Tragedy and Farce on the Fourth

As much as we’d like to, we never take our 63-ft cat Profligate out on the Fourth of July. As far as we’re concerned, the Fourth — more specifically the evening of the Fourth — is one of the spookiest times to be on the water. For not only is it probably the busiest boating night of the year, it’s no doubt the evening on which the least experienced skippers and least used boats are most likely to be out. And because taking family and friends on one’s boat to watch fireworks is a natural, the boat operators are often distracted. And one or two are smashed.

As the Fourth of July boating tragedy in New York proved, the combination of even well-intentioned boat owner and lots of guests can result in tragedy. As most of you have surely read, a Silverton 34 motor yacht with 27 people aboard capsized and sank in mild conditions following a fireworks show near Oyster Bay, New York. In a heartbreaking consequence, three youngsters, ages 12, 11 and 8, who had been playing inside the cabin, drowned. The loss of these young, innocent lives breaks our hearts.

Following normal protocol, all the Coast Guard will currently say is that the cause of the capsize is under investigation. It will take some time before their findings are released, but we can tell you right now will be that the damn boat was overloaded. Way, way overloaded. As a previous owner of the boat told the press, she would have never taken more than eight people out at once. We’re guessing that maybe even a dozen guests would have been fine — assuming the fuel and water tanks were at least half full and at least half of the guests were not on the flybridge. But 27? Ridiculous.

Since the boat was loaded with family and friends, it wasn’t a case of a greedy charter boat operator illegally overloading a boat. It was a case of an ignorant boat owner probably trying to be nicer to more family and friends than he should have been. Well-intentioned or not, those kids are still dead.

We hadn’t really thought about it before, but it comes as something of a surprise to us that the Coast Guard doesn’t specify a maximum number of passengers for such boats — as they do for things like dinghies and commercial vessels. It seems like this is something that needs to be done.

From tragedy to farce: We were aboard Profligate in San Diego for the evening of the Fourth, but we kept her in her berth at Driscoll’s Boat Yard rather than mixing it up with all the other boats. But that didn’t prevent us from seeing one of the biggest Fourth of July screw-ups ever. Fourth of July fireworks on San Diego are a big thing, with the fireworks being set off simultaneously from four locations. Police even closed off all of Shelter Island to vehicular traffic, and probably did the same with Harbor Island. Local officials estimate that half a million people gathered to watch what was to be a 20-minute fireworks show.

Alas, the show not only started five minutes early, but was 19 minutes and 45 seconds shorter than planned. For due to some blunder on the part of the fireworks contractor, the fireworks were not only shot off prematurely, but all of them were shot off at once. It was spectacular — for the very brief time it lasted. "It reminded me of the first time I had sex with my husband after he got back from Iraq," one woman laughingly said to another. "He was premature, but he was spectacular."

We have a hard time getting excited about motor yachts, but a few docks away there is a classic long range fishing boat of about 90 feet. Now lovingly maintained as a private yacht, we’ve always admired the fact that she’s so functional and understated. Anyway, she was taken out on the evening of the Fourth, festooned with flags and bunting. There was a big group of people aboard, but surely no more than 25% of what she could have easily carried in safety. Anyway, when we woke up the next morning, we noticed that her port bow had been banged up, in what we can only assume with a Fourth of July collision with another boat. It’s just a reminder to us why you won’t be seeing us out with Profligate next Fourth of July.

And what was your Fourth like on San Francisco Bay?