Warriors Wish Loses Her Keel

A little after two weeks and more than halfway into his passage back to San Francisco after completing the Singlehanded TransPac, Ronnie Simpson reports that the keel on Warrior’s Wish fell off Wednesday night. "All is not well aboard the good ship Warrior’s Wish," Simpson wrote on his website yesterday. "Unfortunately, the keel broke off of the boat last night. Fortunately, it didn’t take part of the hull with it, so we are not taking on water."

Owned by SHTP vet Don Gray and loaned to Simpson for the race, Warrior’s Wish is a Jutson 30 that was built for ocean racing and has done a lot of it. Simpson reportedly dived on the boat yesterday morning expecting to see the keel sans bulb, but says the entire keel has gone AWOL. "I don’t know any details but assume the bolts broke at the hull-keel joint," Gray told us.

In the meantime, Simpson and his crewmember, Ed McCoy, are motoring toward the Bay — they received a 50 gallon fuel drop from a passing container ship — and are on a two-hour comm sked with the Coast Guard. "Life raft and ditch bag are in the cockpit, on the ready, in case the boat capsizes," Simpson said. "We are doing everything in our power to get this boat back to California."

Knowing a little about Ronnie’s levels of determination and fortitude, we have little doubt that, if it’s at all possible, he’ll do just that.