Something very unusual happened to me last week while on a Sailing Excursion with my new friends from Chicago. We were sailing along the shore between markers Red 4 and Green 3 just NE of Mercy Hospital. It was high tide and we were on familiar waters when all of a sudden we hit something very hard. I was stunned at first thinking, “What the heck was that?” Then we hit a second time! At first I thought that I had veered off course, but no, we were in the middle of the channel. It must have been a sunken boat but how could that be? This is where boats from Grove Isle come and go and someone else would likely have run into it before us. It was mind-boggling! We quickly checked the bilge and verified that no water was coming in then continued our sail, eventually making it back to port. I couldn’t wait to lift the boat and check out the damage.
Whatever we hit caused damage to the bow at the water line and the leading edge of the keel about 2′ up from the bottom.
This is when the Canadian coach, Larry Lemieux, offered to take me back to where the incident took place to see what we could find. We hopped in his coach boat and off we went. It was about sunset and it was cloudy, which are bad conditions for finding something submerged. We looked and looked, but there was nothing that we could find. What could it have been?
We had just about given up when I decided to show my friend the Viscaya Harbor. He’s been sailing in Miami since the seventies but has never been to this part of the Bay. The harbor can best be described as a driveway with an island in the middle.
I immediately spotted a black concrete piling floating in the water, hung up on a couple of wood pilings by the island. The piling was about 16″ in diameter and 20′ long, covered with a black rubber-like material that had barnacles growing on it. The damage to the boat was consistent with hitting an object of this configuration, which lead me to conclude that this was without a doubt what we had run into earlier in the day.
The incident was reported to the US Coast Guard and I sure hope they located and removed it. If a power boat would have hit this piling at high speed, it could have been fatal.
The lesson learned for me is to be more aware of what might be in front of my vessel as I navigate the Bay, especially when on a powerboat. I sure hope that you do the same.
Let’s go sailing again soon!
Magnus | Team Paradise Executive Director