Food, Booze, Sails & Safety Gear Aren’t Enough

You need some common sense, too.

“We’ve got plenty of food, plenty of booze, good sails and all the safety gear you could ever need, so we’re going to be OK,” Jason McGlashan told the Newport (Rhode Island) Daily News before he and his dad Reg took off from Conanicut Marina in Jamestown, Rhode Island last Friday on what they expected to be a six-to-eight-week passage to 8,600-mile-distant Port Macquarie, Australia. They would be sailing aboard Jason’s 43-ft Sedona, which he had recently purchased on eBay for just $10,000.

What possibly could go wrong?

If old man McGlashan is as quick a study as his son claims, he now knows that setting sail into a snowstorm isn’t such a good idea, what with having to be rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter team on Sunday after abandoning his son’s boat. Having to swim for one’s life in 43° ocean water tends to sharpen a person’s thinking.

Father and son had made it 150 miles from Nantucket — about 1/57th of their proposed trip — when they called the Coast Guard for help, as strong winds and big seas in the height of a snowstorm had combined to disable their engine and shred their sails.

Ignoring 55-knot winds, huge seas and lightning, a Coast Guard helicopter crew dutifully flew out to the Sedona, where a Coast Guard rescue swimmer jumped into the water to help the hapless McGlashans to the helicopter and safety.

We’re struggling to decide which is more unbelievable, the McGlashans’ proposed voyage or the balls of the Coast Guard rescue swimmer who jumped into the ocean in such inhospitable conditions.