The family rescued from a sinking boat in the Peconic Bay Sunday afternoon were worried they’d be stranded in the water all night.
“It all happened so fast, almost before we knew what had happened, we realized we were going down,” said one of the boat’s owners, a well-known international designer who has a summer home in Southampton.
She asked that her name be withheld to protect her children’s privacy. Her three kids — all young teens — are still “deeply traumatized” by what happened Sunday, she said. “It was absolutely terrifying.”
The bay became suddenly choppy as the family’s Larson bowrider entered the south race near Robins Island, she said. As they negotiated the sudden tempest, a much larger boat sped by too close, she said. A wave from its wake converged with another wave and inundated their vessel.
“Two waves hit together just in front of our boat and went straight down into the boat,” she said in a phone interview yesterday afternoon. “It was filled with water almost immediately.”
“I’ve been on boats all my life,” she said. “I’m Swedish. I lived in an archipelago, with a thousand islands. I’ve never experienced anything like that.”
Realizing they were in trouble, the occupants all struggled to get their life jackets on as quickly as possible. Her husband sounded a siren, hoping to attract attention. But no other boats were in sight.
“We knew we’d have to jump out,” she said.
Fortunately, Ricardo Monserrate, of East Quogue, and his friend, Reece Padavan, of Westhampton, from their perch on the flybridge of Reelaxation, Monserrate’s 41-foot Luhrs, saw the boat and thought there was something wrong. See prior story.
“It didn’t seem to be moving,” said Monserrate, a cardiologist with East End Cardiology in Riverhead.
“I thought we’d be towing them in, but realized we’d have to get them on board — fast,” the doctor said.
“By the time we got close, their boat was basically 70 percent under water,” Monserrate said.
The designer, her husband and their three children were on the sinking boat with another couple.
Padavan sprang into action, Monserrate said, jumping to the main deck from the flybridge, untying the Reelaxation’s inflatable dinghy and tossing it overboard.
“It was like the ocean,” Padavan said. “The waves were crashing all around us.”
Padavan, standing on the swim platform at the rear of the Reelaxation, plucked the distressed boaters out of the water one by one.
“They were absolutely fantastic,” the rescued woman said. “They were so cool-headed. I think it was a godsend he was a doctor,” she said of Monserrate. “He’s used to stressful situations. His professionalism was very much evident.”
Monserrate had radioed the Coast Guard and by the time the Reelaxation was back in his slip at Larry’s Lighthouse Marina in Aquebogue, police, firefighters and EMTs were on scene.
One of the teens, a 13-year-old boy, had suffered a small gash on the back of his head. A Mattituck Fire Department ambulance transported him to Peconic Bay Medical Center for treatment. It required two small staples, his mother said.
“We were so impressed with the response of emergency services,” she said. “Everybody was really fantastic, even the hospital. They were all very nice, very professional.”
“I’m still in a little bit of shock,” she said yesterday.
Despite her reluctance to publicly disclose her identity, she said she thought it was very important to talk about the experience, “so other people can learn from it.”
“Understand the complications of the sea — the dangers, how to react,” she said, “the importance of life jackets, and of having something red on board to signal distress.” She also said she learned from this experience it’s important to keep some lines on the boat and not to leave them all on the dock.
Finally, she said, boat captains should keep their distance and shouldn’t speed next to other boats, particularly smaller boats.
“The heroes who came to our rescue really were our saviors,” she said. “We cannot thank them enough. “We don’t know at all what would have happened to us were it not for them.”
