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From: David T (no email)
Date: Tue Jul 24 2007 - 23:12:19 EDT
http://newsfeed.recorder.ca/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=23138
* Sailor cheats death on the lake *
By MICHAEL JIGGINS
Staff Writer
Customs officials must have wondered what on earth Paul Boucher had
been up to as he showed them his battered, waterlogged and filthy passport
while returning to Canada on Sunday.
Boucher, 62, and a lifelong resident of Brockville, was returning from
an emotionally difficult day in Clayton, New York, retrieving items from his
beloved sailboat that sank in U.S. waters about three miles offshore
on July 14.
His 32-foot Oday sailboat and everything on it, his passport and
wallet included, had spent a week 60 feet under the surface of Lake Ontario.
"Fifteen minutes and your life's dreams are turned upside down. But,
like most people say, 'you're alive and there are more boats out there,'"
said Boucher in an interview Monday at his home where he displayed some of
what was recovered after a salvage crew raised the boat on Saturday.
A couple of pairs of silt-covered glasses, a Brockville Yacht Club hat
still soaked and covered in mud, his wallet, some rigging and gear, and a
few antiques his wife, Joan, had bought for the boat are among the only
things he could recover.
The boat, which cost $10,000 to raise, remains in the U.S.
Boucher doesn't betray the stoic countenance honed during 31 years as
a reservist with the Brockville Rifles, but it's clear how much his sailboat
meant to him.
A retired lieutenant-colonel, Boucher was the sailboat's original
owner. He bought it 18 years ago, christening her the Semper Paratus, Latin
for Always Prepared - the motto of the Rifles regiment.
"I've lived by that motto," said Boucher, who's been sailing for 25
years.
She's a writeoff now and although he's awaiting an insurance claim on
the $100,000 vessel and will probably buy another one, Boucher stressed, "It
won't be the same. I don't know if Semper Paratus will go on the next boat.
That name meant a lot to me and when the boat went down, it took the name
with it."
Boucher had left Cape Vincent around 10:30 a.m. on the 14th and was
sailing alone in a 25-knot wind at about noon when he said the boat,
suddenly, stopped dead in the water.
He went to investigate and saw water coming in on the floor boards and
suddenly the cover over his bilge pump just floated away.
Looking down into the pump area he immediately knew he was in trouble
- where the keel bolts had been were three large holes that he could look
through and see the clear water of Lake Ontario that was rapidly filling the
boat.
"The keel bolts pulled right through the fibreglass," said Boucher,
who has no idea why they failed and is positive he didn't strike anything in
the water.
He credits his military training for helping keep his composure during
the harrowing time - at most 15 minutes - in which the boat sank beneath
him.
After giving his mayday call on his now submerged radio (there was
just enough cord to keep the microphone out of the water), Boucher said he
grabbed his life-jacket, a hand-held VHF radio and a GPS plotter.
Launching his kayak 'Escape' from the now submerged bow, Boucher
recalled, almost in disbelief, "I turned my head for a second and the mast
fell on the kayak."
The impact knocked a hole in the kayak and sent it drifting away from
the now nearly submerged sailboat in three- to five-foot waves.
Before the kayak could float too far away, Boucher made his choice: he
leaped into the lake and reached it after a difficult swim struggling with
his inflatable life-jacket.
Clinging to the side of the water-filled kayak, he continued giving
distress calls on his hand-held radio while rolling up and down on the lake
swells.
"Every half transmission I had water in my mouth," recalled Boucher,
who said he managed to remain calm despite the drama unfolding around him
and spending an hour in chilly Lake Ontario, barely in sight of shore.
"I was in a life-threatening situation, but I didn't feel it. É It's
weird, but I didn't feel life-threatened."
The radio, which he purchased for less than $300 this spring, was a
godsend.
"I wanted to get rescued because it takes a long time to float three
miles (to shore)," said Boucher.
His distress calls reached a powerboat in the area - the only other
pleasure craft he saw during the choppy day on the lake - which arrived only
shortly before three Coast Guard vessels, two from the U.S. and one
from Canada.
The emergency crews had set out in search of him after his initial
mayday from the sailboat's radio.
"They take a mayday call very seriously," said Boucher.
Picked up by the Canadians, Boucher laughed as he recalled what the
crew said to their U.S. counterparts.
"They hollered over to the Americans and said, 'It's OK, he's one of
us and we're keeping him.'"
It was about 4 p.m. when his sister-in-law picked up Boucher -
waterlogged and heartbroken over the loss of his boat, but otherwise OK - at
the Coast Guard station in Portsmouth.
Her first question, of course, was whether he'd ever set foot on a
sailboat again.
"Just give me a boat and I'll go," was Boucher's answer.
As for lessons, Boucher referenced the name of his sailboat and said
every sailor has to "be prepared" for the worst.
"I guess I was," he said, although he conceded he wasn't wearing his
life-jacket at the time the vessel started sinking.
But it along with his portable radio and GPS unit were close at hand.
"Don't have them in cupboards. Have your safety equipment easily
accessible. I didn't have to look for it," said Boucher.
Boucher did agree he now has a great adventure story to tell his
buddies at the yacht club.
"But I wish somebody else was telling it É I'd rather have my boat
back."
- *Published in Section A, page 1 in the Tuesday, July 24, 2007
edition of the Brockville Recorder & Times.*
- *Posted 4:31:58 PM Tuesday, July 24, 2007.*
- *
*
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