Lifeguards Pull Sailor From Open Water After Catamaran Capsizes Off Delray Beach

DEERFIELD BEACH, FL (Boca Post) (Copyright © 2025) — Delray Beach lifeguards pulled a sailor out of open water after a catamaran flipped a couple miles off the beach on Friday, November 28, 2025.

The trouble started when the Delray Beach Fire Rescue Ocean Rescue team spotted the capsized catamaran about two miles offshore, off the Delray shoreline. From the tower it just looked wrong, upside down in the chop, no one clearly visible on top of it.

Lt. Posta didn’t wait around. He told Lifeguards Richard Walde and Justin Cattan to launch the PRWC and get out there. Quick run off the beach, engines up, straight toward the overturned sailboat.

When they reached the catamaran, they got the bad news. Not everyone was with the boat. One crewman had drifted away from the vessel, somewhere out in the open water. No exact spot, just “far” — which is not what you want to hear two miles out.

So the rescue shifted from a simple check to a search. Walde and Cattan pushed off again and started working the area, looking for any sign of a head, an arm, something breaking the surface. They eventually found him roughly a mile away from the capsized boat, alone in the water.

They pulled up, got hands on him, and did a quick assessment. He was stable enough to move, so they brought him safely back to the sailboat. The crewman was reunited with the rest of the group, this time on a rescue craft instead of just hanging on to a hull.

From there, the response turned back to the catamaran itself. The overturned boat was escorted toward shore, guided in from offshore back to the sand. Once they reached the beach, crews were able to right the vessel on the shoreline.

The department points to the quick response and the way the pieces came together — the initial sighting, the fast launch, the offshore search, and then the escort back in — as the reason this ended with everyone accounted for. Lifeguards Walde and Cattan are being recognized for their work on the call, along with Lt. Posta’s direction from the beach.

No additional injuries were reported.