We Can See Both Sides
On November 5, four days after leaving San Diego on what was to be a two-year circumnavigation, singlehander Dennis Howard was taken off his San Diego-based Flicka 20 Avalo by the crew of the 378-ft Coast Guard vessel Mellon, and his boat was left to drift. Howard has now filed a claim against the Coast Guard for $150,000 in damages, part of it being the loss of his boat — and most of his earthly possessions — which haven’t been seen since.
It is a complicated situation. The decision to force Howard, a former health care executive, to leave his boat rested on the shoulders of the Executive Officer of the Mellon. The Coast Guard says that in such a situation, it’s the responsibility of the commanding officer of the cutter to assess the overall situation — from the sea state to what he knew about the boat — to determine if it was a life-threatening situation. If it was, he was obligated to declare it a "manifestly unsafe voyage" and have Howard taken off the boat.
Some of the things that might have swayed the Executive Officer’s decision is that Howard, 62, is legally blind as a result of an illness. Significantly, the Coast Guard was there with a 378-footer from San Diego because some of Howard’s friends, responding to what Howard apparently had described as an emergency in a phone call, had called them. In addition, Howard was on a mere 20-ft boat, the boom’s gooseneck had broken in a storm the night before, he’d lost the use of his small outboard, and there was another strong storm approaching.
Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that the Coast Guard made the correct decision, they should consider the other side of the story. Howard claims that he’s been a sailor for 30 years. A number of other legally blind people have made remarkable passages. For example, Hank Dekker did the ’86 Singlehanded TransPac in a Laser 28 named Outta Sight, and Scott Duncan and Pam Habek, both of whom are legally blind, did the Ha-Ha and sailed their Valiant 32 Tournesol all the way to Australia. Howard was aboard a Flicka 20, a little brick shithouse of a boat as opposed to some lightly built daysailer. The fact that the boat no longer had a motor nor a useable mainsail should have been irrelevant, because there was plenty of sea room, and eventually Howard would be sailing downwind. Once the storm passed, he would no doubt have been able to jury rig his main. Howard had also prepared for the upcoming storm, having deployed a storm anchor. Lastly, although he had an EPIRB, he apparently didn’t set it off. Those are a lot of arguments for his contention that he should have been allowed to stay with his boat.
As we said, it was a difficult situation. The Executive Officer probably doesn’t know the different between a Flicka 20 and a lightly-built Clipper Marine 20, and likely had no idea whether the little boat was suitable for such weather. Then, too, he was in no position to evaluate Howard’s ability to see. Can you imagine the uproar — and lawsuit — that would have followed if Howard had been allowed to stay with his boat and was never seen again? Or how such a decision might have haunted the Executive Officer for the rest of his life?
We also understand Howard’s point of view. This voyage had no doubt given purpose to his life. An apparently experienced sailor with a seaworthy boat, he hadn’t declared a mayday or set off his EPIRB. And there was no reason to expect that once the next storm had passed, he couldn’t easily continue on to a Baja anchorage under jib and/or jury-rigged main.
Howard’s complaint is that he never got to talk to the decision-maker, and that he didn’t even know why they were on his boat until they started shouting at him to get off the boat.
We don’t have all the itty-bitty details, but given the basic story, we’d like to hear if you think the Coast Guard’s decision was correct or not, why, and who you think will win the lawsuit. Please keep your answers short and to the point.