In early November 1998, Roy and Karen Olson were under way aboard their Tayana 42 cutter Kampeska with 68 other boats in the West Marine Caribbean 1500 Rally. They departed Norfolk, VA, with 52 other boats, while another 16 boats had sailed from Newport, RI. The destination was Virgin Gorda in the balmy British Virgin Islands.
         Typical of mom and pop cruising couples, Roy and Karen had worked hard and spent a lot of money putting their dream of a liveaboard cruising sailboat together. They named their beloved cruising home after Lake Kampeska, a peaceful body of water back home in South Dakota where they learned to love the water. They had equipped Kampeska for the dual roles of safe offshore passage-making and providing a comfortable retirement home for a husband and wife.
         The Olsons had more sailing and cruising experience than the majority of their rally mates heading south. They had over 10,000 miles of bluewater sailing behind them plus 13 months living aboard another vessel in the Caribbean. They had easily met all of the safety equipment requirements listed in an extensive rally checklist. After a prolonged period ashore preparing their boat, these eager and energetic sailors had completed their preparations and were setting out to explore the West Indies. Roy's brother Roger, and Roger's wife Judee, were sailing as crew.

They were heading for a rendezvous with the tail end of a Central American hurricane.
         All hands aboard Kampeska were looking forward to cruising the sunny Caribbean, but first they had to get there. When Kampeska left Norfolk heading southeast on November 1, 1998, they had a clear weather report and light conditions. On that same Sunday afternoon, tropical depression Mitch, the remnants of the strongest October hurricane ever recorded, was dissipating and producing torrential rains over the jungles of the Guatemala-Mexico border. Neither the crew of the Kampeska, nor the staff of the Caribbean 1500, who provided the rally participants with twice daily weather reports, had any idea that they were heading for a rendezvous with the tail end of a Central American hurricane.
         The first two days out of Chesapeake Bay the crew enjoyed a full range of conditions and pleasant sailing, but by the third day the wind had built to a formidable 30 knots out of the southwest. Meanwhile, tropical depression Mitch wandered into the Bay of Campeche some 1,600 miles south-southwest of Kampeska and found new life in the bay's warm waters. With a developed low level circulation building the system back to tropical storm force, Mitch began to move across the Yucatan Peninsula toward the east with a renewed determination.
         Wednesday, November 4, found Kampeska pounding to weather in gale force winds from the southwest. That morning, Roy Olson received a weather report from the rally weather forecasters ashore that a deep low-pressure system to the north was bearing down on the Caribbean 1500 fleet. Many of the boats headed for Bermuda to seek safe haven. The decision was made aboard Kampeska that they would press south at best speed in an effort to stay below the low.
         Mid-morning on that same day, Mitch, attenuated by the effects of land and again reduced to tropical depression force, cleared the Yucatan and began a march to the northeast across the warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico. As it headed for south Florida, Mitch became involved with a frontal zone moving through the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Within hours Mitch was back up to tropical storm strength and very much back into the picture. Kampeska and her crew were only 36 hours away from being caught in a deadly pincer between two very powerful and distinct weather systems.
         On Thursday, November 5, Kampeska was laboring in 40 knots of wind that had backed into the south and was strengthening each hour. Progress early in the day was difficult, and by the afternoon she was unable to make any headway in the storm force winds. By nightfall they were about 200 miles southwest of Bermuda and the wind was howling a steady 50 knots from the south, with gusts to 60 and 70 knots. At 8 p.m. the decision was made to ride out the storm lying ahull--the sails were furled, the wheel was lashed, and the crew went below. As the deep north Atlantic low pressure system overtook them, Kampeska and her crew were at the mercy of a violent sea.
         On the morning of November 5, Mitch slammed into Naples, FL, with 60-knot winds, then punched its way across the south Florida peninsula and barreled across the straights of Florida like a freight train--fueled by the warmth of the Gulf Stream. By that afternoon Mitch cleared the northern Bahamas tracking to the northeast with a speed of advance of approximately 50 knots. The cool waters of the north Atlantic transformed Mitch into a powerful extra-tropical low pressure system.
         It was a difficult night aboard Kampeska. With no sail to steady her as the storm force winds battered on her beam, she was tossed violently about in the trough of heavily breaking seas. The fury of the two approaching weather systems played havoc with the sea, heaping its surface into steep and confused waves and putting Kampeska in the grip of storm force winds. It was a dirty night, and the graybeards of the north Atlantic were out.
         Thankfully, toward daylight on the morning of November 6, conditions began to moderate and the sea did not seem so violent. As sailors have done since man first started going down to the sea, the crew found hope as they anticipated sunrise--perhaps the worst was over.
         At about 5 a.m. the small secure world below deck on Kampeska was shattered when she was boarded by a rogue wave on the beam. Kampeska was rolled, capsized, and dismasted. Disaster had struck on the way to paradise, and four souls found themselves in a battle for survival on a very big and dangerous ocean.