Vintage Bay Woodie Sinks in South Pacific

Sad news reached us from the South Pacific late last week: The vintage Farallone Clipper Echo had to be abandoned in open water between Fiji and New Caledonia after she hit an unknown object on January 26. Owner Rob Lehman, who was singlehanding south to Australia at the time, initially thought he might be able to sail 300 miles to reach shelter at New Caledonia before Echo foundered, but had no such luck. He was eventually rescued from his liferaft by local SAR (Search and Rescue) assets.

As he explained in detail in a recent blog post, "There was now ankle-deep saltwater inside the cabin as I rushed around to diagnose the problem. Soon I found that an interior support stay had broken. Echo, as with most old wooden boats, tended to leak at her seams when she was beating upwind. To help remedy this problem she had strengthening stays that ran from the base of the mast up to the chainplates. Her port side stay was broken, and I needed to fix it before I sank in the middle of the night. Over the next four hours (from 3-7 a.m.) I switched back and forth between pumping and mending the stay before I had it cinched up tight. Echo was barely leaking anymore, and I went to sleep with the cabin sole dry and the bilge pump barely running."

But it was only a temporary fix. Eventually the traditional cotton and oakum caulking began to loosen, and Echo took on more and more water. Plus the pump needed constant tending due to becoming clogged by bits of cotton and debris. The solo sailor’s satphone was useless, having fallen onto the flooded cabin floor, and the tillerpilot failed also, causing Lehman to rig an old-school sheet-to-tiller steering system. Finally, after two nights of struggling with almost no sleep, he accepted that he was fighting a lost cause. Lehman, who bought the boat a year ago in Alameda from longtime owner Jack Coulter, activated his EPIRB on January 29.

Echo was one of only 19 Farallon Clippers built by Stephens Brothers Boat Builders in Stockton between the 1930s and early ’60s. Several still race actively on the Bay. This bright-hulled 38-footer was launched in 1955, according to de facto fleet historian Bill Belmont (owner of the FC Credit).

As those who sailed aboard Echo during her half century on the Bay now mourn her loss, we’re reminded of an item that every South Pacific cruiser should keep in his/her nav station: A (nearly-)comprehensive list of Pacific Basin SAR contacts. You’ll find it on our Pacific Puddle Jump website.