“Tragedy on the water”

During the course of Extra Points you should have discerned that I am a water person. Growing up in suburban Philadelphia I didn’t come by this life-long passion naturally, but somehow, despite my lack of an outdoor environment, I evolved into an outdoorsman. Fishing is my thing, but exposure to and the appreciation of the cornucopia of natural experiences that go along with it are far more important to me.

I got to the Chesapeake Bay when I married a girl from Hampton, whom I had met in college. Her father owned a boat dealership in Hampton and I was invited to join the staff as a salesman. Why not? This was going to be terrific. My own new boat every year, thousands of miles of water to fish and an experienced guide to teach me the totally new experience of salt water fishing.

I failed to consider the 70-hour work weeks in the nine-month selling season, but did manage to finagle time on the Bay over the next 20 years and with my mentor Johnny’s guidance became both an excellent light tackle fisherman and lover of the Chesapeake Bay.

Johnny Richardson had been my first wife’s life-long family friend. He became my mentor and ultimately the best friend I ever had. Ironically, he was not in my first wedding but was my best man in my second. Johnny’s gone now and while he took a chunk of my soul with him when he died five years ago, he left me with an abiding appreciation of all of God’s handiwork.

Johnny’s job was to school me in the esthetics of the water and nature in general; we never took a trip together when we didn’t see or discover something I hadn’t seen or known before.

The United States Power Squadron’s job was to teach me the practical matters, the nut and bolts of being safe and responsible on the water. I did well at this and advanced to instructor status in my mid-twenties. I joked about the mistakes that boaters make, even highly trained members of the USPS, in last week’s column But perhaps I presented too light a view of boating safety. Hopefully the following will serve to bring home the consequences of not being informed or ignoring even the most basic boating safety rules.

Somewhere around my fifth season with the boat dealership we traded a 36-foot Revel Craft for a new Owens cruiser. It was late April and the trade-in needed to be moved from a marina on the York River to our slips off Hampton Roads. I was assigned the task. It was a Sunday morning and I took Ross Mitchell, one of our other salesmen and, just to be on the safe side, Charlie the mechanic. The Revel’s safety gear, radio and other electronics had been removed, to be re-installed on the new boat, but we took along the minimum safety gear for the maximum two- hour trip.

The boat ran fine and with no other boat traffic we cruised without incident almost to the mouth of the York in a two-foot chop. I was running the boat and we were just off the Yorktown Oil Refinery on the river’s South shore when Ross tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to something way inshore on the north side.

“Crab Pots?” I said shading my eyes and squinting at the two black dots which appeared at the end of his pointing finger.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I see movement.” We had no binoculars and the two black spots were over a quarter of a mile away, but Ross insisted that we check it out.

I heeled the cruiser over and wound my way through the crab pot fields starting at the edge of the channel. Without a depth sounder I was concerned about running aground, but as we closed the quarter mile gap I recognized that one of the now larger black spots was feebly waving one arm. All fears of shallow water disappeared.

The two young men had on life jackets and were holding onto each other in the 55-degree water (pre-shock survival time in 55-degree water is a maximum of 45 minutes and you better be in phenomenal physical shape or 30 minutes will begin to kill you).

A hundred yards up-river a two-foot bow section of their swamped 15-foot runabout was all that was visible. It was not particularly difficult in that light sea to swing the cruiser’s stern around and come along side of the two men. When we got into position there was no doubt that the two were coming aboard. Charlie and Ross opened the side rail, leaned over and reached out for the closest one; his death grip on their wrists couldn’t have been broken with a sledge hammer.

We quickly got the second on board and I swung the cruiser back up river and headed toward the marina. The two men — they were somewhere between 20 and 25 years old —were shivering, blue-lipped and nearly incoherent with advanced symptoms of shock. Ross and I stripped them down and gave them all of our outer wear. As we were about to hustle them into the warmer cabin, one of them stuttered that there had been two more men on the little boat. 

While Ross got the two into the cabin bunks I swung the boat back to where the runabout’s bow barely cleared the water. We grid-searched around the small craft, as best we could, for about ten minutes before Charlie spotted the third passenger.

The body floated face down and spread eagle about a foot and a half below the surface. It had on a life jacket, but it was unfastened and floated up against the extended arms. Charlie was about 40-years-old and a Navy veteran, but couldn’t handle the probability of a dead body, so the attempt to get him on board was left to Ross and I. Ross Mitchell stood about 5’6” and tipped the scales at 145 with three bricks in his pockets. At the time — this was 40 years ago — I might have hit 170. I finally convinced Charlie to at least try to hold the boat steady while I held Ross over the side by his ankles. The Revel Craft was high sided and because the body was submerged and we had no boat hook or grapple we just couldn’t get a handhold on the third victim.

After 10 minutes of fruitless effort I made the decision to abandon the attempt to bring the body aboard and any idea of trying to find the fourth victim, in order to get the two survivors some medical attention before they went into deepest shock.

Again we raced back toward the marina, but with-out a radio I was incapable of contacting anyone to advise them of our situation and our needs.

I remember flying up the river blowing the horn, the only distress signal I had. To shorten the distance back to the marina, I cut over to the far South shore knowing that there had to be deep water close to the oil refinery. Blowing the horn paid off; Ross spotted a refinery worker running out onto one of the docks that extended far out into the river.

I cut the cruiser over to the end of the dock and shouted our situation up to the Sunday security guard. He promised to get on the phone and have EMS at the marina when we got there and notify Yorktown Coast Guard. He was true to his word.

The Coast Guard recovered the third victim late that evening and found the body of the fourth two weeks later.

All four of the young men on that boat that morning were brothers.

Without experience in bigger water and the caution it required, they had come down for a little fishing in the York. When they found what they thought was a favorable spot they dropped the anchor. Their fatal mistake was tying the anchor off on a stern cleat, which put the lowest part of their small boat facing into the waves. Had they anchored off of their bow, all four would probably be alive today.

Almost as soon as the anchor caught the waves began to splash over the transom. Seeing the potential danger two of the men rushed aft to free the line. Their added weight sent the stern under and the York River quickly rushed in to fill the small and overloaded boat, except for the air pocket in the bow section.