A boat came aground on the west side of the sand on Seal Beach late Wednesday night, June 8. The two men aboard the boat told Marine Safety (Lifeguard) Chief Joe Bailey that they were arguing about what to have for dinner when the boat ran aground.
A Westcom dispatcher reported the incident to Chief Bailey at 11:30 p.m. The dispatcher said the people aboard the boat might be in distress.
Bailey and Lifeguard Lt. Chris Pierce went to the beach. Bailey arrived about 10 minutes after getting the call.
“There was an approximately 26 foot sail boat in the surf with two people on board.
We made contact with the people on the boat and they were uninjured. The vessel was taking on water, with two feet of water in the cabin. I determined there was no possible way to float the vessel back out to sea, so we removed the passengers to the beach,” Bailey wrote in his weekly report to the city manager.
Once the passengers were safe, Bailey and Pierce removed the boat’s gas tanks to avoid a fuel spill.
The Orange County Sheriffs showed up to complete a report. The Sheriff’s Department is the responsible agency for all boating accidents in the county. Bailey and his lieutenant examined the boat.
The entire keel had been torn from the bottom of the boat, creating a large hole.
Lifeguards stayed with the boat overnight to prevent anyone from trying to take it or go on board the boat.
In a telephone interview Monday, June 13, Bailey speculated that when the boat’s keel struck the sand on the bottom, the keel was torn away from the vessel.
The boat’s owner was one of the two men on the boat on June 8. Bailey said the two men told him that they had been fishing about a mile from shore when they decided to stop and grill their fish. The two men told Bailey that they were below deck, arguing about what to have for dinner, when they heard a thud.
The anchor apparently came loose and the boat drifted toward the Seal Beach shoreline.
Bailey said that part of the account struck him as strange, because it would take about 20 to 25 minutes for a boat to drift to shore from a mile away.
The boat owner met the Lifeguards on the beach Thursday morning, June 9, as it was his responsibility to remove the wreckage. The owner hired a savage company to remove the wreckage. The Lifeguard Department, with the help of Public Works, was able to remove the keel and anchor from the water.
Bailey said the salvage company did a good job of clearing the mess. The salvage company removed all the debris created by the wreckage in addition to removing the boat from the sand.
“We probably have about five boats a year that come aground,” Bailey said.
According to Bailey, boats only come aground at night or in a heavy fog. Otherwise, lifeguards see the boats drifting toward shore and stop them. Bailey said Seal Beach lifeguards perform many boat rescues during the year because Seal Beach is located between Sunset Harbor and Los Alamitos Bay.
