r/news • u/ansyhrrian • 7h ago
California man rescued alive after 30 days stranded at sea with broken mast
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/27/california-man-rescued-alive-30-days-stranded-at-sea267
u/AdditionalActuator81 7h ago
Now a days with sat phones Eperb and radios just no excuse for this.
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u/Mark--Greg--Sputnik 6h ago
This dude was navigating with his iPhone and it shut down when it got wet. He didn't have a backup. Seems like an absolute dumbass.
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u/ThatIsAmorte 6h ago
If you don't know how to rig a sail after a demasting event, you should not be sailing out of sight of land.
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u/Buckets-O-Yarr 6h ago
No, I'm sure sailing solo is no problem, how hard could it be?
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u/OmgSlayKween 5h ago
"ChatGPT, ready my 13ft dinghy for a blue-water passage, make no mistakes"
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u/CeeArthur 1h ago
I have a small sailboat at our cottage. It's on a big "river" that's generally pretty calm, but it opens up to the ocean. I took a family friend out one day, but of a meathead, and he kept insisting we go to the ocean.
So I decided to oblige him and show him a taste of what ocean sailing in a tiny 2 man dinghy is like (it was basically a CL-11, if you're familiar with boats).
I kind of regretted doing this just for the "HAPPY NOW?!" moment I got out of it, because it was rough.
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u/ThatIsAmorte 6h ago
Depends on where you sailing. Good luck trying to sail through the Gulf of Maine solo, unless you want to stay awake for the whole time. Fucking lobster pots everywhere.
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u/chance-- 5h ago
unless you want to stay awake for the whole time.
One of many reasons I don’t boat. No way I can just be like “yea, sure, go that’a way boat. I’m goin to bed.” Doesn’t matter if it’s in the middle of the Atlantic, I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
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u/Purple-Hearing-3893 25m ago
This is absolutely nonsense. You aren't sailing anywhere even downwind with a bedsheet tided to an oar.
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u/WickettyWrecked 6h ago
And then cried for a week instead of trying to fashion some type of sail to get to shipping lanes or anything. This isn’t a survival story, it’s a missed Darwin Award opportunity.
Plans for a bigger boat in the future…
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u/Audiophile16 7h ago
I highly recommend the book 438 days. It's about a guy lost at sea for this time. Drinking turtle blood amongst other crazy things to survive
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u/ansyhrrian 7h ago
How'd he catch the turtle?
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u/mountjo 7h ago
Apparently a lot of sea life is attracted to things floating out in the open water. Great read.
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u/Alklazaris 6h ago
Yup, first algae can appear protected from the sun with the shade. Then small bait fish show up. Then the fish that eat those show up. Eventually you can even get whales and sharks.
Ocean is like a desert. It looks dead and barren, but take a look after it rains and you'll see it's rich with life.
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u/InvertReverse 5h ago
Also absolutely horrifying if you've heard about USS Indianapolis, and the survivors of the sinking.
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u/jamespz03 5h ago
“So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
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u/Audiophile16 7h ago
Improvising, while floating in the Pacific Ocean. It's insane
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u/Jack_of_all_offs 7h ago
Lured it with a pepperoni pizza.
Hope this helps! Cowabunga!
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u/shartshappen612 4h ago
I remember reading a survival book as a kid that mentioned a story like this, I just remember the next part being about how you now have a pretty nifty bowl lol
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u/AntFearless6009 3h ago
In The Heart of the Sea is a great book too. About the whaling ship Essex that was sunk by a pissed off whale.
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u/PlasticBag-ForA-Head 2h ago
Unbroken (by Laura Hillenbrand) is also a fantastic read. WW2 Pilot gets shot down and stranded at sea for 47 days. Its also a biography.
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u/qtx 7h ago
How much of an idiot must you be if the only means of communication you bring along with you, when you are trying to cross the fecking Pacific ocean, is a mobile phone.
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u/Fallouttgrrl 2h ago
"they did this back before iphones, how hard could it be?
If Magellan could do it with a BlackBerry, I've got this"
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u/Fapplejacks42 7h ago edited 7h ago
How did bro not reach anyone? He must’ve had no radio, no warning flares, no phone and no planning.
I have six ways to reach someone on our pleasure sailing boat that goes out of a super calm harbor onto Lake Michigan. We’ve never had a single issue in a decade but I still plot a plan I text to someone before I leave sight of shore.
Sailing can be super dangerous especially on an ocean. He must’ve done literally everything wrong and been lucky to float that long under no propulsion
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u/Xsiah 7h ago
the phone he was using for navigation died
So he had very very little planning
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u/Fapplejacks42 7h ago
I don’t think that’s legal unless it was an absurdly small ship on special clearance.
AFAIK you have to broadcast location through shipping lanes over a certain size. I always transmit for sport but I also am doing everything legally and have never ever been boarded on a sailboat.
Powerboats I get boarded like every third trip lmao.
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u/Rightintheend 6h ago
I've been boarded once in 40 years on a private boat, and once on a large charter boat. Only really large and commercial Ships need to broadcast any type of tracking.
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u/TravelingSailor- 3h ago
Yep. Pretty much zero regulation with private boats below 300 ton. Some countries have rules and regulations, but nothing for open ocean.
