Our Honolulu
Man took rough road to Moloka'i
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Staff Writer
Ben Dowling, general manager of Nick's Fish Market, is about to celebrate the 25th anniversary of being shipwrecked on Moloka'i. I mean shipwrecked, as in cast away without clothes and thrown onto rocks, with only three candy bars for sustenance.
This epic began when Dowling, age 30, decided to enter his 16-foot Prindle catamaran in the Rusty Harpoon Regatta at Lahaina, Maui. But he didn't get it on the barge in time. He'd have to sail it over.
"No way am I going to cross the Moloka'i Channel in a Prindle," said his one-man crew. "I'll fly and meet you in Lahaina."
Just as well. Dowling set out alone from Lanikai Beach as a spectacular sunrise exploded in the east.
"It was a gorgeous morning, super calm, wind 5 to 15 knots," he recalled. By noon, he was only halfway across the channel. Why worry? He'd put into Moloka'i if he didn't make Lahaina before dark.
By 4 p.m. the wind was blowing 20 knots, the catamaran surging through the waves. As Dowling rounded the northwest tip of Moloka'i, he saw ugly clouds, a storm, on the horizon. By 6 p.m. the wind was blowing 25 knots.
He didn't know that a high surf warning had just been issued for northwest coasts. Long, heavy swells rolled under the hulls. Dowling tied everything down, reefed the main sail and careened into the dusk. Total darkness enveloped him.
He tried to hug the shore, looking for a harbor or beach. Excitement raced through his blood. All he could see was foaming surf. The wind howled. He heard sounds of rushing water all around him.
Then everything became calm. He knew he was in the trough of a big wave, broadside to it, and in deep trouble. "I looked up, holding onto the tiller and the boom, and saw the crest of a wave coming down on my 18-foot mast."
The catamaran took the wave itself and surfed it, catapulting down the huge cliff of water. Dowling said the boat bounced three times, bottoming out, before it somersaulted him off the deck backwards. He clung to the rudder.
The catamaran dragged him through water at breakneck speed, tearing off his swimsuit and wristwatch. Jagged rocks loomed ahead. He let go of the tiller and the starboard hull gave him a tremendous whack on the head.
He went into a sort of sleep. All he remembers is being underwater and saying to himself, "Don't breathe, don't breathe."
He woke up spread-eagled naked on jagged rocks, bloody and racked with pain.
His boat was high and dry, a vague ghost, in a heavy mist. He found a pair of sunglasses on the deck, his duffel bag below. So he dressed in dry clothes, ate a candy bar and slept on the boat.
They found him the next day. Dowling wants to thank the nurses at Moloka'i Hospital who let him sleep on a cot in the hall so he would not have to pay for a room, and the cop that took him to breakfast because he had no money.
