[FairWeather]

Story is this guy went below to make a sandwich and came back and was mixed up in the breakers... This sucks..

Below Article is from the Outer Banks Free Press. www.OuterBanksFreePress.com

50-foot sailboat is stranded in the Avon surf

By JORDAN TOMBERLIN

Just before dark on Saturday evening, Nov. 15, local authorities received a distress call from the Gypsy Dane, a 50-foot, double-masted sailboat, that was caught in the surf about a mile south of the Avon Pier.

The U.S. Coast Guard, the National Park Service, and Hatteras Island Rescue Squad responded to the call and assisted the owner and sole occupant, Yves R. Oger, of Toronto, Canada, off the boat, uninjured. With winds forecast to strengthen and shift offshore, they decided it would be best to anchor the vessel to the beach for the night.

The specifics of how the boat ended up anchored to an Avon beach are not certain, but according to islanders who spoke with him Saturday evening, Oger says he went below deck to make a sandwich and listen to the weather and came back up to find his boat headed for the sand.

This is the second time since leaving a New England port, bound for Charleston, that Oger and the Gypsy Dane have required emergency assistance.

According to published reports, on Saturday, Nov. 8, the USS Gonzalez, a Navy missile destroyer based in Norfolk, Va., responded to a distress call from the boat, adrift in 10-foot seas off the coast of Virginia.

Those reports said the boat’s owner told them that the vessel had lost steering and had been drifting for four days prior to the Gonzalez’s arrival.

The Gonzalez sent an inflatable boat with several crew members to assist the Gypsy Dane, and after spending several hours with the vessel, the sailors were able to repair the steering, lost because of a line wrapped around the rudder, as well as several other mechanical problems. The Gypsy Dane was then inspected by the Coast Guard and cleared to continue its voyage.

Exactly one week later, the boat and its owner washed up in Avon.

This time, in addition to rescue personnel, several local residents and organizations came to Oger’s assistance. Volunteers with the Avon Volunteer Fire Department cooked him dinner and provided him with a hot shower.

They also offered him a bed for the night, but Oger, concerned about the boat’s safety, wanted to remain close by, so the Palazzolo family of Nino’s Pizza in Avon, generously lent him their Jeep, allowing him to sleep on the beach, right in front of his boat.

As of Sunday morning, the Gypsy Dane remained anchored on the shore, while Paul Rosell, who owns a marine towing service in Hatteras, examined the boat for signs of structural damage and made arrangements to get it back to sea.

“As far as we know right now, there’s no damage,” Rosell said. “Its saving grace is that it does have a Coast Guard certificate of inspection,” meaning that, having complied with rigorous Coast Guard regulations and passed their thorough inspection, “the Gypsy Dane is a stronger vessel.”

Currently, Rosell and crew plan to return the boat to sea at high tide Monday morning.

“We’re going to try using anchors and winches to essentially ‘sail’ the boat off the beach,” he said, emphasizing the island’s capricious nature and asserting that it’s still a tentative plan. “Tomorrow is a different day. We don’t know what [we’ll be] facing in the morning.”

Meanwhile, island residents and visitors came to the Avon beach to sit and watch the drama with the latest boat to run into trouble on the shoals off the Outer Banks, known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Oger spent the morning pacing and sitting on the beach and then went back onboard his boat to watch over it until it can be sailed off the beach.