If you followed Ronnie Simpson on his passage from San Diego to Hawaii aboard his Cal 2-27, you know that he made it to Hilo, on the big island of Hawaii, in twenty days.
Four days later he left Hilo for an overnight sail to Maui. On April 1 he set off again, but less than two hours later—if I interpret his positions correctly—sent a message from his tracking device: MONGO dismasted off coast of Maui. Trying to stabilize situation.
If you zoom in close enough and check the times, you will see that the map on his tracking page has connected the dots incorrectly. What happened to him after the last position, about two hours after the dismasting, I do not know.
He was close to land, actually dangerously close when the mast came down, but his final position shows he had managed to move a bit farther from the shore.
Losing your mast is a very big and expensive deal.
I assume he was uninsured. Insurance companies have no interest in insuring solo sailors and old boats.
When my rigging was coming unravelled on THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, I estimated that losing the mast, rigging, furling gear, sails, would probably cost me at least $20,000, or about what I paid for the boat to begin with. GANNET’s new mast, including what I paid the riggers, cost nearly as much as I paid for her.
I trust that Ronnie and MONGO have made it back to the harbor.
My thoughts and sympathy as a fellow sailor are with him.
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From THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY:
ultimatum: in diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.
uxoriousness: a perverted affection that has strayed to one's own wife. (I must admit that this is a word I did not know.)
valor: a soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.
vanity: the tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
virtues: certain abstentions.
vote: the instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
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A month from right now we should be boarding the train to Los Angeles.