lost Sailor

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windjunkee

Member III
I read an article in the Daily Breeze this morning about a search being called off for a missing sailor. I looked into it a little more and found out it was one of our sailors from Pacific Singlehanded Sailing Association.

Thomas Kirschbaum is the owner of a 26' Int'l Folkboat "Feral".

This past weekend, PSSA-Los Angeles had the last of our winter/spring off shore series, from Marina del Rey, around Santa Barbara Island, with a finish off the west end of Catalina. As usual, most of the boats head for Emerald Bay after the finish to rest up before the sail home.
In this instance, Thomas sailed solo and overnighted in Emerald and then headed back to Marina del Rey. There was a gale warning for Sunday, with wind gusts forecast to 35 knots. The sail would have been dicey, but the Folkboats are built like tanks. Late Sunday afternoon, "Feral" beached on Santa Monica beach, 2 miles north of the entrance to Marina del Rey. She was without her owner.
According to police reports, the GPS aboard Feral showed a straight line course from Emerald Bay to Marina del Rey -- up to about 2 miles short of the entrance to the bay, when the course showed a veer to the north.

The search for Thomas was called off yesterday evening.

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason, E-32 hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA
 
richwilson

richwilson

Member I
We were out at 2 Harbors that weekend. We decided to divert to MDR instead of going home to Channel Islands because the conditions were getting VERY hairy, especially up the coast. We left about 24 hours prior to the missing guy. We had good sized swell(8+) on the beam, but made it fine. It blew like crazy Saturday night and all Sunday. We drove up to CI to get our car, and when we passed Point Dume (right around the time that guy left) it looked horrible out there. I can only imagine the conditions off the West End and in the channel.

Pretty scary, considering we had just made that same crossing, although I think our E-31 is a bit more stable and sturdy than a 26' racing folkboat.
 
Sven

Sven

Seglare
richwilson said:
I think our E-31 is a bit more stable and sturdy than a 26' racing folkboat.
Click to expand...

The E-31 is indeed more stable but don't discount the sturdiness of the International Folkboat. The IF is a true world cruiser even if I would not use it for that. The IF is also a wonderful and pretty little full-keel sailboat for close quarters like in a nice archipelago which is really what she was designed for.

Due to her size it is easy to imagine losing ones footing and going overboard but otherwise she'd survive just about anything.




-Sven
 
T

tdskip

Member II
Yikes....

We called of moving the boat up to Shoreline over the weekend, but I wasn't aware that it was that hairy out there.
 
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