A crew of four — including two sailors from Panama City — with a boat out of the Fort Walton Yacht Club not only rode out the deadly storm that hit a regatta on Mobile Bay Saturday, but actually rescued three fellow boaters.
Rob Brown, owner of a Tripp 26 called Road Tripp, took to Facebook to heap praise on the men with him when a storm bearing winds over 70 mph slammed into the annual Dauphin Island Regatta.
“It was being surrounded by excellent sailors that allowed us to get through the storm without damage or injury,” Brown wrote. “Everyone worked as a team in terrible conditions to get squared away and ride it out.”
The crew consisted of fellow Fort Walton Beach resident and National Sailing Hall of Fame member Zach Grant and highly experienced sailors Greggory Preston of Crestview, Mike Willette of Panama City and William Zehner of Panama City, according to John Farris, fleet captain of the Fort Walton Yacht Club.
Hundreds of boats were in the water when the storm hit, according to news reports, and 10, three of which were participating in the regatta, either capsized or were incapacitated.
After riding out the storm, but still facing “heavy seas and high winds” the Road Tripp happened to come within 50 yards of three people who had gone into the water.
“William’s fabulous boat handling under jib alone allowed us to move into position and pull everyone from the water in really tall swells and bad conditions,” Brown wrote in his Facebook account.
“Saving their lives made the moment very heavy,” with the realization that others on the water were missing, Brown wrote. Still today, four people remain unaccounted for in Mobile Bay.
Farris, the fleet captain, spent his Air Force career as a weather forecaster and today is an instructor at Hurlburt Field.
He said he knows well how unpredictable storms can be, and, in his job as fleet captain, is also sensitive to being forced to cancel an event that people plan for all year.
“Everyone is susceptible to pressure,” he said. “You’re planning all year round and everyone wants to go party.”
Officials at the Fairhope Yacht Club, the hosts of this year’s Dauphin Island regatta, had temporarily canceled the event for weather, only to ultimately decide to go ahead with it.
After the Saturday accident, and given two other freak storm accidents in the state this year, Farris said he had decided to postpone the annual Fort Walton Yacht Club Round the Island Race until 2016.
“We need the time to review and improve our safety protocols,” he told club members in a letter.