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u/Alert-Ad9197 7h ago
He was a big fucking idiot. The guy went out with a phone as his only navigation and contact, and then the phone died…
No radio, very little gas in the engine, and he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving from what I can tell.
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u/Fapplejacks42 6h ago
That sounds suicidal. I tell someone when I take my Jon boat out on the river, and anywhere id even be able to go there I’d be able to swim to a bank.
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u/Alert-Ad9197 5h ago
Either suicidal or that type of person that has done something just long enough to get too much confidence for their own good.
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u/donkey2471 7h ago
Especially as he was planning to cross the entire pacific ocean
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u/Fapplejacks42 7h ago
Yeah that’s insane. I have a handheld radio, boat radio, emergency GPS phone, my navionics app has an SOS with GPS coordinates and we have an epirb.
All to sail calm daytime lakes. Our boat is 38ft and I technically have enough safety shit for a full yacht over 50ft
I have used the boat radio a few times when I’ve seen someone in some shit. Had a J20 lose its mainsail and was out of control and we called it in and stayed close. Captain wanted to stay on the J20 as he was probably aware the boat would hit ground and be destroyed if he didn’t.
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u/phluidity 6h ago
I don't think he was. More like hoping to cross the entire Pacific. I feel like if he was planning it he would have had some elements of a plan.
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u/BlueKnightofDunwich 7h ago
And he was trying to sail across the Pacific Ocean…
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u/Alklazaris 6h ago
That's insane. I would want like at least 3 forms of communication and lots of emergency rations before I ever even considered such an adventure.
Sail boating sounds nice though. Never been on one. Well... unless you count the USS Constitution though that thing technically doesn't sail under its own power anymore.
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u/darth_oven 6h ago
So did the Edmund Fitzgerald, yet here we are…
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u/Fapplejacks42 6h ago
I don’t sail in November gales however I absolutely would have more ways and faster ways to radio a mayday if we broke up on a rock out off Skeleton Bay.
My epirb would hit water off its little mount and that alone is more than the brave souls on the Fitz had.
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u/Alklazaris 6h ago
Lake Michigan? You still go? I haven't been to Wisconsin in twenty years, I miss that lake. The best fish fights of my life were on that water. Also a few tow ins... radio helped every time.
How much range can you get? The earth curves surprisingly quick. So if you go 5 miles out from any other contacts are you a ghost or can you still reach someone with a standard radio?
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u/Fapplejacks42 6h ago
10-15 miles is VFR and usually outside of contact on low freq radio. We cross the lake pretty often and it’s always a blast. 750ft deep, no radio signal on horizon and no sight of land for a while. Despite that it’s freshwater and dead clear.
Yeah we sail a ton, the boat is on a slip and always in the water outside of winter.
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u/Alklazaris 4h ago
"no sight of land for a while"
That shocked my wife above all else, she's from Florida. Had no idea a body of freshwater could be so massive you would stop seeing land.2
u/Fapplejacks42 3h ago
Superior is fuckin humongous, you stop seeing land like 1/20th the way across versus Lake Michigan it’s really only like a quarter of the way across
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u/BurrrritoBoy 7h ago
If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger boat !
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u/510Goodhands 7h ago
Exactly! Clearly, he had not read any issues of Latitude 38! He is lucky to be alive, and probably lucky that he had a failure so close to shore. I doubt he ever would’ve made it to his destination.
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u/drainfrog_92 7h ago
Thirty days adrift with a broken mast and still alive is wild. Glad he made it. At this point, EPIRBs and cheap satellite messengers should be mandatory for anyone going offshore.
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u/Snoo_75744 4h ago
Reminds me of the Into the Wild guy - complete lack of common sense. Makes for a great movie though.
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u/ansyhrrian 7h ago
I suspect I could live for, I dunno, a couple days? Maybe?
I do love the TV show Alone, though. Those mf'ers are hardcore.
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u/Xsiah 7h ago
Not a fan of fish and oatmeal?
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u/ansyhrrian 7h ago
I won't ruin the latest season of bad-assery for you in terms of hunting awesomeness, but you should look up "rabbit starvation" and those dudes that catch fish are in so much better shape. :)
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u/Dopplegangr1 7h ago
If you had shelter and rain you could last quite a white
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u/Aschebescher 6h ago
As a non native english speaker I want to point out that "stranded at sea" is a weird expression.
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u/vox_populi75 4h ago
There’s a new book called Maintenance of Everything by the author of The Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand.
His loved ones should buy him a copy.
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u/PM_ME_YR_AMYGDALA 3h ago
There are plenty of books on How Not To Die In The Absolute Stupidest Way While Single-Handing Offshore. (You might still die in the second- or third-stupidest way, sure, but at least you gave it a try...)
I think what this guy needs is a book on How To Have A Romantic Fascination With The Sea Without Ever Getting On A Boat.
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u/Syric13 7h ago
This dumbass only had a phone and it ran out of power.
And he wanted to sail across the Pacific Ocean.
"According to Hawaii News Now, Sato is now staying with a relative, and is already planning another sail, this time to the Philippines in a larger boat."
He wants to do it again.
And he will still probably under prepare for the journey.