A Blog of Flashbacks

It Began Innocently Enough

September 2026

It began innocently enough. Glenn was a construction worker, pipefitter, and tungsten welder who wanted to become a commercial diver. He signed up for a class in sailing, that Saranne, a single mother of a toddler, taught. A year later, in 1981, Glenn, Saranne, and her son, Cameron, now a grown-together family moved from Toronto to Prince George, British Columbia, and later to Vancouver Island. There, Glenn and Saranne bought the S/V Spindrift, a 30-foot Alberg with a 50-foot mast. They spent a year sailing around this idyllic spot in southwestern Canada. Saranne had started sailing as a child, and this was Glenn’s first year of it. During the next eighteen months sailing in the seas around Vancouver Island, Saranne noticed what every instructor hopes: she had been his teacher and he now surpassed her skills. When headed from the west coast of the continent to the island, Glenn relied on his compass and dead reckoning…and ended up at the mouth of their destination harbor. With the year and a half of practice, they decided to set sail for Mexico. Saranne had brought along books to read in the slow hours. Cameron, who had turned four in June, modeled his mother’s behavior. Growing into the reader his mother was, he often sat in the cabin following the words in his books as he listened to the tapes, sometimes beside his mother, other times alone.

The Spindrift reached their first major stop, Newport, Oregon, in two to three days and spent several days before setting sail again. From the mouth of Yaquina Bay for about 15 miles north, lie some of Oregon’s sandy beaches and broad fetch of beautiful waves, beautiful to the person who walks the beach on a calm day. The town has welcomed sailors since the schooner days of the nineteenth century when they came empty and headed out to sea laden with timber. Glenn and Saranne sailed into Yaquina Bay in their Alberg boat. The weather and sailing conditions remained beautiful. Days passed calmly as they checking sails, compass, anemometer, fixing meals, reading, enjoying changes of the coastline. Moving along the coast of Oregon, they knew they’d find no safe harbor in the event of a storm. They knew this but also knew in such fair weather they did not need one. Except for notes in the logbook, days blended into one another.

Clear sailing continued for the next 188 nautical miles south. They were somewhere off the coast of Crescent City and Mendocino, California, when the seas gradually grew choppy. Too soon, the chop began to turn into swells and in only a few hours the swells developed whitecaps. Glenn entered their location, speed, anemometer and LORAN (long range navigation) readings in his logbook. Soon the swells and their whitecaps became large breaking waves. Not knowing what the beginnings of this storm would produce, they decided to notify the Coast Guard of their location.

Saranne called in when evening was coming on and the weather began to increase its intensity, but they were in no serious trouble. All she wanted to do was to alert them of their location in case the situation grew worse. It grew worse. The anemometer quit working at 64 knots. Breaking waves came into the cabin. Cameron, now seasick, was vomiting. A few hours later in the dark of night, Saranne called back. Hearing their second call and reading that conditions were worsening, the Coast Guardsman asked if they were in trouble. Being a calm person and lifetime sailor, Saranne informed him that conditions were worsening. The radioman persisted: Was this a mayday call? She hesitated and let the Coast Guard convince her that she was indeed calling in a mayday. She signed off.

The swells continued to increase in size finally capping at 30 feet. By now Glenn and Saranne had lost their perspective on the seas and their increasing danger. The waves tossing the boat about were so rough and big that they could no longer see the swells. Or was it that these enormous seas were breaking? They weren’t sure. All they knew was that these white-capped black waves kept rolling in from all sides. Water hammered their boat. Everything was getting wet. Cameron was getting wet in the cabin. Saranne, moved back and forth from deck to cabin, helping Glenn and checking on her son. She was now soaked. Cold was never her favorite and she was slowly becoming hypothermic. Their anemometer may have stopped, but the winds did not. The other electronics were beginning to shut down.

Realizing the storm was increasing the speed of the boat, Glenn tied his toolboxes to the aft in an effort to slow its speed in these stormy waters. He trailed the sails, the rigging, any loose, heavy thing he could find to increase the drag. His fear was that without that fixed weight, the boat would pitch pole, could flip stern over bow. If he could slow the boat down, that also would lessen the chance of hitting St. George’s Reef, a fear they both had since they now had no specific idea where they were. Worse, the boat was becoming a mess, difficult to maneuver on deck through stray lines and objects that refused to remain secured, anything that had not yet been tied into the makeshift sea anchor and put aft was a danger. The storm had Spindrift momentarily on its beam, that is, at a 90-degree angle to the water. All that kept them from capsizing was the next wave pushed the other side into the water. Spindrift then briefly righted before it continued its slams starboard to port to starboard to…again and again.