On 7 November in Portsmouth, England, the U.S. Coast Guard East District received the International Ocean Safety Award for rescuing five sailors from Magic Bus, a 54-foot catamaran that was sinking in a gale 260 nautical miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in November 2025. The crew had abandoned the boat for a liferaft, and about nine hours later all five were ashore, uninjured. Lieutenant Commander Andrea Rice, who heads the Coast Guard's UK detachment, accepted the prize at the annual lunch of the International Association of Cape Horners.
What went wrong aboard Magic Bus?
Magic Bus was a sailing catamaran designed by Simonis Voogd and built in South Africa in 2000. Under her earlier name, Braveheart, she spent years as a dive-charter boat, wintering in the British and US Virgin Islands and summering in the Grenadines. She was lost in this storm. She left Stonington, Connecticut, at 19.00 on 3 November 2025 for Staniel Cay in the Bahamas, 1,100 miles away. The skipper was 56; the other four, all in their early twenties, included the owner's son.
The next day the crew found about five feet (1.5 m) of water in the port engine room, dry an hour earlier. Buckets, pumps and the starboard engine's rerouted water intake could shift some 5,000 gallons (about 19,000 litres) an hour, and the water kept coming. On the third day the owner's son dived into the compartment, and he and the skipper shut three seacocks. It made no difference.
Around 01.30 on 6 November the jib sheet broke. The lazy sheet on the other side tore off the saloon hatch, so water now came in from above too. Then the starboard engine failed, partly because of a clogged strainer. By the crew's account it was blowing a steady 45 knots, with gusts over 50 and waves of about 20 feet (6 m).
How did the Mayday reach the Coast Guard?
About an hour before they left the boat, the skipper tried a PAN-PAN on VHF radio. No ship was within VHF range, and there was no SSB radio aboard. That left a Starlink Mini. "We were greeted with a nine-prompt phone menu, as if we were calling about a credit card," the owner's son later wrote on the Wave Train blog. With the U.S. government in a shutdown, the Coast Guard website read: "Due to a lapse in federal funding, this website will not be actively managed."
According to Yachting World, the skipper then reached the right office. "I started with the intent to do a telephone 'Pan-Pan,' but while on the call switched it to a 'Mayday'. There was just too much water in the port hull, and I was worried about capsizing," he told the magazine. The Coast Guard press release says it received a distress call from the crew.
At 03.30 the skipper phoned the owner ashore, said they were abandoning ship and asked him to pass on the Mayday. The owner dialled 911. "But within one minute I was connected with the Coast Guard Atlantic Operations desk," he told Yachting World. At the same time the skipper pressed SOS on a SPOT Gen3, a consumer tracker for hikers. Its monitoring service, Overwatch X Rescue, relayed the alert to the Coast Guard.
Lifejackets you must inflate
The five climbed into a 12-person liferaft with the Starlink antenna and a battery pack. The EPIRB flashed and beeped. Nobody inflated a lifejacket: in a crowded raft they get in the way.
Sector North Carolina sent the cutter Angela McShan, an HC-130 Hercules aircraft and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Elizabeth City. The helicopter refuelled on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush on the way out and back. The HC-130 reached the raft at about 06.00 and dropped blankets, food and a handheld VHF radio. Then the helicopter's rescue swimmer lifted all five, one by one, in a basket.
A week later another delivery crew found Magic Bus upside down, with the skeg in front of the port rudder gone. The leak probably came through there; the owner names wear, tear and age as likely factors.
What failed and what the Coast Guard advises
| Equipment | What happened |
|---|---|
| EPIRB, ACR, 406 MHz | About eight years old. Tested every year; the lithium battery was never replaced. The Coast Guard says it received no signal. |
| PLBs on lifejackets | Switch on when the jacket inflates. The jackets stayed flat, so the beacons stayed silent. |
| SPOT Gen3 tracker | Its position plots led the Coast Guard to the raft's area. |
| Starlink Mini | The only link to shore. Its power switch has an Auto setting that cuts power at 10.8 V. |
Lieutenant Commander Michael Rauch, who helped coordinate the rescue from shore, called the crew "well drilled and rehearsed" and advised: "Make sure your EPIRB is properly registered and that you know how to activate it." Mikele D'Arcangelo of ACR Electronics was blunter: "Lithium batteries work, and then they don't work." ACR advises letting an EPIRB float tied to the raft; even a hand over the antenna weakens the signal.
Safety expert Bruce Brown, whose debrief of the incident Yachting World quotes:
- says the PAN-PAN could have gone out up to 30 hours earlier;
- advises inflating lifejackets as soon as everyone is in the raft;
- recommends marking the Starlink switch's On position as Emergency Mode.
Accepting the award, Andrea Rice, who heads the Coast Guard's UK detachment, listed the lessons to draw from the case, as reported by Scuttlebutt:
- Share your route and timing with people ashore and the Coast Guard.
- Keep safety gear working and teach the crew to use it.
- Keep direct Coast Guard numbers at the chart table.
- Beyond VHF range, carry an SSB radio or a satellite phone.
- Plan ports of refuge.
- Send a PAN-PAN at the first sign of trouble, without waiting for the weather or the situation to improve.
What to do when another yacht is in distress is covered in our piece on the CCA report.
Photo: U.S. Coast Guard. Sources: Scuttlebutt, YachtsandYachting, Yachting World, Wave Train, U.S. Coast Guard, gCaptain, svmagicbus.com, Charter Index.
