Clung to Capsized Trimaran : Coast Guard Rescue Ends Pair’s 66-Hour Ocean Ordeal

The U.S. Coast Guard plucked a Northern California couple from the ocean Wednesday, rescuing them from a 66-hour ordeal that began when their sailboat capsized about 125 miles west of Ensenada.

“I thought, ‘Thank God! I’ll go to church,’ ” said Jan DeJulius, one of the survivors. “I got a little religion out there. You start praying and making promises.”

DeJulius, 33, and her husband, Joseph, 43, of Novato had been heading to Santa Catalina Island from Mexico when strong waves and winds knocked them 127 miles off course. About 2 p.m. Sunday, DeJulius said, a wave hit their 40-foot trimaran, Atlannta, and flipped it over.

“My husband threw me my survival suit, we put them on and went out the hatch,” she said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon at UC San Diego Medical Center.

Sat on Crossbars

DeJulius said she and her husband spent most of their time sitting on the trihulled boat’s crossbars, in water up to their knees, talking.

“We talked about our family, our friends, things we were going to do that we hadn’t done yet,” she said.

They had no food and no drinking water, but DeJulius said the worst part of the ordeal was being constantly battered by waves. The worst moment came Tuesday night when her husband became delirious.

“Last night he just looked at me and said, ‘What’s your name?’ ” she said. “Today he said he probably wouldn’t have lasted another nine hours.”

DeJulius suffered only minor bruises, and her husband, who did not attend the press conference, was being treated for hypothermia. Dr. William Baxt said Joseph DeJulius was in serious condition but “should have no problems” recovering.

Baxt said that Joseph DeJulius had taken off his survival suit briefly during the ordeal, and the hypothermia was apparently caused when water seeped into the suit when he put it back on.

Jan DeJulius had two red welts on her chin, which she said were caused by the zippers on her survival suit, and was a little shaky on her feet entering and leaving the press conference.

“I’ve looked better,” she said, “but I’m feeling quite well.”

DeJulius said she and her husband flew to Mexico and then began sailing back to Northern California as a Christmas trip. They left Puerta Vallarta on Dec. 19 and had been on the water for five weeks.

On Sunday, DeJulius said, she and her husband saw that the weather was getting rough, so they took down their sails. As her husband was heading for the engine room to figure out what to do next, a 25- to 30-foot wave hit the craft broadside.

Thinking About Dinner

“We’d just had lunch and were thinking about what to have for dinner,” DeJulius said.

DeJulius said that she and her husband attached themselves to the crossbars of the boat with hooks from their survival suits. They had brought an emergency radar signaling device along, but the waves were so strong that the Coast Guard didn’t pick it up until 1 a.m. Wednesday.

The Coast Guard went out immediately and found the boat but did not see anyone on it, DeJulius said. They put out markers at the site and sent a helicopter out at first light. The helicopter lifted the couple from the boat.

DeJulius said she had seen the markers being put down.

“This morning, towards dawn, I was just hoping someone would show up and they did,” she said.

DeJulius said she and her husband have been sailing for 11 years and had made the same trip, from Mexico to San Francisco, twice before.

She said that she wasn’t afraid to go back into the water, but would never sail a trimaran again.

“When they flip, you can’t right them again,” she said.

“I’ll go back, but it’ll be on a monohull or a big cruise ship.”