What the heck happened here? --Georgs Although I am in the Coast Guard Auxiliary, all of my following statements are speculation made as a private citizen, and in no way should be construed as official Coast Guard statements. I gained all my information from published information found on the internet. This is from the KSRO am radio station website: "The three were asleep that Friday night and were awakened by water coming in the boat, Hawkins said. "Once we were awake and saw what happened, it flipped over in one minute," Phillips told the Chronicle. "Then us country boys went into survival mode. That's all we could do."" My thoughts: Courageous and very lucky guys. The odds were certainly heavily stacked against them surviving. The TV website article didn't identify the boat. We can only speculate about the source of the initial flooding. Fishing power catamaran? 23 feet? The Coast Guard news release indicated that it was a 'center console' catamaran. Could that be one of those sexy 'flats fishing boats' with large motors (found 180 miles offshore!) and very little freeboard for open ocean? Or, perhaps there was higher freeboard and a cut out transom for outboards, a classic place to take on water from a wave. Large motors, of any type, make a boat stern heavy when not up on plane (unless the motor is pretty centrally mounted, and I don't know of any which are). They men described themselves as "country boys," and stated that they were all asleep, implying perhaps that they were rather inexperienced (wouldn't an experienced seaman set a watch at night?). If they were all asleep they would be unpowered, and not likely to have known how to use a riding sail or a drogue and bridle, making it likely that the boat was wallowing in the troughs. Seems to me that the boat was well flooded when the boys woke up, and "flipped over in one minute" suggests seas/swells running. Pooped by a wave or a wake? Whatever the source of the initial flooding, the subsequent flooding most certainly came in over the gunwales. Through hull hose rupture (if they had any?)? Their deck washdown ran on a tank of fresh water, which they drank for the week, so no through hull there. Maybe a jet boat, V-drive or an outdrive? You can check to see when the Coast Guard publishes their final report, given that they had an active search going for a week, and they will surely be chatting with the boys to wrap up their operation. That's the 8th Coast Guard District, by the way, and their external affairs website covers of all their press releases here: http://www.d8externalaffairs.com/go/site/425/ Check out how many ships and planes took part! Can you imagine the cost? I know locally a single helo runs several thousand dollars per hour for a SAR mission, and I believe it is more if they deploy the rescue swimmer and cage. Depending on circumstances, the federal government sometimes tries to recover those costs. These three are damn lucky they were spotted. The Coast Guard had only the failed to return message and could only guess about their route. Even if the boat had a good VHF radio, and the guys had the time and presence of mind to transmit a mayday and they knew their location, the most optimistic range is 25 to 40 miles, no chance of picking them up except from a nearby vessel. The only thing that would have helped them initially was a properly registered GPS equipped EPIRB, automatically transmitting their identity and location through the COPAS and SARSAT satellite system. I expect that only their demonstrated lack of seamanship experience and training allowed them to take the boat they did, equipped as it seems to have been and operated as it was, on the passage they did. Leaving the 'float plan' is the only thing that got the Coast Guard alerted, and their waved T-shirts was the only distress signal available to hail the real vessel out of the many halucinated ones. Note that a private vessel, not actively searching finally spotted them, and apparently brought the men ashore. Sitting on the inverted hull that low to the water their horizon is only two to three miles. A signal mirror, properly used could have reached the aircraft they reported seeing and hearing (a skill few have been taught, and clearly dependent on clear sunshine and the aircraft in sight). A thousand foot high SOLAS parachute flare certainly would have been spotted. Handheld smoke or light flares might have worked, air searches, particularly over open ocean, depend on a significant amount of an unusual color or light to be spotted. Even one of those weenie little 12 gauge 'approved' meteors might have worked. A handheld VHF would have reached nearby search aircraft. Lifejackets? No mention, but I doubt they slept in them. I never go offshore without the plans and the means to survive and get rescued. Cheers, on a sobering subject, Gary Bell Flotilla Staff Officer for Operations US Coast Guard Auxiliary District 13, Division 7, Flotilla 76