'Mistakes' Cause Three Sailors' Deaths

by Sail-World Cruising on 9 Nov 2007 Three sailors tragically died last week in lake waters off Chicago because of two mistakes, according to local Coastguard officers.

First, they sent a man onto the foredeck without a harness, and secondly they took their sails down, when the sails could have made the difference in keeping them off the breakwall which destroyed the boat.

Three sailors died and a fourth crew member was treated for hypothermia when the J/35 they were on smashed into a breakwall during a man overboard rescue in Chicago, Illinois. The incident happened at about 8:15 p.m. near the end of a short trip to a local boatyard for the winter.

Killed were the boat’s owner John Finn, 45, Alexander Childers, 38, and Adam Kronen, 33. Another crew member, Joseph Sunshine, 34, was treated at an area hospital. Three were wearing Type I vest-style life jackets and another wore a properly functioning self-inflating jacket. They were not wearing harnesses.

The foursome left aboard the 35-foot Jason earlier in the evening from Columbia Yacht Club in downtown Chicago in rough conditions to take the boat south to Crowley’s Yacht Yard up the Calumet River about 12 nautical miles away. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoy in the middle of southern Lake Michigan reported north winds from 21 to 30 knots and waves seven to nine feet high at the time of the ill-fated delivery.

A couple hours later, Finn and his crew attempted to take down the only sail they had set—a No. 3 jib—outside of Calumet Harbor near the southern end of the breakwall, instead of entering a gap at the northern end of the harbor or tucking in around the south end of the wall to douse the sail. Childers was on deck pulling the jib down when he fell overboard, said Petty Officer Michael Arnold of U.S. Coast Guard Station Calumet Harbor, who coordinated the rescue. Finn immediately turned the boat to rescue Childers, and the crew called the Coast Guard.

The crew was able to reach Childers, but did not get him back on board, Arnold said, based on an interview with survivor Sunshine.

'They were able to recover the guy enough to latch back onto him, but then they started having problems with the sea state,' Arnold said. 'The winds were pushing them into the breakwater and they had the engine on full power but it was not enough.' He estimated the waves at 10 to 12 feet high as they rebounded from the breakwall.

The Coast Guard arrived at the breakwall within five minutes of receiving the call, Arnold said.

'However, they gave us a wrong location at first that put us at the other end of the breakwall from where they were. It probably took us another five to eight minutes to get to the other end,' he said.

A nearby tug helped the Coast Guard locate where Jason and her crew had been.

When the Coast Guard arrived there was no wreckage in the area. 'They had a hard time finding the guys,' Arnold said. 'Eventually they just happened to get them in the spotlight up on the wall.'

It was about 45 minutes from the time of the man overboard radio call to when the Coast Guard spotted the men on the wall, he said. The water temperature was 54 degrees, according to Arnold.

All four sailors were close to each other on the riprap, and the Coast Guard was able to retrieve the men by dropping rescuers off on the wave-washed breakwall from the harbor side. They were taken to nearby hospitals where Finn, Childers and Kronen were pronounced dead. The medical examiner has ruled the deaths accidental drownings, but autopsies were not to be completed for several weeks, said Detective Sgt. Guy Wendorf of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, which is investigating the accident. A routine toxicology report will included in the autopsy.

Mitchell Weisman left Columbia Y.C. aboard his Peterson 34 Snafu about the same time Finn did on the 24th. He was also taking his boat to Crowley’s Yard Yacht, where he works, for winter storage.

'I didn’t feel it was dangerous out there,' Weisman said. 'It was a pleasure sail for us; a beautiful fall sail with the full moon. The boats were not overpowered.'

Weisman said his crew were wearing life jackets and harnesses tethered to jacklines.

Weisman said he had Jason in sight for most of the trip, but passed him when Finn left a wider berth around a shoal. He said he believed there was no GPS or chartplotter on board Jason.

'There’s only one spot on that trip that was dangerous—going through the breakwall into the harbor where the seas are very confused,' Weisman said. 'When I went through there I wanted the crew sitting low in the cockpit because I knew that if you lose someone overboard there you might not be able to get them back.'

Snafu was already up the river when her crew heard the Jason crew’s panicked man overboard call and heard the Coast Guard responding, he said. 'Minutes later we heard them say, ‘We’ve hit the rocks.’'

Finn co-owned a J/30 for several years prior to buying Jason about five years ago. In past years he sailed in the Chicago to Mackinac Race, Chicago NOOD Regatta and other highly competitive races. This year the boat primarily sailed in Columbia Y.C.’s Wednesday night series, in which Finn often offered to take out beginner sailors to get them interested in the sport, Columbia Y.C. Commodore Gary Hooper said.

Hooper was eating dinner at the yacht club where Finn had been a member since 2002 and saw Jason head out, then come back a short time later. Hooper said he didn’t see when Finn left again.

Grant Crowley, owner of the boatyard where Jason was headed, said Finn had called earlier in the day to say he was bringing his boat down. The majority of his winter storage clients bring their boats during the first three weeks of October, although boats are allowed to remain in Chicago harbors until October 31 before owners must pay a late fee, he said.

The DNR’s Wendorf said wreckage from the boat, some of which washed up on a nearby beach in days following the accident, will be examined and the wreck area would be searched by divers as part of the investigation. A complete report was not expected for weeks, he said.

Sailors and the Coast Guard said there are lessons to be learned from the tragedy. Weisman said the combination of Finn’s decision not to take the sail down inside the harbor, coupled with Childers’ lack of a harness were disastrous.

'When you’re on a sailboat, the worst thing you can do is take your sails down,' he said. 'People panic and rather than shorten sail they take them down. You need your sails for steerage and to make the ride more comfortable.
'I’m really upset about this. Three people died because first, someone went forward without a harness, and second, why would you take your sails down there in the first place?

'Someone made a terrible mistake.'

Arnold, of the Coast Guard, said the importance of wearing life jackets is demonstrated even in tragedies such as this.

'All four of them had life jackets on, and that’s what allowed us to pull them out of the water,' he said. 'If they hadn’t had them on we wouldn’t have recovered anyone. At least we were able to recover their bodies for the families.'