Jack van Ommen’s ‘Fleetwood’ Lost on a Cuban Reef

In the March issue of Latitude 38 we bring you the story of Jack van Ommen and the circumstances surrounding his third shipwreck. This one, he says, could have been prevented.

I should have listened to the advice of Herman, my Dutch brother-in-law, when he brought me to the airport in Amsterdam: “Jaap, don’t you think that you are too old to start crossing oceans?”

That was in 2004, when I was 67. I took off in spring 2005 from my homeport in Gig Harbor, Washington. On my way back from Europe in 2013, I suffered my first shipwreck off Ibiza. Some will remember the details and spectacular pictures of the remains of Fleetwood, a Naja 30 I had built myself and sailed for 33 years…

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