Recovery Plan Fails, Crashed Boat Breaks Up on a Montecito Beach
John Palminteri
MONTECITO, Calif. – A 27-foot sailboat did not have a second chance it had hope for after crashing on Butterfly Beach Tuesday in Montecito.
It crashed Sunday with no one on board. The vessel broke loose from the anchorage on the eastern side of Stearns wharf off Santa Barbara’s waterfront.
The drifting vessel was intercepted by some people in the water who may have made a difference to keep it off the rocks where it could have been damaged on its arrival.
Then came a plan by the owner Luke Wallace who said he boat would be recovered at high tide around noon Tuesday and it looked to be undamaged.
That changed when the waves started moving it around and it is unclear exactly what happened but by morning, it was in pieces all over the beach in the ocean.
An investigation is underway to see how the destruction of the vessel could have been avoided.
Wallace said Monday on the beach, “it is looking pretty good. Minus the outboard that is missing. I think it is in pretty good shape.”
The next hours were catastrophic.
That left behind a debris field that was shocking to the first people to walk the beach.
Some immediately tried to keep the pieces from getting back into the water.
Montecito resident Helene Folkart looked around after going back and forth several times and said, “I got a pile there. A second one here, and then we started on a third one here .”
A family from Germany was also on site and helping out.
“It looked like it exploded,” said Harry Rabin with the non-profit environmental group Heal the Ocean. “We’ll maybe try to figure out what happened but I am really shocked to see it came apart like that.”
Some of the debris was dangerous to touch.
Summer Wilson from Summerland said, “this is terrible. That is a gas tank that’s in the water. I don’t understand why someone isn’t here to clean it up and we are doing it.”
Debris was carried by the currents down the coast more than 100 yards.
Wilson said, “there’s paint thinner, cans of paint thinners all kinds of toxic material and it is coming this way because all the trash is all the way down,” she said pointing east. “We walked down there, it’s coastal and there’s nails (in the wood.)”
Those who have seen this before and have been part of salvaging broken boats say the county’s plan to respond to these incidents is inadequate.
“It’s definitely going to head to Miramar at this point probably and beyond and that is the worst nightmare,” said Rabin.
“Everything we moved to the rocks is going to go to the ocean so someone needs to come down here and clean up all the piles that we made,” said Wilson.
Heal the Ocean is currently covering the costs and working with Marborg Industries on a full clean up on the beach.
Recently another sailboat also crashed there and was abandoned for more than a week before an emergency cleanup effort took place to crush it and remove the remains in a Marborg coordinated effort, again with funds by Heal the Ocean.
A more defined response policy by the county is being developed for these incidents with Santa Barbara County Supervisor Roy Lee.
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