7 Epic Sailing Fails and Mishaps You Hope Will Never Happen To You

If you’ve watched some sailing YouTube channels, you might think living on or chartering a sailboat mainly entails swimming in pristine water, exploring remote anchorages, sipping sundowners on deck, and occasionally doing boat work. But it’s not all smooth sailing. 

Here’s a round-up of 7 videos documenting some pretty disastrous sailing fails and mishaps – from grounding on a coral reef and finding a crack in the hull in open water to crashing into multiple boats in a marina. Ouch!

Sailboat Grounds on a Coral Reef in French Polynesia

Ben and Alie left British Columbia aboard a Sceptre 41 sailboat, Kiana, in 2020. They run the YouTube channel Breaking Waves. After sailing to Mexico and crossing the Pacific Ocean, they fulfilled their dream of reaching French Polynesia. But after a couple of months of bliss, the guys end up in a sticky situation…

When an unforecast storm hits, they’re anchored near a coral reef – as you do in French Polynesia. It’s pitch-dark, and there are 40 knots of wind. Worried about dragging anchor and ending up on the reef, the guys decide to leave.

When he checks on the windlass, Ben realizes the anchor rode is very tight, which means it’s probably wrapped around a coral head. The guys try to move forward to pick the anchor up but can’t move; they’re already grounded. The sailboat smashes into the reef as the wind and waves hit it. 

Alie calls the local Coastguard, asking for assistance. Sometime later that morning, a skiff tries to pull the boat off the reef. The attempt fails, so they have no choice but to abandon ship. The dinghy ride to shore is heartbreaking; Alie can’t stop crying out loud.

Luckily, as you can see from the videos the guys released later, they saved Kiana. All’s well that ends well.

Sinking at Sea in the Bahamas on a Small Sailboat

In this video, Tim and Candice, who cruise on Lady K, a Hughes 35, find themselves taking on water on a short trip from Staniel Cay to Black Point. The couple are just 4 miles off Blackpoint, in 15 feet of water, bashing against the waves and 20 knots of wind, when Candice goes down below and finds the saloon full of water. 

After the initial shock, the couple springs into action and turns the bilge pumps on – except they aren’t working. Candice starts bailing water by hand while Tim closes all the seacocks, but the water keeps rising. At this point, the couple drops the anchor so they can both focus on handling the situation. 

Eventually, Tim issues a Mayday on the VHF. In less than 2 minutes, a US Coastguard helicopter hovers above them, and soon, a console boat arrives on the scene, offering assistance. 

At first, Tim and Candice follow the Coastguard’s instructions; they put on their life jackets and prepare the ditch bag with their passports and credit cards. Then they remember there are speed and depth transducers in the bow they haven’t checked on. Tim swims in 3 feet of water to reach them and finds a 2-inch hole. He plugs it and the water immediately stops gushing in. 

The US Coastguard offers to call for a pump service, but Tim thinks it’s too expensive, so he thanks them and says goodbye. The couple had planned to bail the water out by hand, but the console boat, which had disappeared for a while, delivers a high-powered pump from a nearby schooner. That’s pretty darn handy – it would have taken them some hours to bail all that water by hand. Crisis averted.

An Unnerving Boating Accident in Greece

This video was shot at Marina Ermioni, a ‘super-yacht’ marina complex located in the tranquil town of Ermioni, on the Peloponnese peninsula. 

The day is windy, and a Jeanneau is trying to dock stern-to between two boats – a monohull and a catamaran. Unfortunately, the skipper hasn’t fully understood the effect of wind direction and strength on their maneuvers. The Jeanneau ends up beam onto the two boats and crashes repetitively into both. The monohull is unsupervised while a big family on the catamaran tries to fend the Jeanneau off. 

Then, a gust of wind pushes the Jeanneau away from the two boats and onto the bowsprit of a third boat. The collision causes damage to the Jeanneau’s sprayhood as the helmsman goes full throttle to get away from the third boat. 

The next berthing attempt sees the Jeanneau colliding with one of the catamaran’s bows. The family on the catamaran screams, scared they will get injured. The Jeanneau’s gangway gets stuck on the catamaran’s stanchions and lifelines, partly ripping off. 

Everyone looks pretty shaken. The video ends here, leaving us wondering if the Jeanneau ever made it into its berth or left to drop the hook while the wind died down. 

