7 Sea Scouts, Advisers Rescued as Boat Sinks : Sea drama: The ketch Mariner goes down rapidly off Santa Catalina, but teen-agers stay cool and send out a ‘Mayday’ message that brings help.

Shawn Wehan, 15, recalled on Saturday that the order to abandon ship was “a big surprise, totally unexpected.”

Wehan was one of seven teen-age Sea Scouts sailing on the 72-foot ketch Mariner from Dana Point to Santa Catalina Island on Friday night. Their adult adviser, Robert Fagnant, came from a below-deck inspection about 7:30 p.m. and calmly told Wehan that the sailboat was leaking badly and was sinking.

Wehan was trained in Sea Scout radio skills and Fagnant told him to put out a “Mayday call” for help and to prepare to leave the rapidly sinking vessel.

“I didn’t have time to be scared,” said Wehan, who was standing in the water that flooded the boat as he made the radio calls. “You can’t panic in that kind of situation. And I knew what to do.”

Coast Guard and other officials on Saturday said that “knowing what to do” spelled the difference between safety and disaster on Friday night as the Sea Scout sailing ship sank only about 10 minutes after it began springing major leaks. The teen-agers and two adults on board all escaped without injury as the boat plunged to the ocean floor about eight miles off the coast of Catalina in 3- to 4-foot swells.

The nine crew members were rescued by Mike Hollos, a sergeant with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, who answered a call from the Coast Guard asking for assistance from any boats in the vicinity of the Mariner. Hollos, who was headed to Avalon with his wife, Heidi, and daughter, Jessica, aboard their powerboat My High, also said the experience of the scouts helped avert disaster.

“Something like that is always dangerous, but it appeared to go smoothly,” Hollos said. “If they hadn’t drilled on it, it could have been a real problem. It was extremely rough and very windy.”

Fagnant said the leak was apparently caused when the caulking that sealed the hull’s wooden planks failed. He said the boat, built in the 1940s on the East Coast and originally used as an oyster fishing boat on Chesapeake Bay, received $9,000 worth of repairs and an overhauling only two months ago. The Mariner had been extensively water tested after the maintenance and no problems showed up, he said.

The boat was donated to the Sea Scouts for training cruises about nine years ago, Fagnant said. He estimated the value of the Mariner at about $30,000.

Los Angeles County Lifeguard Lt. Paul McIlroy said the teen-agers--four boys and three girls who ranged from 15 to 18--were excited after their rescue at sea. “It was like a new episode in their life,” McIlroy said.

The nine persons on the Mariner all boarded an emergency dinghy on the sailboat and paddled away minutes before the crippled vessel went under. After they were picked up by the My High, they were transferred to a lifeguard boat from Avalon that responded to the distress call, and then to a Coast Guard boat for the return to the mainland, officials said.

On Saturday, adult adviser Fagnant recounted the events that led to the successful evacuation of the sailboat.

“All the kids are from the San Clemente-Dana Point area, and we were headed to Catalina for a weekend trip,” Fagnant said. “It was about 7:30 p.m. that this took place, and I was at the helm. Shawn had gone below to change clothes, and he came back up and told me I should look at what was happening below. So I gave him the wheel and went below, and I perceived we were taking on water at a very fast rate. I told Shawn to send out Maydays--that we were going under. And I then told the crew that we would put the dinghy in the water and we would disembark.

“Everything went very well,” Fagnant said. “These kids have had a lot of training; they get a lot of discipline in seamanship skills in the Sea Scout program and they all knew the procedure for something like this if it ever was to happen.”

Wehan said he knew the boat had sprung a leak but was surprised that it necessitated abandoning ship. But what Wehan did not know at the time, Fagnant explained, was that the small leak quickly became a gusher below decks.

“The first time I went down to check, there was only about three inches of water,” Fagnant said. “But the second time I went down, a few minutes later, there was 12 inches of water. The water was coming in at a very fast rate. The joints between the planking had broken loose around the starboard bow.”

Fagnant said there was no panic or disorder as the teen-agers and his wife, Vicki, 27, prepared to evacuate the Mariner. “Vicki was along as the chaperon for the girls, and it was her first sailing trip, and I guess it was not what she expected,” Fagnant said.

“The water was rising fast, and Shawn was standing in water as he made his radio calls. Shawn made contact with both the Coast Guard and the My High, and I could see the My High about three-quarters of a mile away.

“We hand-lifted the dinghy into the water, and one by one filed into it. I was the last to leave, and just before leaving, I took off the American flag and carried it with me. We then pulled away as quickly as we could from the Mariner, because we didn’t want to be near if anything struck around us. Then she (the Mariner) went under. But we weren’t in the dinghy very long, maybe two minutes.”

Hollos said the Mariner was about two miles from his vessel when he first heard the distress call and it took about five minutes at top speed to reach the boat. He said it sank just as he arrived.

“They were just screaming and yelling, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ ” Hollos said. “Everyone was comfortable, although a little scared.”

The Mariner sank in about 300 feet of water, Fagnant said. He added that it “is extremely doubtful” that any attempt would be made to try to raise it, because of the depth involved.

Wehan, who will be a sophomore next fall at Dana Hills High School, said that he was impressed at how orderly everyone was during the evacuation. And he said there was general sadness among the Sea Scouts in losing their training ship. “We’ve spent a lot of time working on that boat; it was like all that was going down with it,” he said.

Fagnant said the last seconds of the Mariner were especially dramatic.

“Just before it went totally under, the two Sea Scout flags on the two masts fluttered above the water for awhile, and I guess that is something these kids will remember a long time,” he said.