Failed Rescue Becomes Fight to Survive : Death: Anaheim boater’s desperate attempt to save his friend nearly becomes a twin tragedy in stormy seas.

A lifelong passion for swimming and 30 years of lifeguard work helped Robert Bartlett stay alive in stormy seas off Long Beach on Sunday night.

But nothing prepared him for the moment when he had to let go of his unconscious friend, who had fallen overboard from their sailboat.

Bartlett had jumped into the ocean to save 63-year-old Marlan Weech, his co-worker and the owner of the sailboat, after Weech had lost his balance in a swell. In the chilly 53-degree water, Bartlett recalled Tuesday, he realized his friend had no pulse and that Bartlett had to let go to survive.

“It was one of the toughest decisions to leave him adrift, but I knew if I didn’t let him go and try, that both of us weren’t going to survive,” Bartlett said. “It was very hard. I looked back at him, and it will always be like a photograph in my mind.”

Bartlett was rescued several hours later near the breakwater by a Los Angeles Harbor pilot boat. But Weech remains missing, and the Coast Guard has called off its search.

On Tuesday, the 45-year-old Bartlett was released from a Long Beach hospital, where he was treated for severe hypothermia and ingestion of seawater.

Bartlett and Weech lived a few miles apart in Anaheim. Both were construction supervisors at the Baldwin Co. in Irvine and they had grown close over the past three years, often going sailing together, Bartlett said.

On Sunday, the two men went out on Weech’s 42-foot sailboat, the Mona Esprit. They had planned to sail toward Santa Catalina Island, then head back to Long Beach and return to San Pedro, where the Mona Esprit was docked.

Bartlett said they cleared L.A. Light, the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater in Los Angeles Harbor, around 1 p.m. A small-craft warning was in effect, but Weech’s boat was beyond the maximum size for a small vessel.

The two heard banging sounds, Bartlett said, and discovered that a long portion of the boat’s rubber bumper had come away from one side. Weech then started tying the bumper to the side of the boat with pieces of twine. When he started to stand after tying one segment, a large swell rocked the boat and he fell over the side.

“As he started to fall he grabbed the safety rail, then lost his grip, but he was conscious,” Bartlett said. Bartlett threw a buoy to Weech, but he couldn’t seem to reach it.

“He said: ‘Bob, hurry. Bob, hurry,’ ” Bartlett said. “Like there was an urgency in his voice. He’s not the type of man who gives up easy. He’s wiry, feisty.”

Bartlett tried to get a safety line around Weech by sailing around him. He thought Weech might be able to reach the boat’s swimming steps, which were hanging over the side and not far from Weech.

But then, Bartlett said, “The right side of his body went limp, and he went face down in the water. That was extremely startling to me, and I knew I had to do something.”

Bartlett tore off his shoes and jacket and dove into the water. He held onto the safety line, struggling to grab Weech, but Weech had slipped just beyond the line’s reach.

Bartlett said he let go of the line to grab Weech and get his face out of the water. After he made sure his friend was floating face up, he realized the boat was moving away.

He released Weech to grab the line, but the boat was moving too quickly. After about 20 strokes, he said, he abandoned the chase.

It was at that point, Bartlett said, that he decided to swim with Weech toward the breakwater, three to five miles away.

He yelled for help, hoping other boats would hear him, he said, but none did. By then it was dark and Bartlett, despite years of swimming and working part time as a lifeguard, was becoming exhausted.

“One of the hardest things in my life was to say goodby and let him go,” he said. “Then I started to swim toward the breakwater. I knew that’s what I had to do.”

Marty Maher, captain of the Angel’s Pilot, a 65-foot boat used to transfer pilots to larger vessels coming into the harbor, said a cargo vessel, the Sangay, had been heading into the harbor when someone aboard heard Bartlett’s yells and called the harbor station for help, thinking one of the vessel’s crew was overboard.

Maher then went out to search, and in his boat’s searchlight saw Bartlett’s arm sticking out of the water about 500 feet from the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

“Occasionally he would go under water and wouldn’t resurface for several seconds, and when that happened, we thought we would never see him again,” Maher said.

When he and his crewman pulled Bartlett aboard, “He was breathing; he was mumbling something, but he was just incoherent,” Maher said.

Bartlett was taken to Kaiser Medical Center in Long Beach, where doctors and nurses worked for several hours to raise his body temperature. Once stable, Bartlett was transferred to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

Bartlett said he wanted Weech’s friends to understand what happened that day.

“He just didn’t fall over and die, it wasn’t that way,” he said. “We had very good control of the boat. We had been in much rougher weather than that.”

Bartlett described Weech as 6-foot-3, with graying hair and a strong build.

“I think we were kind of alike,” Bartlett said. “We both liked doing a lot of things together. Mostly we went to boat shows, had coffee, worked together. I was very lucky; it was just a great relationship.”

Weech and Bartlett would go on sailing trips with their families, and were planning several trips to Catalina this summer.

Officials at the Baldwin Co. said Weech was a father figure to many younger workers in the company, and he was an expert in building roads and other infrastructure.

“If you had a question, he is the guy that everybody would turn to,” said Geoff Fearns, president of the company’s Orange County and Riverside divisions. “It’s been a real shock for the entire company. I think everybody here has had a difficult time dealing with this accident.”

For Bartlett’s father, the Rev. Arthur Bartlett of San Pedro, Sunday night was a nightmare he never thought he would face, despite his family’s long maritime history. Known to the sailing community as “Father Bartlett,” Arthur Bartlett is an Episcopal minister who directed the Seamen’s Church Institute in San Pedro before he retired.

Arthur Bartlett said his family received a call from the hospital at 9 p.m. Sunday. The caller said that Robert Bartlett “didn’t have any measurable temperature, so we were totally devastated by the news,” the senior Bartlett said.

He said his son has been involved with swimming clubs since he was a child, and has kept up his lifeguard skills, even if he didn’t work as a full-time lifeguard. “Fortunately he’s in very good physical health,” he said, “and he could use all those things he learned over the years.”

Robert Bartlett said his lifeguard skills saved his life, but it was thoughts of his family that kept him determined to survive.

“As I was swimming and I had depressions and anxieties, and realized it was getting darker, all I could think of was my wife and my daughter,” he said. “And I thought, ‘I’ve got to survive. I’ve got to get to the breakwater.’ ”

Now, he said, “I will try to pick up my life and remember the thoughts with Marlan, and treasure the moments with my daughter and my wife.”