Angels do walk among us in our everyday lives—I believe that. But in the offshore racing world, they don’t walk. They travel by helicopter at low altitude, and they swim.
I am talking of course, about Shawn Steinert and company on offshore racing’s finest rescue crew.
Most of the time, they just follow the boats around the course, lap after lap, for every race. They don’t often have to deploy as offshore racing accidents are rare relative to the numbers of races and boats during a given race weekend. But they did last Sunday when the 32-foot canopied Super Stock-class Mikalyzed catamaran carrying owner/driver Pete Riveiro and throttleman Ricky Maldonado rolled in a turn during the XINSURANCE Great Lakes Grand Prix in Michigan City, Ind.
From the shore, the deployment looked routine. Yet it was anything but as somehow the boat’s top-hatch opened during the incident and its cockpit instantly flooded. Worse, Maldonado’s foot got entangled with what his son, Julian, believes was a portion of the safety harness.
“There I was, all alone in an empty helicopter with just the pilot and hovering over the boat, thinking, ‘This is taking way too long. They should be out by now,’” Steinert recalled. “The whole thing probably took 25 to 30 seconds, but Ricky had lost his regulator. Jordan Williams, a new member of our team who came board two weeks ago was an Air Force Special Warfare/Pararescue rescue diver, tried to pull him out through the open bottom escape hatch he was pretty much stuck.
“So Jordan put everything he had into and yanked him out,” he continued. “Ricky was still conscious. Pete, on the other hand, came out pretty easily.”
Steinert paused and exhaled.
“That was really close,” he said softly. “My hat’s off to Josh. He’s a born rescuer. He’s an animal.
“I’m also really proud of our guy Stephen Fender, who entered submerged canopy to assist extrication from bottom side of the cat,” he added. “He’s a Brevard County (Fla.) Ocean Rescue Supervisor and a former United States Army combat-medic and diver.”
Julian Maldonado, the co-owner of Manatee Marine Unlimited in Palmetto, Fla., had the catamaran ready for this weekend’s Mercury Racing Midwest Challenge event in Sheboygan, Wis., “within two hours” of the boat being towed back to shore. His father, who injured his foot in the incident and has a doctor’s appointment today to assess the damage, won’t be in the cockpit Sheboygan. His younger son, Ricardo, will take his place.
“On behalf of my dad and our entire family, I want to thank Shawn and their entire rescue team for saving my dad’s life,” Julian Maldonado said.
Steinert and his crew will be watching the Sheboygan races, of course, from above this weekend. Because that’s where offshore racing’s angels reside.