Major Failure at Sea in the Philippines

Jason and Nikky Wynn are a popular YouTube sailing couple from Dallas, Texas, sailing around the world. They currently live on Curiosity, a 2023 HH44 sailing hybrid-electric catamaran. In this video, the couple documents one of the scariest passages they’ve ever experienced. 

Jason and Nikky are sailing to Samal Island in the Philippines to make their way to a typhoon-free zone. Day one was pretty challenging – the starboard engine belt snapped – making it unusable – they nearly collided with another vessel at night, and a fridge stopped working. 

But their biggest troubles are still to come. After a night spent reefing the sails to deal with multiple squalls, the couple find themselves in a sea full of debris from storms with dying wind. 

At this point, they detect a toxic smell coming from the port engine exhaust vent. When they open the engine compartment, toxic fumes lift from the engine battery, which is hissing. It’s overcharged. The cause? A fouled prop.

Luckily, Jason and Nikky keep calm and call the HH support team to ask for some advice. Under their guidance, Jason troubleshoots the situation by replacing the swollen battery with a buffer battery. The temporary fix works so the guys can make it to their destination. Phew!

Dismasted at Sea in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean

James sails the world aboard SV Break Of Dawn, an Oyster 485. On the crossing from French Polynesia to Panama, the US Coastguard contacts SV Break Of Dawn requesting assistance. SV Yara, a French sailboat with three people on board, is dismasted and floating aimlessly just 60 nautical miles away.

SV Yara’s crew has tried and failed to create a makeshift mast by repurposing the boom, and the captain is injured – a small wound on his leg got infected. So they’ve run out of options. When SV Break Of Dawn reaches SV Yara, the sailors abandon the ship to sail to Panama with James and his crew. Before leaving their beloved sailboat, they all say a prayer to thank the boat for keeping them safe.

During the passage, the French crew explains that they have no idea how they got dismasted. On an average night, with little wind and waves, they heard a loud noise. They jumped into the cockpit, where they found the boom. The mast and sails were in the water. Maybe a chainplate broke; maybe the mast wasn’t well-attached. They will never know. SV Yara was drifting for 6 days before SV Break Of Dawn showed up. What a lucky escape.

Mayday at Sea in the Caribbean

Beau and Brandy sail around the Caribbean on their all-electric 35ft sailboat, Saoirse, with their dog Oona. In this video, they’re on a passage from Puerto Rico to Grenada. 

After 5 days of smooth sailing, Brandy wakes up to the sound of the bilge pump running and water gushing in. Beau finds a big crack in the hull near the bow. It’s 11 pm, and they’re 60 miles from their destination.  

First, they change tack so the bow leans out of the water. Beau applies some high-strength adhesive sealant to the crack, but the trick doesn’t work: there’s even more water coming in, so the couple teams up using the manual bilge pumps to bail the water out by hand. The pumps struggle and almost give up. By the morning, the water is almost knee-high in the saloon. Beau and Brandy are starting to feel very nervous.

Luckily, two Grenadian fishermen hear their calls for help on the VHF radio and offer to come and help them. The fishermen approach the sailboat and give them some two-part epoxy to apply inside and outside the crack. It works! 

The guys make it to Grenada, where they can eventually haul out and patch the cracks up properly. Another happy ending.

Abandoned Sailboat in the Middle of the Atlantic Ocean

Matt Rutherford is the founder of the Ocean Research Project (ORP), a not-for-profit that organizes oceanography expeditions in the Arctic and around the world. In this video, Matt and his crew are 800 miles from Bermuda, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, when they spot a Swan 48 sailboat.

The sailboat’s behavior is strange: she’s not going anywhere, the engine is off, the halyards are twisted, and there seem to be no people on board. Matt decides to board the boat and check that everything is OK, although he’s scared of finding dead bodies on board.

He climbs on the boat and notices how the crew left in a hurry; there’s stuff all over the place, and the engine is broken. Matt calls out to see if anyone is on board, but there’s no answer.

Matt and the ORP crew decide to tow the boat to Bermuda. It’s no easy feat, as their boat is only 42 feet long. After 2 days of towing, the ORP boat’s engine breaks, too. The guys try towing the vessel under sail, but the weather quickly picks up. In the higher winds, the tow line nearly gets caught around the rudder and threatens to break it off, so the guys cut it. 

Not long after they cut the towline, the wind dies. The ORP crew is becalmed in the doldrums for 23 days but eventually makes it to Bermuda.

We don’t get to see what happens to the Swan 48 or find out why it was abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s probably still out there now.