Sailboat grounding in Corolla, NC this morning

You retired just in time. Now every single insurance Company asks for license and resume and if you've had a claim in the last 10 years, every single one.

That sounds like what I was suspecting, single handed, not on watch with boat on autopilot.

Good. Always wished it was so.

I'm talking about the Captain that ran the 60' searay across the jetty.

Oh....well, not betting against a similar scenario....hope it's not.

Looks to me like a bunch of mistakes were made. That'd just be one more,

Years ago I came off a stop sign going into the sun and almost hit a police car. I expect that excuse to fly for him about as well as it did keeping me from getting a ticket. It didn't. Most mariners have learned to block the sun with a hat, visor, polarized glasses or at least holding up our hand. Don't go where you can't see.

Hell, if you can't see, throttle back, Step 1. If the captain was "blinded", why didn't he throttle back, shift to instruments, or just dead stop and watch for traffic to follow? Then again no one wants to admit they ran atop a jetty without a decent alibi.

ROFLMAO, this is a snailboat. WOT might be 7 kts. lol. Unless he was running along right behind the surfline (stupid) he should have deployed his sails and just turned left. Otherwise he could have pulled the boat offshore with the dink or at least dropped his anchor while still away from shore. Where he went aground I doubt depth is 100' a mile out. Sounds like he claims to have lost the motor, but that still leaves everything else.

I'm still wondering why he was outside (on motor) in the first place. Even with the bridges in Norfolk, going all the way out of the Chesapeake only to come in Oregon makes no sense in that boat. Doubt that would save 10 minutes, although it would give the opportunity to sleep while moving (with one obvious problem in that).

Your arrogance grows a bit old quickly. Post #24 references boat atop jetty. Your post references cars and police cars. Then there's a sailboat. My post applies to all situations. If you can't see, stop. Maalox. Look into it, or don't.

Without reading any logs or reporting, I'd assume that his intent was to sail outside, and he modified that plan given the engine trouble. Water in that area is relatively shallow out for many, many miles, but if the rode was deployed, and it appears it was in the early photos, it seems he was challenged by wind and tidal conditions trying to sail into a tricky inlet and tried unsuccessfully to anchor. But that's just a guess...

Please excuse my injection of a little sarcastic humor to make a point. This sailor was coming from the west side of the Chesapeake. Going outside with a slow boat would only make sense if he was planning to go around Hatteras, and in that case he should have been way offshore. as for coming into the inlet, it looks like Oregon was still miles away. He didn't miss it. He was short-cutting getting to it.

You're confused.

The boat on top of the jetty, was a 60' Searay that was coming out of an inlet and and Captain turned WAY before the end of the jetty, if memory serves me right like a mile before the end of the jetty, and ran right on top of the jetty sinking the entire boat. That isn't what the OP of this thread posted, but somehow that was brought up as that Captain stated the sun was in his eyes. Which still doesn't jive considering he had modern chartplotters and etc. NYCAP and I were commenting on that as well as others.

THE SAILBOAT- which the OP posted, ran up on the beach, very far from any inlet. Capt said his motor had engine trouble. He should've never been that close to the beach, he should've been miles from the beach. There is no logical reason why he would even BE in the ocean in that area, as it adds MANY miles to his voyage, unless he was doing a very very long ocean passage non stop. Which then leads back to why would he be there. You can't get that boat in Oregon inlet, Oregon inlet is too shallow for it without at least bumping bottom here or there AND the channel is no center span of the bridge, so it couldn't even make it through the bridge to get to a marina. That being said.

My guess. The Captain left Ocean City single handed to run the boat to on a multiple day trip, went to sleep at night with it on autopilot and motor on, because there was little wind (judging by the waves in the picture). Course could have been to close to shore always to not allow much if any of a safety margin. Motor shutoff or autopilot turned towards shore sometime during the night, but when the Captain woke up was when the boat was bouncing off of the bottom near the beach, Captain put out the anchor as he had no options at this point and there it is. Keep in mind the boat probably bounced on the bottom for a mile before ending up where it is. Notice where the sun is in the picture with the tow boat attached.......No way he left any inlet at first light and made it to there. It's poor decision making on the part of the Captain. Not enough crew to safely do the voyage. How do you safely put up and adjust sails on a boat of that size, single handedly? How do you maintain a proper watch on overnight and multiple day voyages. single handedly? How do you deal with an issue like changing an impellor on an engine single handedly? Or anything for that matter.

Only correction I'd make J is that it's reported that he came from Annapolis which would have him coming down Chesapeake Bay, not from Ocean City. That's why I said heading for the ocean instead of the ICW made no sense. I too was wondering what the situation at Oregon Inlet was since the shoaling last year. I've never considered that inlet worth the risk even with power boats. Find it bad and there are no Plan B's. For me it's always been all the way around Hatteras or (most often) the ICW from Norfolk to Beaufort.
Pascal, so let's double it and say 14kt WOT. It's still faster on the ICW coming from where he did, and there's no fixed bridges on his way that are less than 65'. However on the ICW he couldn't sleep at the helm.

Those few who have any issue with the bridges on the ICW (and many who don't) simply step their masts in Norfolk. And yes I was being facetious with the 14 kts. Don't I wish all those snail boats I was behind on the ICW could do 14 kts. Point being that unless you can run well over 20kts and can do it without a fuel stop Norfolk to Beaufort is about the same running time inside or out.