14 Airlifted Off Catalina After Wind Wrecks Boats

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s helicopter plucked 14 stranded boaters and two campers from a remote beach on Santa Catalina Island on Monday morning after wind-whipped 8-foot waves sent two small sailboats crashing into coastal rocks. A third boat was swamped.

The boaters had spent a windy but otherwise uneventful Sunday night on the beach at Goat Harbor, about seven miles north of Avalon.

There were no injuries, not even a scrape.

“It was a real harrowing experience, though,” said Betty Russell, 23, a costume designer from Los Feliz who was among those stranded. “The boats were sliding like crazy.”

Russell said she and four friends had sailed Saturday from Los Angeles, anchored in Goat Harbor and then gone ashore to camp. There were eight other campers on the beach.

Plight of 2 Boats

On Sunday morning, as winds reached gale force, two other boats that had anchored in the harbor began drifting toward the rocks. One of the boats already had engine problems. The other’s engine was rendered useless because its propeller apparently had become entangled in an anchor line, sheriff’s deputies said.

There were two couples on one sailboat and five women on the other.

The boat with the couples, a 36-footer from Newport Beach, was the first to go.

“It went into the rocks and disintegrated in about 10 minutes,” Russell said. “Three of the people had gotten into a life raft just before. The fourth guy managed to swim to shore.”

Ten minutes later, the other boat, a 30-foot sloop also from Newport Beach, slammed into the rocks. Two women jumped off seconds before and swam to the beach. But when the other three jumped, they were swept between the jagged rocks and the boat’s splintered, heaving hull.

“Some of the fellows on the beach swam out and basically rescued them,” Russell said.

At about 6 p.m., Russell’s own sailboat, which had been anchored in the harbor, succumbed to the powerful waves that were crashing over it and sank.

Meanwhile, a scout master with a walkie-talkie hiked down to the beach and notified the Coast Guard of the boaters’ plight.

Shortly before noon Monday, a sheriff’s helicopter picked up Russell and the others and dropped them off at a command post at Echo Lake, above the beach. A woman who went there on another boat and was camping with her 3-year-old daughter also asked to be airlifted out.

Deputies at Avalon station expressed amazement that all were in good shape--and chided them for not paying closer attention to weather forecasts, which had predicted strong winds and heavy seas.

“If they would have listened to the news and the weather reports, they would have been a little smarter,” said Deputy Bill Hardey.

The strong winds that claimed the three sailboats abated Monday and were forecast to continue decreasing today.