Be The Captainvideo
I crashed my boat into the rocks. Here's the story.
November 5, 2025 · 21 min · 133K views
Damaged hull with captain's reflection in glass
What this video covers
James Evenson fell asleep twice at the helm under full sail and drove his boat onto a reef — once in 2016 on a plywood catamaran off Tulum, Mexico, and once years later on his Oyster Marine 485, Zingaro, near Nassau in the Bahamas.▶ 0:06
The first incident happened after a full day of diving near Tulum, followed by an overnight passage to find an anchorage.▶ 2:09 Around 4 a.m., exhausted, he fell asleep and grounded the catamaran on a shallow reef.▶ 2:31 Both daggerboards sheared off on impact.▶ 3:17 He kedged off using two anchors and 150 feet of chain, walking the anchor out underwater with bare feet, pulling the boat back inch by inch over three hours.▶ 4:20 A wave reset the boat to the original grounding position, forcing him to repeat the entire process.▶ 5:49 A through-hull was pushed up through the hull; he sealed it with a two-part epoxy putty stick.▶ 6:36 Repairs at Progreso, Mexico took 31 days of full-time work and cost roughly $20,000, and the boat never fully recovered.▶ 8:42
The second grounding occurred around mile 900 of an 1,100-mile single-handed passage from Grand Cayman to Nassau — sailed without an engine due to a blown head gasket.▶ 10:57 The Oyster 485's keel dropped into a coral crater and stopped the boat hard.▶ 12:34 Evenson raised sails to heel the boat and free the keel, then kedged off using 250 feet of chain, with his girlfriend Anna operating the windlass while carrying their six-month-old daughter.▶ 13:52 The anchor found no purchase on the flat reef floor until he wedged it under a ledge.▶ 13:46 Once free, the boat swung under full sail toward shore before he dropped the sails and recovered the anchor.▶ 15:27 Damage was limited to scratched lead on the keel and a chipped rudder corner; repairs two months later in Annapolis required grinding, thickened epoxy fills, and bottom paint.▶ 17:17 Exhaustion management — specifically the inability to get adequate sleep on a single-handed passage — was the root cause both times.
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