"It was a big set and it broke so wide it wiped out, like, six of the boats, twelve kids in total."
A flotilla of twelve-year-old wanna be sailors is lucky to be alive after almost being washed into rocks at Santa Cruz harbour late yesterday. The group, part of a sail training school, entered the harbour mouth just as a clean-up set swept through the lineup, overturning the boats and throwing the kids into the water.
Fifteen-year-old photographer Connor Garde, a freshman there at Soquel High, was shooting his buddies from the beach when he saw the drama unfurl.
“They came in at the very worst time,” Connor told BeachGrit during a break from school. “It was a big set and it broke so wide it wiped out, like, six of the boats, twelve kids in total.”
On the beach, Connor says chuckles quickly turned to panic with the alarm raised, 911 called etc.
Before help via jetskis arrived, surfers in the lineup had scooped up the kids and got ’em to safety.
“We’ve had days like this where we end up with nine, ten people on our boat that are being rescued simultaneously, so it’s not just one person getting rescued because they got in over their heads. It’s half the people in the water sometimes,” Assistant Santa Cruz Harbor Master, Sean Rothwell, told KSBW.
Scroll through the vids below.