Show Boat Abandoned off Monterey

With Strictly Sail Pacific only a week away, several new vessels have been, or are currently being, delivered to the Bay Area from distant ports. Sadly, one of them will be late to the party: a brand new Beneteau Oceanis 55 that was slated to make its West Coast debut at the show.

Although some details are still sketchy, while the big sloop was northbound Friday afternoon, roughly 17 miles off the Central California coast and 60 miles south of Monterey, the two-man delivery crew found eight inches of water in the bilge, and the level was rising rapidly. They reported having "performed all of the water-tight protocols" but could not find the source of what they perceived to be incoming water, so they decided to call in a mayday to the Coast Guard at about 4:40 p.m. Conditions were rough, with 20- to 25-knot winds and 6- to 8-ft seas.

CG vessels were sent out from both Station Monterey and Station Morro Bay, and Air Station San Francisco dispatched a rescue helicopter whose crew hoisted the delivery crew to safety without further incident at about 6:40 p.m. 

There’s more good news, which will hopefully lead to a happy ending. Although the Coast Guard initially reported that, "The sailboat was not salvageable due to the amount of flooding," the luxurious Beneteau evidently did not sink. Late Sunday afternoon, it was spotted by a fishing vessel whose crew recorded its coordinates. Passage Yachts, the long-established Bay Area yacht sales business that had planned to display the boat at Strictly Sail, is currently implementing a plan to retrieve the brand new sailboat.