heres some info I found this afternoon...
Monday, May 21, 2007 By MICHELLE SAHN Gannett New Jersey Robert Pulsch was watching the global positioning system on his sailboat, and his oldest daughter was at the helm, as they traveled through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, bringing his wooden schooner back to Atlantic Highlands from its winter storage spot in Maryland. It was around 3:30 a.m. and cold. His youngest daughter worries about her 73-year-old dad, so Susan Pulsch Petracco went below to grab gloves and a hat for him. That's when Robert Pulsch of Middletown, Monmouth County, saw the bright, blinding spotlight of the tugboat. It looked like it was dead-center, heading for his sailboat. But it also seemed to be about 300 feet away. He thought they had enough time to get out of the way. He told his daughter Ann-marie, 47, of Richmond, Va., to swing the tiller and move the sailboat to the left. He never saw the big black oil barge that tugboat was pushing. They crashed. Robert and Ann-marie Pulsch were thrown overboard. Pulsch Petracco was trapped below. Pulsch Petracco, 34, of Point Pleasant, believes the boating safety and lifesaving courses she and her family completed helped save their lives. "I grew up sailing and racing boats, and what saved me was all my training that I have been able to take," she said. She is the youngest of six children -- five girls and one boy -- and their parents made sure all six learned how to sail. When she was 7 years old, she took courses at the Keyport Yacht Club. Later, she raced with local clubs and on the sailing team at the University of Rhode Island. She took first aid and lifesaving classes, completed the Coast Guard Auxiliary's boating skills and seamanship courses and is a U.S. Sailing judge-in-training. She and her husband, Christopher, were married at a regatta. She has sailed with her father for years, but last week's trip was to be her first on the Heron, a schooner built in 1911, bought by her father in the 1990s, and after restoration, re-launched in 2002. On May 13, Robert Pulsch and two of his daughters started their trip home. They came up the Chesapeake and anchored for the night, just before the canal. They had dinner, and around 3 a.m. Monday, they began to sail again with a favorable current that would help push them through the waterway that connects the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. "My daughter Ann-marie and I were in the back cockpit," Robert Pulsch said. "We just went into the water, boom! Susan was down below, getting gloves for me. She didn't even know what happened." He was underwater. He couldn't tell if he was heading up or down. "I said, "just settle down a second,' I had to be going up," he said. "I paddled and paddled and paddled until I broke the surface of the water." Ann-marie Pulsch had already surfaced. A package, containing a life raft for six, had been under the cockpit seat. Now it was supporting his daughter Ann-marie, he said. "God put it there for her," he said. He began to call for help and grabbed a cockpit cushion to keep buoyant. The tugboat crew put their vessel in reverse, cut the engine and tossed life rings. But he was too far away from the tugboat to be pulled in. Meanwhile, water rushed into the sailboat, and Pulsch Petracco was trapped inside. Water rushes in "I've never seen a boat fill up so quickly in my life," Pulsch Petracco said. Before the crash, she had gone down the steps, past the first set of bunks and galley to a V-bunk at the front of the 45-foot-long boat, to retrieve the hat and gloves. After the crash, as water poured in, she had to make her way back. She tried to get to the companionway, the doorway to the cabin, but there was debris on the other side, blocking her way out. She thought the boat was breaking up. Now she knows that debris was the aft mast, the larger of the boat's two masts. It broke off, bringing a sail and two booms with it. She couldn't get out. Water continued to pour in. She pushed her way up to the skylights where she was able to breathe in some air, but then she went down again, to get to the doorway. The debris was still blocking it. She was swallowing water. She had been wearing a fleece Neck Gator, a sort of mini-scarf often used by skiers to block the wind. She shoved it in her mouth, figuring the water would have to filter through the fleece before it got to her lungs. Fight for life "I was doing anything possible," she said. "I decided I was not going to die like this. I was looking for pockets of air inside the hull, but I couldn't find anything." By then, the boat was submerged and starting to roll. Suddenly, the debris dislodged. She began to swim. It was dark. She didn't know if she was going the right way. " Then she surfaced and touched metal. When the boats collided, the schooner was on the left, or port side of the barge. But when she surfaced, she was on its right, or starboard side. She and her family believe the Heron was rolling underneath the barge, and as the boat rolled and sank, she was able to swim out. Heavy clothing When she surfaced, she began to yell for help. She couldn't tread water; her clothes were too heavy. She was wearing offshore sailing boots, a pair of fleece pants, foul-weather pants over them, a turtleneck, a heavy wool sweater and a down ski jacket. She tried to pull her clothes off. Then she felt a life ring that was tossed to her. "I got myself into a life ring, and I don't remember what happened after that," she said. "I remember waking up on the barge. At that point, I was in and out of consciousness. I was seconds from drowning . . . (But) I had taken all these courses throughout all my years of sailing. Instinct kicked in, and I didn't panic." Both she and her sister were pulled aboard the tugboat, then brought ashore, their father said. "I thought Susan would never make it out of that hull," he said, choking up. "I didn't see it happen. It all happened so fast. I was just beside myself that Susan was never going to make it out. Then Ann-marie shouted that they had Susan, too. It made my day. It was a miracle." Captain's effort Meanwhile, Robert Pulsch had grabbed the life ring, but he was too far away from the tugboat to be pulled in. The captain jumped overboard and swam toward the 73-year-old. At the Union Memorial Hospital in Maryland, they were treated well, he said. Doctors and nurses warmed them with blankets and told them their body temperatures had dropped to about 95 degrees, he said. "It's unbelievable," her father said. "It was just a miracle. The only way that you can explain it was God was there and did it for us." Reach Michelle Sahn at msahn@app.com
