Flares, Squalls, and Heroes in a RIB!

Five days alone at sea—Guam on the horizon in the black of the night. Two of the days were so perfect they bordered on religious, sails trimmed and boat flying like I’d stumbled into heaven’s trade winds. The other three? They made me question every life choice that led me here. Squalls kept rolling in like uninvited guests at a dinner party, one after another, each one determined to kick me in the teeth. The last two days in particular? Brutal.

Then, forty-ish miles out, everything decided to break at once. The Hydrovane had already tapped out the day before—its wooden backing plate had shaken loose, and there was no way I was stepping out of the cockpit in that weather to crawl under the vane and into the locker to secure it. Too dangerous, so it was benched.

Then the knockout punch landed: I was hearing a rubbing sound and feeling resistance when I would turn the wheel. What was wrong? Would it get worse? Was it the rudder itself?

Diving under the boat to inspect the rudder at night, alone, in that weather, would’ve been dangerous. I was trying to avoid it if possible, though it wouldn’t have been the first time it was done offshore—or the last.

And on my boat, getting to the steering system isn’t as simple as “pop a hatch.” No, it’s a full Broadway production: you climb out of the cockpit, wrestle a five-foot section of deck off the stern, drag it into the cockpit, and then hang half your body over the open ocean like some kind of circus act while the boat rolls. Dangerous, but doable if I had to. For the moment, I just centered the wheel and locked it off, hoping that duct-tape-logic would buy me time.

And because apparently Poseidon wasn’t done laughing, the engine started to overheat. Add it all together and I had a blackout on the sailing bingo card: Hydrovane useless, steering gone, autopilot sulking, engine angry. Could I have jury-rigged something? Sure, if I had to. But pushing forward risked breaking more gear—or worse, breaking me. Luckily the sea state was long-period rollers, so I wasn’t being thrown around like a sneaker in a dryer. The smart play? Call the Coast Guard before I tore into the toolbox and risked life and limb trying to get “Drift Slow” back to “Hold Fast.” 😂

The problem was, the Coast Guard were already slammed. Up north, it was even uglier—they were chasing two missing boats and trying to recover the crew of another that had already gone down. Compared to that, I wasn’t in imminent danger, just… inconveniently drifting. At any point, I could’ve tossed the sea anchor off the bow, pointed into the wind, and gone on the world’s slowest, saddest road trip to the Philippines—1,500 miles west. Plenty of time to fix things if I really had to.

Still, I started mentally gearing up to fix the boat solo. I figured no way anyone else could reach me that far out. Wrong. To my surprise, the Coast Guard linked up with local fire and rescue. These guys—absolute heroes. Out they came! I rattled off my latitude and longitude, and twenty miles out they asked me to shoot a flare. Problem was, the swell was so big they couldn’t see my mast light. I was vanishing in the troughs like a cork in a washing machine.

So I started blazing away with my chintzy plastic gun flares. Let me tell you—those things in 20–25 knots of wind are about as useful as a wet match. They just zipped sideways and vanished. I was angling them into the wind, trying to give them some hang time, praying the little fireworks would catch an eye. By the seventh shot, finally, a crackle on the radio: “Captain, we’ve got you on the horizon.”

Ten minutes later they came storming in—not with a cutter, bunks, and galley, oh no. These maniacs showed up in a 35-foot RIB with twin 250s strapped on the back, roaring like a Harley in a hurricane. Absolute legends.

I clipped on my bridle, rigged it off the bow cleats, secured their towline, and away we went. I don’t know how far out I was, maybe forty miles, but they muscled me all the way back to Guam. For hours they bounced and revved, their bow sky-high, refusing to plane while I lounged like a king on a drifting throne, feet up, watching them grind. Every minute I thought, this bill is going to ruin me. But when we made land? Nothing. Not a dime. I tried to pay, tip, bribe them with beer, food, cigarettes—hell, my eternal gratitude. They just shook their heads and said, “This is what we do.”

Funny thing was, they couldn’t get me into a slip with the wind howling, so they tied me off by the boat ramp. I asked if it was deep enough, and they swore it was. Spoiler: it wasn’t. Three hours later, low tide hit and Hold Fast’s keel was planted like a tree, boat heeled twenty degrees and leaning away from the dock. I woke up to the dock lines begging for mercy!

The next day I tore everything apart, and just like that—the steering problem was gone. The worst kind of problem on a boat: the kind that ghosts you. My guess? A chunk of wood or some stray debris wedged itself against the rudder, only to shake free while I was under tow.

While I was in there, I swapped out the Hydrovane’s flimsy wooden backing plate (thanks, previous owner 🙄) for the solid hunk of stainless I’d been lugging around for just this job. I also gave the engine a once-over. The impeller and coolant checked out, but the raw water intake told the real story—gunked up. Not fully clogged, but restricted enough that it couldn’t keep a steady flow and the engine couldn’t hold temp at higher revs.

None of it was rocket science, but the equation of sea state, weather, accessibility to repair, time of day, having to get into the water, tools flying around everywhere—and the fact that I was alone—didn’t add up. One lesson I’ve learned out here: never be too proud or afraid to ask for help. If it’s around. Ego and hubris will get ya killed offshore.

And just to be clear—once I got to Guam, I ditched those toy gun flares. Another cruiser handed me proper parachute flares, the kind that rocket sky-high and hang there like the Fourth of July. Offshore-grade. Lesson learned the hard way.

The squalls had hammered me, the failures had wrung me out, and yet—there I was, tied to a dock in Guam, grateful, alive, and laughing at the absurdity of it all. They can’t all be gold-star days, but damn if they don’t make the best stories.

Days Sober: 2,079