Cuba: Another Shipwreck for Solo Sailor
Solo sailor Jack Van Ommen had previously survived two shipwrecks when he found himself on the wrong side of a reef off the coast of Cuba. This is his tale of being shipwrecked for a third time.
Published 3 years ago
- For 12 years and 60,000 ocean miles, Jack van Ommen demonstrated that it’s almost impossible to be too old or too poor to cruise. Photo by Latitude 38.
It was a fine sailing day for Jack Van Ommen, as he was making his way to Rio Dulce, Belize from Marina Hemmingway in Havana, Cuba on February 3rd, 2022. Reaching into a north easterly and just after a beautiful sunset Jack ate dinner, put the dishes away and then apparently fell into a deep sleep, waking three hours later after hitting a reef off the coast of Cuba, just west of Bahia de Honda.
“My laptop screen shattered in the impact, so I could not retrace my inbound track,” he said in a report on his website blog. “It was pitch black. The only orientation I had was the lighthouse on Punta Gobernadora. I managed to break free with the engine for a short distance but then probably ended up closer to shore and got washed further up the shallower coast.
“After setting off the alarm on the Garmin “In Reach”, calling in a May-Day on Channel 16 on the VHF Radio and setting off the alarm on the radio, the boat started listing sharply. It bounced hard on the reef and I found myself on the shore side of the main reef, somehow, I had passed over it.”
- Last photo of “Fleetwood”
It was not until daylight that a fishing boat appeared which anchored nearby in deeper water and the son of the fishing boat captain, another young crew member and a uniformed man from the Guarda Fronteras came to Jack’s rescue. An unsuccessful attempt was made by a second fishing boat to tow “Fleetwood” to deeper water.
“Unfortunately, I saw no other way than to abandon the boat and I told my rescuers that they could have at it. The border patrol man apparently phoned in the details for a release to the Cuban government which I signed when I came ashore later in the day.”
Read the full story of Jack’s Third Shipwreck.
Jack has also posted a You Tube video after the wreck.
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Noonsite has not independently verified this information.
Related to following destinations: Cuba, Hemingway Marina (Havana)
Related to the following Cruising Resources: Incident Reports, Safety, Safety and Medical
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