Yesterday, a beautiful day TampaBay area of Florida, I was heading south in the Inter Coastal inside Anclote Island when I noticed a boat with a person standing on the bow waving a towel. Astonishingly, there were several boat closer than I was than seemingly ignored the distress signal. I am in a 97 Regal Destiny 240 with a 5.7L I/O. I had 7 family members on board and I turned immediately to see if there was trouble.
Approaching the distressed boat the first thing I noticed were two folks in the water and 3 in the boat. The boat was really low in the water and appeared to be sinking. I first asked if everyone was ok... I got a "Yes". I then asked if they had radio or had called for help. "No".
Ok, fine. As I was instructing the distressed folks I had to tell everybody on my own boat to shut the the hell up and stay put. I had one 20 yr old passenger that was poising himself to jump in the water. Geez. Ok, back to the rescue.
One of the guys (it appeared to be the boat owner) stated he needed to be towed back to shore. I told him I would NOT be towing his boat but that I would be happy to take his people and belongings to shore while we figure out what to do next. I explained that I would come along side of him and transfer people and stuff but we would NOT allow a rope to be tied to the boat. He agreed.
My wife on the other hand kept pleading with me to just tow the boat. I had to sternly remind her that I was responsible for 12 people on board now and that we were absolutely NOT to tie anything off to that sinking boat!! :facepalm:
By now, a 15-16ft skiff had also pulled along side of the sinking vessel and the skipper's mate was reaching from her boat and bailing the transom of the sinking boat while we continued to transfer personal belongings and camping gear.
With my boat now FULLY loaded (maybe a bit over-loaded) I pulled away slowly and started to idle toward the shore.
The little skiff continued to bail and they decide they would try to tow the partially submerged boat to the beach with the captain staying on board and continuing to bail.
I ended up bringing the load of people and stuff to nearby canal to off-load at a friend's dock. As we we were heading in to the channel I noticed the little skiff had stopped towing the boat and seemed to be disconnecting. Apparently he smartened up or realized he was putting himself at great risk for a lost cause. (the sinking boat was not only a total loss, it was a piece of crap to begin with and probably had no business being in the water in the first place)
After dropping of all the folks as we were leaving the canal we saw the little sunken boat had been towed to within a 100 ft of the beach by a large pontoon boat and seemed to be doing ok. The captain gave us a big thank you wave and we were heading back to our home port. All ended well!
When we got home I explained to my wife that I was perfectly willing to tow a boat on the lake (we live on Lake Tarpon) that might be having mechanical troubles but in the Gulf (with weather, currents and waves) I would never tow a sinking or distressed boat. It's just too risky.
I am happy to help people... But I have enough responsibility keeping one boat and all soles afloat.
What say you?
Approaching the distressed boat the first thing I noticed were two folks in the water and 3 in the boat. The boat was really low in the water and appeared to be sinking. I first asked if everyone was ok... I got a "Yes". I then asked if they had radio or had called for help. "No".
Ok, fine. As I was instructing the distressed folks I had to tell everybody on my own boat to shut the the hell up and stay put. I had one 20 yr old passenger that was poising himself to jump in the water. Geez. Ok, back to the rescue.
One of the guys (it appeared to be the boat owner) stated he needed to be towed back to shore. I told him I would NOT be towing his boat but that I would be happy to take his people and belongings to shore while we figure out what to do next. I explained that I would come along side of him and transfer people and stuff but we would NOT allow a rope to be tied to the boat. He agreed.
My wife on the other hand kept pleading with me to just tow the boat. I had to sternly remind her that I was responsible for 12 people on board now and that we were absolutely NOT to tie anything off to that sinking boat!! :facepalm:
By now, a 15-16ft skiff had also pulled along side of the sinking vessel and the skipper's mate was reaching from her boat and bailing the transom of the sinking boat while we continued to transfer personal belongings and camping gear.
With my boat now FULLY loaded (maybe a bit over-loaded) I pulled away slowly and started to idle toward the shore.
The little skiff continued to bail and they decide they would try to tow the partially submerged boat to the beach with the captain staying on board and continuing to bail.
I ended up bringing the load of people and stuff to nearby canal to off-load at a friend's dock. As we we were heading in to the channel I noticed the little skiff had stopped towing the boat and seemed to be disconnecting. Apparently he smartened up or realized he was putting himself at great risk for a lost cause. (the sinking boat was not only a total loss, it was a piece of crap to begin with and probably had no business being in the water in the first place)
After dropping of all the folks as we were leaving the canal we saw the little sunken boat had been towed to within a 100 ft of the beach by a large pontoon boat and seemed to be doing ok. The captain gave us a big thank you wave and we were heading back to our home port. All ended well!
When we got home I explained to my wife that I was perfectly willing to tow a boat on the lake (we live on Lake Tarpon) that might be having mechanical troubles but in the Gulf (with weather, currents and waves) I would never tow a sinking or distressed boat. It's just too risky.
I am happy to help people... But I have enough responsibility keeping one boat and all soles afloat.
What say you?
NIce job Captain Vankaye.
