I purchased the 33’ Beneteau Antares named “Blue Eyes” in Oriental, NC in early November 2015 and hired a professional captain to help navigate the boat back up to Boston by water. My flight landed in New Bern NC on Nov. 7th and it was as if the trip was cursed from the get go as my luggage was somehow put on a plane to West Palm Beach. Luckily I had packed a small carry-on as a backup. We set sail from Oriental on November 8 and the weather would not cooperate with us. Once we headed north and out into the Chesapeake Bay, it was a bumpy and long ride. The winds would not let up and as we persevered north, it seemed we were going to get a first hand experience of Mother Natures unrelenting power.

On November 12th, while traveling through the Long Island Sound, the rough ride had stirred up sediment in the two diesel tanks and we lost the port engine from clogged filters and docked for the night in Stamford CT. The filters were changed and we set sail on the morning of Friday, November the 13th. I remember saying to the Dock-master at the marina, “What else could go wrong?” and he replied “Don’t say that, you do know its Friday the 13th?” I thought nothing of it until approximately 16:00 hours when a critical navigation error caused us to miss a channel marker and the “Blue Eyes” struck Sugar Reef which was submerged and not visible from our position.

The vessel began to take on water at a very fast rate and it was clear that we were going to be abandoning ship within minutes. We donned our live vests and the Captain put out a Mayday call to the USCG and gave them our Lat and Lon. I activated the ACR ResQlink plus and we advised them that the boat was sinking fast and we would be abandoning ship. I affixed the PLB to my wrist and we were advised that there was a USCG boat approximately 15-20 min away. The stern of the boat went under and the cockpit and salon began to flood with seawater and we abandoned ship and minutes later, “Blue Eyes” sank and went under.