Mola Mola and the lost rudder

[rcvesselstyn]

My brother dictated this story about His Cal 28 #14.
We lost our rudder on a trip to the island in ‘81 mid channel on the way to Catalina . We were halfway across, in the shipping lanes with dusk settling in. Suddenly, the boat lurched and we heard a big thump.

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We had hit something. There was a huge Mola Mola in our wake. Soon you could feel the tiller undulating followed by another big thump. In our wake, the rudder floated up and we lost all control. The boat rounded up into the stiff breeze as we tried to regain control. My young son immediately went below and I called for him to return on deck to help.
He said “no, I’m trying to be sure we haven’t been holed an are sinking,” Good thinking! He was 10. No hole. We managed to get the boat back under some semblance of control and recover the rudder.

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To get home, we steered using the main and the jib. Haul in on the jib turn to the lee, haul in on the main turn to windward. Tacking was impossible so we had to come about by jibing. A lot of work but the boat was noticeably faster.
Being in the shipping lane, we could see a freighter bearing down on us but with some luck we crossed her bow. Then she turned to starboard and headed right at us. The ship was about 1/4 mile away and closing. We could hear the engines, they sounded like a freight train.
I tried to hail the ship on channel 16. They wouldn’t answer. I called the Coast Guard and the ship would not answer them either.
The coast Guard asked us to call if we made it out of harms way within 20 minutes or they would launch search and rescue.
We made it past the bow again! Then the ship turned toward us one more time.
With no rudder we couldn’t tack so we jibed by turning right toward the ship. It worked. The ship passed about 75 feet away on our port side.
We let the Coast Guard know. They responded “Congratulations Skipper”. The only time I ever liked being called Skipper.
In the weeks after we made it back to King Harbor, we had the rudder replaced.
The fabricator at the boat yard said he could build us a new rudder that was much faster than the original but we could no longer race in our class if they found out. Of course I accepted (the rudder was underwater and painted dark, who could see it). After that, the Pineapple Rag Express was the fastest in the fleet but I never accepted any trophies - really.

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