Honorable Dead Boatters

Boating

by boatguy Ed

A casual acquaintance collared me the other day at a popular watering hole and insisted that I listen to his 'undying desire' to own a boat. The word undying triggered long lost memories, some fond. some painful.

If you're around the water long enough you'll meet enthusiasts like my friend and every other type of boater. I'm not talking about the beloved weekend boater with a 19 foot Barslammer and 2.2 kids and a third wife. No, I'm talking about working boaters and cruising boaters and dead boaters.

Dying on a boat suddenly raises the living status of the most low of low life's. I knew a nasty back deck shrimper who went missing during a storm. He was memorialized by the same people he harassed when he was alive. He was an extreme case for sure.

The news media grabs onto stories of boating stupidity and tries to make the people who died or nearly died into heroes. Endangering yourself and others would be called reckless by any rational person. But the slicked down man or woman standing in front of flood lights holding a microphone on a remote location is allowed to refer to the boater who took his family out in front of an approaching Hurricane a 'hero' because out of sheer luck they didn't die.

My personal favorite dead boaters aren't the ones that went out fishing for the afternoon and ended up in Davey Jones Locker. They are the characters like those that lived on their boats in the “As the Anchor Drags Marina” many years ago. Take Sergeant Buck for example. He was a nice drunk as long as you didn't get between him and his drink. He lived on a sailboat and an Army pension and disability. He did work occasionally when the money went low.

Throughout the ten years I knew him I learned many an intimate detail of his estranged family and passed indiscretions. He could run a good war story and once mentioned that he reached the rank of Captain on his second tour of Viet Nam but ended his army career as a Sergeant. His life was full and tragic the latter caused by alcohol. What I really liked about Sgt Buck was he didn't join in the gossip and bickering that gave the marina the soap opera like nickname.

He was usually included in the daily episodic drama but only because he was a colorful part of the marina life. When he ventured out to the local service clubs he would often be found sleeping it off on the seawall in front of his boat.

Then one day he made it all the way onto the boat. The marina employees found him on his boat sitting peacefully at his chart table with an empty glass in his hand. He'd been dead a day and a half. He went peacefully unlike his early life. His instructions demanded that no memorial be held.

If you watch any television at all you've probably been horrified by the “Most Dangerous Job” focusing on King Crab fishing. Every time I watch they tell the viewers abut a boat sinking or a crewman drug overboard by a crab pot. It always reminds me why these people party so intensely when ashore.

Way back when I was a novice boat broker I listed a shrimp boat. I went on a couple nights work to better learn the operation but first the owner and I had to round up the crew. The Captain was delivered by his wife in a Cadillac that the boat owner financed. The two other crewmen were located at Rusty's Resort and we loaded them into separate grocery carts and dumped them on the boat, literally. A couple days into the thirty day trip the owner picked me up and I was very happy to get off that hard working boat.

I lost track of the crew but I understood one hard truth; they paid them in cash back then and never wanted to know their real names. If they knew one of them was dead they'd have memorials to Red or Bob but that was all they knew.

In every seaport in the world there are memorials to the lost at sea and rightly so. Today in Florida we chase the working fisherman and women away and legislate away the rights of poor travelers especially on boats! We should be ashamed. Boat safe.

Send questions and comments to boatguiEd@aol.com!

boatguy Ed (boatguiEd@aol.com) is a manufacturer of the worlds BEST anti-fouling bottom paint, www.supershipbottom.com. NEVER, EVER TRY TO BUY HIM A DRINK!

This column is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. Do not read while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment.