Catamaran Cast Adrift from BVI Mooring & Wrecks: What can we Lear

A recent incident from April 2022 in the British Virgin Islands, however, caught my interest given the strange circumstances.

So what happened?

It was reported that several charter boats woke up to witness a Sunsail catamaran, a Lagoon 46, on the rocks at Dead Chest Island near Peter Island. Virgin Islands Search and Rescue (VISAR) was on the scene. Apparently no one was aboard.

Here’s what I think happened:

• The crew of the Lagoon 46 picked up a First Come First Serve (FCFS) Boaty Ball mooring, and paid for it ashore at Cooper Island Beach Club (if you aren’t familiar with Boaty Ball - you can read more about the mooring reservation system here)
• They enjoyed themselves at CIBC 
• When the crew took their dinghy back to their catamaran around 11:00pm, it was gone
• They went back ashore, reported it stolen, and had to spend the night at Cooper Island
• It's unclear how the search effort was organized, but the cat was discovered around 2am with a large port side hull breach
• Given marine conditions, it likely took 1-2 hours for the cat to drift before grounding

What can we learn from this incident?

• This was a Boatyball mooring, which are supposed to be regularly maintained by Moor Seacure, so I suspect negligence from the captain
• I checked with Boatyball, and they reported that Cooper Island management inspected the mooring ball and there was nothing wrong with it
  • Perhaps the crew only ran one line through the pennant eye - heavy wind and swell could have caused chafe and sawing through of the line: mooring balls should always be secured with 2 separate lines through the eye to prevent this situation
  • Or, maybe they need more practice with cleat hitches
  • I also read that it’s possible they used the anchor bridle to try and secure to the mooring ball - if so and they just used the snubber hook through the pennant eye, that easily could have cast the catamaran adrift. That isn’t a secure connection at all
• As always, properly inspect all mooring balls for damage - there are current reports the BVI National Park Service (NPS) balls are in a bad state of disrepair
• Be careful about leaving your yacht unattended at night - if this happened during the day, it's probable another boat would have noticed and rendered assistance
• If you need a refresher on how to properly pick up and secure to a mooring ball, check out this video from Sailing Virgins

 Here's another good example of how to pick one up and tie it off correctly. Team of 4 - one person for each line tied back to the port and starboard deck cleats. One person to pick up the mooring ball. And the last person to point at the ball so the skipper can stay on station.

How can you get comfortable leaving your vessel unattended?

There is another way I thought of after this incident - check it out.

Keeping watch using satellite positions

• The inReach (or other similar devices) ping’s satellites every 10 minutes and transmits that position data to your phone
• All you need is cellular or wifi on your phone
• The inReach costs ~$350 and you can pay month to month $15 for the access
• There is a more expensive plan that will ping every 2 minutes
• While you are ashore, you can check the position of your yacht every so often to make sure it’s still where it is supposed to be
• If the captain of the Sunsail cat had done this, they could have seen the boat adrift and organized a recovery before it grounded on Dead Chest Island