This year the Newport to Ensenada race is requiring that all entrants have either an EPIR or PLB on board. Neither Spot nor InReach are acceptable alternatives.
My understanding, 2nd or 3rd hand, is that the crew of Aegean may have been drinking. That may explain why they were unable to successfully extract themselves from the vessel after it ran aground, and perhaps why there was apparently no watch on deck that night.
It may also explain a more fundamental error: the course line set in the autopilot intersected the North Coronados Island. The correct usage of the autopilot would have been to set a waypoint seaward of the outer island.
Mike Koerner


















































































































































































































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POPS