ture combined to create the ultimate test of safety on the water over the weekend. Two sailors were thrown off a sailboat just north of Edmonds during the Possession Point Race on Saturday when a wind gust hit the boat they were on.
“We didn’t expect it to build like it did, especially when we had our incident. It turned ugly pretty quick,” Brent Campbell, one of the two sailors rescued, told KOMO News.
Ann Ferguson’s daughter Sheridan Ferguson was the other racer who was rescued. Ann Ferguson told KOMO News the gust of wind damaged the sailboat.
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Campbell explained that he and Ferguson were headed to the bow of the boat to get ready to change sails when they were thrown off the vessel.
“And at that time, we got a big gust of wind, and the bow plowed into the back of the wave and it just kept going,” Campbell said. “Sheridan and I kind of got just swept out of the boat. It was like, you know, the boat was just overcome with water and one instant we’re on the boat, one instant we’re off.”
“I didn’t wanna swim in the wrong direction, so I just kept tapping and feeling the bottom of the boat for a while until eventually it did work and popped up,” Ferguson said.
When Campbell emerged from underwater, he said he immediately did a quick scan of his body making sure he was not injured.
“So, when I popped up, I was kind of holding on to the sail that was hanging off the boat, but then the boat was sailing away,” Campbell said. “So I was like getting pulled away and there’s no way I could hold on.”
Campbell told KOMO News he was relatively close to Ferguson at that time, and he said she did a bit of backstroking to reach him.
“And then somebody on the boat hit the man overboard module, which launched a little Dan Buoy out,” Campbell recalled.
A Dan Buoy is a bright, floating buoy used to mark the spot of a person overboard.
“I saw and I, at that time, I made the decision to leave the boat and go to the buoy,” Campbell explained.
He said he and Ferguson just kept the small talk going between them, like how they met their spouses, just trying to keep normal conversations and normal breathing doing since they really didn’t know how long they’d be in the water before being rescued.
Two sailors were rescued from Puget Sound on Saturday after they were thrown off a sailboat in an area north of Edmonds during the Possession Point Race. (Photo courtesy: Troy Hutt)
Emergency calls for man overboard reached the Washington State Ferries captain who was about to leave the Edmonds terminal.
“And they came over and announced and said that they’re going to divert north to go assist in a man overboard, which we knew what that meant, being boaters,” Troy Hutt told KOMO News.
He and his wife went up top to act as another set of eyes on the rescue operation.
“I didn’t know if they were searching for people in the water or if they already knew where they were and were just there to assist. We had no idea,” Hutt said.
The weather was getting ugly for anyone out on the water.
“Being a power boater, not a sail boater, that is the weather we stay out of. We stay in port and don’t leave, and sail boaters obviously want wind in order to move. And so, it’s completely different weather than I wanted to be in,” Hutt said. “You can see in the video that the boats were just bashing down into it.”
Hutt kept his cell phone’s camera trained on the rescue, hoping that everyone would be OK. He said the waves were not only big, about five to six feet, but they were also very close together.
“If they were more of like an ocean swell, they’re further apart, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but they were right on top of each other,” Hutt said.
Campbell said the sheriff’s boat was there in about 20 minutes and he was very grateful that ferry stood off about 100 yards, working to break the wind from the rescue operation.
“And like the boat that saved us, Lodos, I want to just publicly say a big thank you to them ’cause yesterday could have been a lot different,” Campbell said.
“Yeah, they had a life sling and they’re training for a much bigger race, so they had been using it and practicing and doing their man overboard drills and got to employ it real time,” Ferguson said.
Fortunately, one of the sailors there to start first aid had just completed a water safety course.
“I was fully conscious and talking a lot, but couldn’t move. We, Brent and I, had been checking into each other the whole time we were in the water making sure that we were still able to wiggle toes and we were still swimming and still orient ourselves. But by the time I actually got out of the water, it was, I had no muscles left,” Ferguson explained.
She said her rescuers had her lay down on the deck and then one of the crew on board Lodos helped get her out of wet clothes and into something dry.
When it was time to transfer from Lodos to the sheriff’s boat, she could not do it alone.
“And I remember sitting on the rail thinking there’s no way I can get myself onto that other boat ’cause they were both bouncing in the waves like crazy. And one of the lovely guys on the sheriff’s boat said, Ma’am, this is why I work out. I can lift you with one arm. And the next thing I knew I was on the floor of their boat,” Ferguson recalled.
Both grew up sailing and are no strangers to the water, racing or practicing safety drills. But now, they both say they’re reassessing and will likely do a few things differently.
“There are a lot of things I’m gonna do differently going forward, but I’m thanking God I wore my life jacket. If I hadn’t been wearing my life jacket, I wouldn’t be here. And I wish I had tightened it more. I wis
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