June 26, 2026

After losing their sailboat rudder and becoming stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Jeanne LeBlanc-Streiff and Dan Streiff had to make the difficult decision to abandon their boat and save themselves. But they left their inReach® satellite communication device¹ powered on and tracking on the boat in the hopes that it wouldn’t be gone forever. They shared the story with Garmin.

One spring we had to make the difficult decision to abandon our sailboat, Lucky Dog, on day 16 of crossing the Pacific from Mexico to Marquesas — 650 miles from land. Our Catalina 470’s rudder simply fell off with no warning, leaving nothing but about a foot of rudder post — and no steering — in the midst of heavy swells.

When we first called pan-pan, we were in the zone of Coast Guard Hawaii and then drifted to the area of Coast Guard French Polynesia. We were told that there was a sailboat coming in our direction — or that there may not be anyone else coming for weeks. We decided that we must leave our beloved boat.

We left the Automatic Identification System (AIS) on, and one of the last things I did was set up the Garmin inReach to transmit our location every 10 minutes. I left it on Lucky Dog, plugged in to USB powered by our solar panels. During our sail back, we formulated a plan to make a rudder as fast as possible in Hiva Oa and try to find someone to take us out to Lucky Dog.

Though the AIS was transmitting, it would only update every four hours or so. The inReach, however, was faithfully posting updates regularly. Each day we checked our inReach location, knowing our ability to get Lucky Dog depended on the accuracy (and ongoing power) of the inReach.

We feared others boarding her and salvaging her. We feared losing power. But each day the Garmin inReach continued to show her path and let us know that she was still afloat.

We eventually left Hiva Oa with two separate teams of friends giving us the Garmin coordinates over our satellite phone connection. As we got closer, they gave us updates every hour. Thanks to Garmin inReach, at 1 a.m., we were led directly to Lucky Dog — which had drifted about 300 miles away.

The Garmin inReach literally helped us find a small speck in a very large ocean, and thanks to the device, we are now once again aboard our beloved Lucky Dog.

Thank you and your product team for making an outstanding and dependable product. You truly made the seemingly impossible possible.

¹Active subscription required. Some jurisdictions regulate or prohibit satellite communication devices; it is the user’s responsibility to know and follow all applicable laws.