T&T: 62' Nordhavn Aground Near Mag Bay

[Mike Maurice]

Here follows the details that I gathered while in Baja concerning this 
accident.

Keep this in mind. What follows is second hand, but may not be even 
third hand, so I consider it to be relatively accurate. That said, it is 
very likely that some details are not correct, that they may not 
accurately reflect what happened that night.

The grounding occurred around April of 2006, about 1 1/2 years ago, at 
night in a NW blow of about 35 knots. The boat was the Charlotte B.
There were 5 persons on board. Brian Saunders, Mark and Suzie 
Saunders(no relation to Brian), Jim ??, and a second gal (name unknown).

Brian and Jim were US licensed masters. Mark may or may not have been 
licensed. The boat was northbound, had passed Punta Tosca, Mark was at 
the helm and passed the helm to Jim and Mark went to bed. About 1 hour 
later the boat ran aground.

At some point in the hand over to Jim or but sometime before the 
grounding(this is not clear), Mark mentioned that he thought they were 
too close to the coast. This information was either ignored or 
misunderstood, the character of this misunderstanding is unclear and may 
be mis-characterized.

This next is very unclear, but the boat may have hit some outlying rocks 
  north of the present resting site. Damaged and out of control it 
drifted back to where it is resting. Mark took a line, against orders 
and went overboard in an attempt to take a line ashore. This effort 
failed, he tried to re-board the boat near the stern, was knocked 
unconscious and died before he could be hoisted aboard. The hoisting 
aboard took nearly an hour in the rough conditions.


Brian was taken into custody by the Mexicans and jailed for some period 
of time(perhaps a few days). Whether anyone else was jailed I have no info.

Mark's widow was left with a situation where all their mutual assets 
were impounded. It is rumored that she has filed a lawsuit against 
Brian, it is hard to be sure that this is accurate. But, the boat was a 
US flag vessel, and all persons aboard were US citizens, which would 
allow suits in US courts even if the accident occurred in Mexico.

What is not in dispute is that the boat went aground and one could draw 
reasonable inference that the boat was in fact too close to the coast. 
The charts for the area are marginal at best along the entire Mexican 
coast inside of 60 or so of water.



_____________________________________
Capt. Mike Maurice
Beaverton Oregon(Near Portland)