We decided to take our PY23 out for a short sail last evening. I just had the centerboard fixed so we wanted to see what she would do. We were sailing along on a beautiful 15kt brisk beam reach. We were just about at the turn around time when we saw what looked like a floating raft. We were about 2 miles offshore so decided to investigate and as we got closer we realized the floating raft was waving their arms at us. Turns out it was 3 teenage boys in a paddle boat - about 2 miles offshore - IN THE OCEAN! They had gone out to fish and got caught up in the offshore wind and current here in the Chesapeake Bay. Their little boat was full of water and they were exhausted from paddling. We tried every which way to tow that thing, but it kept swamping and our little 8hp motor just couldn't make any headway with the current. What saved the day, was a plastic laundry detergent bottle bailer I had made. I intended to have it onboard as a back up to our bilge pump "just in case". I never thought I'd need it for someone else's boat. One of the boys got back into the boat and bailed the water out, sat on the stern, while we tied it up just a few feet astern of us. We were able to make slow but steady headway that way. We dropped them off about 10 feet from shore, made sure they made it to safety and headed home, by now it was a 20+ kt wind. So it was quite the adventure. As a mom and grandma, all I could think about all night long was the danger they were in, and possible catastrophe. It was cloudy, cool and sunset was just an hour away when we found them. There was no else around and they had no cell, whistle, horn, food or water. What an awful night it would have been for them!
