Always ready Stay positive even with 10 extras for dinner. C1
Go meatless
Ibiza, the island The good, the bad and the ugly B1 Vol.9, No. 4
Try a day, a week, for your health and the planet’s. C7
www.the-triton.com
July 2012
What happens when a yacht doesn’t sink?
UNDER THE BOARDWALK, DOWN BY THE SEA
USCG asks for help as story behind the hoax of Blind Date’s explosion continues By Dorie Cox
Capt. Tristan Judson, far left, and the crew of M/Y Boardwalk stopped at Chicks Marina in Kennebunkport, PHOTO/LILLIAN FOX Maine, for about a week on a trip along the Atlantic East Coast in June.
The scariest thing on the water? Crew Sailors of old feared sea serpents and navigating to the edge of the Earth. Both ancient and modern mariners fear fire, sinking, piracy, weather, sickness and being lost. At this month’s Triton Bridge luncheon, captains’ confessed a fear even greater: fellow crew. From the Bridge “I’m scared as hell of crew,” a captain Dorie Cox said as the group nodded and agreed. To clarify, these captains aren’t “afraid”. They never used the word fear for emergencies they know how to handle. “Fear can be negated with proper training,” a captain said. They only used the word when they unanimously expressed their biggest concern. “I can continually do the drills, go
over the rules, have standing orders, but I’m still afraid of how they’ll react in stressful situations,” a captain said. As always, individual comments are not attributed to any one person in particular so as to encourage frank and open discussion. The attending captains are identified in a photograph on page A17. Several of the group have taught classes in the industry and all consider themselves teachers of crew onboard. “I’ve became more and more afraid as I taught,” a captain said. “They just don’t know what they’re doing.” “It gets scary to see what crew do,” another captain said. “Did you ever go through the drills, go offshore and give them a pop test?” a third captain asked. “It is amazing what they don’t remember. They don’t even remember where the fire extinguisher is.” The captains said they continually work with crew to increase experience
and bolster both the crew and their own confidence. “If a captain says he runs drills every Sunday at three, that’s training,” a captain said. “A drill is unexpected in the middle of the night, more like an emergency.” “I’ll get them all in the galley and put a bag on their head,” a captain said. “I tell them to find their way out. If it’s smokey, that’s what it will be like in a fire.” “We are constantly doing man overboard, flood, smoke, all the drills,” a captain said. “War gaming I call it. “And we always play, ‘what if ’,” he said. “I’ll turn off one engine at night on a trip and see what they’ll do.” As the group discussed other situations that concern them, they often returned to their fear of other people’s abilities and decisions. One captain explained he always carries a personal
See BRIDGE, page A16
When news of a yacht explosion began to spread in early June, yacht crew around the world began to connect by phone and Internet to see who was involved. Media reports announced a distress call from M/Y Blind Date off the coast of New York on June 11 at 4:20 p.m. The caller said he was the captain and that the explosion had killed three and injured nine people. All 21 passengers were in life rafts, he said. Immediately, the U.S. Coast Guard organized a search, and the news media reported it. Then came the news that the yacht sank. “We were horrified and tried to figure which yacht Blind Date it was,” Capt. Steve Steinberg of M/Y Illiquid said by phone. Steinberg was in California on vacation with his wife, Stew Amy. “She saw the story online,” he said. “We both tracked it for the next few hours.” But not one bit of the story was true. See HOAX, page A14
TRITON SURVEY
How often are you paid?
Monthly – 69.2%
2x a month (24 checks/year) – 14.3% Every 2 weeks (26 checks/year) – 9.8% Weekly – 6.0% Other – 0.8% – Story, C1