What Sank Daisy?

by Jim Doyle, Sfchronical.com/Sail-World Cruising on 22 Mar 2008 The cause of the sinking of Daisy, the 31ft sailing boat that 'disappeared' with the loss of two sailors' lives during a recent race in San Francisco Bay, has investigators baffled, but they believe it was 'catastrophic'. Preliminary investigations of the underwater remains of the boat tell only that the boat was dismasted and the cabin separated from the hull. The boat sent no distress signal.

Scuba divers located significant pieces of sunken wreckage from Daisy in San Francisco's main shipping channel about three or four miles outside the Golden Gate on Thursday, but they did not find the vessel's missing skipper.

The Coast Guard, aided by divers from the San Mateo Sheriff's Department, identified large portions of the vessel's deck, cabin, mast and rigging submerged in 63-feet of water - not far from where the sailboat had last been sighted Saturday afternoon during an offshore charity race.

Investigators said the wreckage confirmed that Daisy met catastrophe on the race course, but there was no sign that it had collided with a commercial freighter, or other object. 'It's a significant event in the case,' said Capt. Paul Gugg of the Coast Guard, '(but) we were unable to determine cause from what we saw.'

What happened to Daisy and its two-man crew remains a mystery. The boat's skipper, retired neurologist Matthew Kirby Gale, 68, of Mill Valley, is presumed to have drowned at sea or expired from hypothermia. The body of his crew member, Anthony Harrow, 72, of Larkspur, was found washed ashore Sunday near Half Moon Bay - still wearing a life vest.

After the Coast Guard cutter Sockeye used side-scan sonar Thursday to help locate the wreckage, the sheriff's divers descended beneath the choppy seas, examining the debris with less than 3 feet of underwater visibility in about 2 knots of current.

Gugg said the sloop's mast was detached - suspended above the shards of cabin and deck, and held in check by wire rigging. Divers, who left the debris in place, found no evidence of a fire or explosion and no indication that the boat has been hit by a larger vessel. But the wreckage showed that the ship's wooden cabin, teak deck and fiberglass pan - or cabin foundation - had been separated from the older vessel's fiberglass hull and keel.

'It appears that the hull and cabin top and pan delaminated. We did not see the hull,' Gugg said. 'Did it delaminate and sink, or did something happen when it was blown over and sunk and subsequently delaminated? We'd be speculating to say that it came apart first.'

Apart from a collision with a ship in the channel (there were four that day), any number of things could have led to the disaster. The boat may have hit a channel marker and taken on water so quickly there was no time to call for help. One or both sailors may have been washed overboard. The boat could have been capsized, pitch poled or dismasted by last Saturday's fierce swells and high winds. Or, a breaking wave could have torn a hatch loose or demolished the cabin.

For the indepth story of the investigation in the San Francisco Chronicle, by Jim Doyle, click here