Moore 24 Dismasted in Coastal Cup

We’ve written about Karl Robrock and Gilles Combrisson numerous times over the past several years. The duo has experienced some legendary adventures — and success — onboard Karl’s Moore 24 Snafu, but surely nothing could have prepared them for what happened to them Monday night and Tuesday. During a windy Coastal Cup from Monterey to Santa Barbara — the kind of race that keeps them coming back time and again with the Moore 24 — Karl and Gilles dismasted.

Making a distress call to the Coast Guard at around 9:15 Monday night, while roughly 30 miles west-northwest of Morro Bay, the doublehanders were reportedly "beset by weather and a fouled mast," per the Coast Guard report. A 47-ft Motor Life Boat was launched  from Morro Bay to render assistance, but it was determined that the weather was too hazardous to conduct a safe tow of Snafu into the harbor. The following morning, Karl and Gilles were airlifted to safety by a Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew, which took them to San Luis Obispo Airport. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

Snafu was recovered and towed to Morro Bay on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully this whole experience proves to be just a little ‘snafu’ for the well-campaigned Moore 24, which has tasted victory in the Pacific Cup race to Hawaii.

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Snafu wasn’t the only boat to sustain major damage due to the nuking northwesterly breeze, as John Gallagher’s Gunboat 62 Chim Chim broke a rudder about 35 miles from Morro Bay and withdrew from the race. Chim Chim was able to make it to Santa Barbara under her own power.

Joel Ronning’s Santa Cruz 70 Catapult claimed line honors and a divisional win, while John Shulze’s SC50 Horizon and Rodney Pimentel’s Cal 40 Azure also claimed division victories in a revitalized Coastal Cup that is part of the second edition of the California Offshore Race Week. We’ll have more coverage of the CORW in a future ‘Lecronic, as well as a full recap in the July issue of Latitude 38.