Responding To Disaster: Boaters Helping Boaters

SAN DIEGO — If you’ve been wondering how to help hurricane-ravaged sailors, boaters and local residents, consider joining South Coast Yachts’ Southern California’s-spearheaded efforts. The news of Hurricane Irma’s damage in the Caribbean and Florida started bad and grew only worse after Hurricane Maria hit, inflicting a double whammy on some areas, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Three hurricanes decimating the region plus destructive earthquakes in neighboring Mexico have many boaters looking for new ways to assist survivors. For San Diego-based South Coast Yachts President Barrett Canfield, news reports brought back too-vivid memories of life in the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Marilyn struck in 1995. Just shy of Category 3-strength winds, Marilyn destroyed or damaged 80 percent of the homes in St. Thomas and left 10,000 island residents homeless, along with thousands more on nearby St. John and St. Croix. Canfield’s St. Thomas apartment survived, but his girlfriend – now wife – Liz’s apartment did not. She, along with several other newly homeless friends, moved in with him. They went without power for 45 days, while he, then base manager for a charter company, and colleagues worked to rebuild their sailing fleets. For Harvey, Irma and Maria, as with most major...