justgeorge wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
Many moons ago aged 15 I was captain of a dive boat (with no radio) that started sinking quite rapidly. No lives lost thankfully, though my idiot boss ended up in the ICU later that day... Craziest day of my life.
We gotta hear the rest of that story!
Well, you asked! It's a long story...
Summer 1985.
Background: I was born and grew up in the Bahamas living on a sailboat, and from age 11 I worked for a local dive company in my holidays. By the time I was 15 I was a qualified divemaster and was taking dive groups out on my own. I would get a few strange looks as the paying tourists would realise that 'I was it,' captain, crew, divemaster...but hey - they were on holiday going diving so no-one really cared. The dive boats were not well maintained and rarely had a working radio. It was kind of the wild west but the diving industry was booming in the 80s and there was no real risk of litigation if things went wrong. Plus, my boss was an eternal optimist so clearly nothing
could go wrong!
Ever get that sinking feeling?
So... I take a 30 foot dive boat (with a small tuna tower) out to a dive site that was thankfully only 400 yards from shore. I had about a dozen divers on board. We anchor in about 45 feet deep water and begin to gear up. But almost immediately after shutting off the engine I sense something is wrong as the boat seems to be listing. I grab a mask and jump over to check the hull. All looks normal but when I surface near the bow I can see the boat is listing heavily. I realize the boat is taking on water fast and though I don't know where or why, I realize I need to get to shore quickly!
Split second decision
By this time 2 divers were in the water. They were still on the surface but away from the boat. I had to assess the situation in a couple of seconds and made the decision that with a light onshore breeze and only a quarter mile from shore, the divers (who obviously had BCDs on) could swim in to shore. I ran up the tuna tower and started the engine, shouted to someone near the bow to untie the anchor rope and throw the line in the water (there was no time to pull the anchor up). I got some quizzical looks and eventually had to shout down that the boat was sinking, at which point someone did indeed untie and toss the anchor line into the water. I shouted to the divers what was happening and told them to swim in.
The boat made it almost to the beach by the time the engine died. Smoke was billowing up from under the engine cover so it was probably a good thing (in my mind) that it died at that point. The boat sank quickly but with the bow not far from the beach it didn't go down much, with the waves just breaking over the gunwales. I got all the tourists onto the beach and made sure the two in the water made it in. Then I ran back to the dive shop along the coast, about 2 miles, to tell my boss and get some help (no radio, no cell phones...).
Help arrives, sorta...
Once back at the dive shop I fill my boss in and he and I headed out in a 25 foot Mako, an ex-drug smuggling boat that was (over)powered with twin 300hp Mercuries (a great boat!). Once back at the beach we found the problem with the dive boat. The rubber exhaust manifold that exited below the waterline in the stern of the boat (and then angled upwards to the engine), had come loose at the engine end and the wide hose had fallen into the hull of the boat. Turns out using Duck Tape instead of a hose clamp to hold a rubber exhaust hose to a burning hot engine isn't the brightest idea! As I said, not a very well maintained fleet! This meant that water rushed into the 4 inch diameter exhaust outlet, so it was not surprising we were sinking so fast...
At this point a friend of mine happened to be passing in a smaller 22 foot speedboat and my boss formulated a plan. After plugging the exhaust with a towel, he would pull the bow of the dive boat out from the beach to face the ocean so the waves were no longer breaking over the gunwale. Then we could pump out some of the water and tow the dive boat back. To this day I'm still puzzled why he didn't just focus on taking the tourists back and worry about the dive boat later, but anyway, back to his plan...
He sent me with my friend in the small 22 foot speed boat back to the dive site to recover the anchor line from the dive boat. I wasn't sure I could actually free dive 45 feet and pull the line up, but I felt somehow I had no choice and managed to do it. He planned to use this line to pull the bow of the dive boat away from the beach. But as we were heading back to the stricken dive boat with the anchor line, my friend and I saw that my boss had made alternative plans. He had already taken the anchor line from the 25 foot Mako and wrapped it around the center console as a way to secure it, and taken the other end to the bow of the dive boat. Imagine a boat like
this one, with a loop of slightly elasticated nylon anchor line wrapped around the center console, with the driver standing within the loop.
Disaster...
So my boss starts gunning the Mako to try to drag the dive boat's bow away from the beach. Of course the dive boat is awash and extremely heavy, as well as resting on the sand, so he's not making much headway. Undeterred, he guns the Mako's engines even more, not realizing the anchor line is slipping up the center console. A few seconds later, and just about the time we pulled up closer in the smaller speed boat, the anchor line around the console slipped up above the fiberglass and... bang! The metal frame and all the perspex of the windshield was ripped off and smashed my boss in the face. The line was so stretched that it catapulted him off the back of the Mako and into the water towards the dive boat. He had deep cuts across his face and chest from the perspex windshield and metal frame, and a large circle of blood quickly formed in the water around him. He was dazed but conscious and people rushed into the water from the beach to help him, which allowed my friend and me to chase the runaway Mako that was heading out to sea...
High-speed chase...
So to recap the
good news: my boss was alive and would probably survive, the tourists were safe and receiving far more entertainment than they would have had on some stupid dive, the runaway Mako was headed out to sea in more or less a straight line, and I was in a boat that could chase and catch it (with a driver). So my friend and I shot off after the Mako. I would guess it was going about 25 knots and so it took a minute or so to catch it. Thankfully it was a pretty calm day so we could get fairly close to it without risking damaging the boats. I jumped from the bow of the smaller boat into the bow of the Mako and slipped as I landed. Briefly I found myself lying on the floor of the Mako imagining the scenario if I'd just whacked my head and had been lying there unconscious! What then?! But luckily I hadn't... (more good news!)
50 cent hose clamp
So from there I brought the Mako back to the beach, we loaded my boss into it and I took him back to the dive shop and called an ambulance. Thankfully there was a plastic surgery clinic not far from the dive shop so they took good care of him and you could later barely see the diagonal scar that stretched from his forehead down between his eyes to the opposite cheek. The tourists were brought back and given refunds and we rounded up some help to get the dive boat floated and back to the shop. That took well into the evening and I eventually made it home, exhausted, around 9pm. All because my genius boss decided to attach an exhaust manifold using Duck Tape instead of a 50 cent hose clamp!