20 Rescued After Ship Runs Aground

Ten college students and their 10 sailing instructors were rescued in pounding surf Monday after a twin-masted sailing ship ran aground in heavy seas near a jetty in Oxnard.

“They were shivering from cold, but otherwise OK,” said David Reyes, an Oxnard fire captain. Three of those rescued were taken to a hospital for treatment of possible hypothermia and minor bruises.

Officials said the Irving Johnson, a 90-foot vessel operated by the Los Angeles Maritime Institute in San Pedro, was approaching the entrance to Channel Islands Harbor at 3:55 p.m. They said the vessel was using its diesel engine to maneuver when it struck an uncharted sandbar apparently created by heavy seas during the night.

Capt. Jim Gladson, president of the institute, said strong currents and powerful seas generated by an approaching storm prevented the ship’s captain, Doug Corey, from regaining control.

As the ship drifted south of the harbor entrance, narrowly skirting a rock jetty and heading toward the beach, someone on board radioed that the Irving Johnson was in trouble.

The wooden ship, completed in 2003 and built to resemble a 19th century windjammer, ran aground a few yards from the beach. Large waves began breaking over the side, threatening to drive the ship against the boulders of the jetty

Moments after the ship ran aground, four people washed overboard. They were pulled from the surf by rescuers from the Coast Guard and harbor patrol.

Everyone on board was wearing a life jacket.

Tom Law, a Ventura County fire captain, said local rescue teams were summoned. Heading out from shore in two-man teams -- one man on a buoyant sled, the other on a jet ski towing the sled -- they quickly surrounded the stricken ship.

Law, a member of one of the teams, said the ship was in danger of breaking up, and it quickly became apparent that the 16 on board had to jump into the water to be rescued.

“It was our only option,” Law said. “There were people who didn’t want to jump, but they knew we meant business.”

Bob Crane, a Ventura Harbor Patrol employee who was a member of another of the two-man teams, said that despite the crashing seas, everyone remained calm and the rescue effort went smoothly. One by one, the people who jumped into the water were pulled onto sleds and towed to shore.

“This is something I’ve been trained to do,” Crane said. “It’s what I do for a living.”

A tugboat will be brought in today to try to drag the Irving Johnson to safety. Officials expressed optimism that the effort would succeed.

Gladson said the ship had left the Port of Los Angeles on Friday for a weeklong training exercise among the Channel Islands. He said the ship was making a regularly scheduled stop at Oxnard, a port the ship visits regularly, when the mishap occurred.

“We’ve had the Irving Johnson in and out of here many times, so having this happen is quite a surprise,” said Lynn Krieger, director of the Ventura County Harbor Department.

The entrance to the harbor had been surveyed as recently as Sunday, so the hidden sandbar must have formed overnight, Gladson said.

The Irving Johnson is one of two tall ships built for about $8.5 million for use in training young people to sail. The students on board attend different colleges and are on spring break, Gladson said. They are participants in the National Society of Collegiate Scholars program, based at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

“They’re kids who, rather than go to Miami and get drunk, wanted to do something useful,” he said.

Fourteen of the students and crew members were taken to a local Red Cross shelter for the night.

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Times staff writers Eric Malnic and Catherine Saillant contributed to this report.