltov and brought to the Marisco Boatyard at Barber’s
Point. Harvey and Krista are naturally concerned that someone
might try to claim salvage rights on the vessel, but Fred of
Marisco told Christie that there would only be the normal charges
for the tow, getting the water out of the boat, and berthing.
While Krista hasn’t seen the boat yet, she’s been told that both
the main and mizzen masts are gone, and that the engine was immersed
in water. The elevated main salon wasn’t in bad shape, and the
aft cabin is just as they had left it.
With Harvey still 1,100 sailing miles from
Oahu, Krista in Washington until later this month, and the value
of Lifesdream yet to be determined, the family’s future
is uncertain. They had already gotten a berth for the Fuji 45
in Dana Point starting in June, and were going to make it their
home. But suddenly it looks as though they’re about to become
a two-boat family.
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