Searchers Try to Reconstruct Publisher's Fateful Journey

Sonar Sweeps Being Used to Comb the Depths

Philip Merrill is presumed dead after disappearing from his boat. (John T. Consoli - John T. Consoli)

As efforts to find the body of Annapolis publisher Philip Merrill stretch into a fourth day, investigators are re-creating his final hours in hopes of speeding a search that combines sonar technology with a sailor's sense of the Chesapeake Bay.

From the moment Merrill set out from his Severn River home Saturday, alone on the Merrilly on a windy afternoon, he subjected himself to risks that for a man alone -- even in a 41-foot, high-performance sailboat -- were substantial, sailors and meteorologists say.

Merrill entered the bay as winds reached 15 to 20 knots, or 17 to 23 miles an hour, strong enough to create three-foot whitecaps and, on land, cause small trees to sway, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist Dennis Feltgen.

But according to authorities, the Merrilly was big enough to weather such conditions and built to make single-handed sailing easier. And for its captain, who had been on boats since he was 7, the stiff breeze was ideal. Merrill's family believes he headed east, the wind at his back, on a favorite cruise to Kent Island, where he would typically turn around and return, a round trip of 18 miles.

But the wind on the way over may have made the Merrilly susceptible to what sailors call an "accidental jibe," in which a slight shift in the wind catches the main sail of the boat, causing the boom, which runs along the bottom of that sail, to swing abruptly across the boat and hit anyone in its way.

"The wind in that sail is just so powerful. . . . It's coming at you at such a great speed. And the bigger the boat, the bigger the boom coming at you," said Ruth Wood, president of the BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water, based in Alexandria.

That, the theory goes, could have knocked Merrill overboard, leaving him unable to get back aboard.

"When you're alone, you might be able to [swim] back to the boat, but getting back onto the boat, especially one like Mr. Merrill's, which was very large . . . getting back on deck is impossible without steps or something to pull your body back up," Wood said. "And when the water's so cold, you lose your strength."

Authorities believe that Merrill was not wearing a life jacket, which in safety experts' view was a key error. "Not only could it save your life, it's added hypothermia protection," Wood said.

In 1988, Richard Conlon, a Capitol Hill aide, was sailing on the bay when a sail became entangled. Trying to work it free, Conlon was hit by the boom and fell overboard. Even though his wife was on the boat with him when he fell, it took two days to find his body.

Ellison Burton, 77, the former commodore of the Parklawn Sailing Association on the West River in Anne Arundel County, was with his brother on a 37-foot boat on the Severn in 1981 when "the boom swung over, hit me in the left temple, threw me . . . about five feet out," he said. "I was bleeding from a gash on my head, and the boat is moving away from me. I could see it was futile to try to catch up." He was rescued by a family passing by.

The 40-year sailing veteran does not sail alone. "For me, it wouldn't be prudent," he said.