Open channel

Boat/US Magazine, July, 2002 by Gene Leboy

This column is designed to allow our readers to share their lengthier thoughts with other boar owners. The following is our choice for the best answer to the last issue's topic: Your worst day on the water. For the next issue, we'd like your thoughts on the proposal to move the Coast Guard to the new Department of Homeland Security. Send your most insightful 700 words to Editor@BoatUS.com. We'll publish the best in the September issue and post more at BoatUS.com/magazine.

"Oh no, Dan, can't they get that pump started?" I yelled, as one of the Coast Guard crew members pulled on the lanyard. Their pump coughed halfheartedly.

I had ordered four friends into the tender, an 18-foot Boston Whaler, while Dan and I stayed aboard. The tender was 50 yards away. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter had transferred a pump and two Coast Guard ratings had jumped aboard with it. But they had been unable to start that pump.

I dropped down into the swirling maelstrom of water in the main cabin to try and find the cat. The level was now about two feet above the sole. This boat was close to the critical point. I waded forward the length of the main cabin and looked in the sleeping cabins. No cat.

I sloshed aft and looked in the engine room, the main head, the galley, the main sleeping cabin and the fuel and water tank compartments. Continuing aft, I looked into the Jarge guest cabin and its head. No cat.

I made one more trip forward, through the big main cabin, and climbed up the steps of the forward companionway.

On deck, the Coastics were still struggling with that pump. The cutter commander ordered them back aboard.

I made my way aft on the slanted deck and yelled, "No soap, Dan, she must have scooted into some corner and drowned."

Just then the 40-ton vessel gave a shudder and rolled to starboard. Dan and I were tossed overboard. The depth here in the channel was only about 16 feet, and, with a beam of 20 feet, a good portion of the big boat's port side remained sticking out of the water, but Dan and I were swimming. The Whaler approached slowly and picked us up.

At the Coast Guard shore station I arranged for a salvage company to survey the wreck the next morning. We survivors spent the night in a nearby motel, well south of Annapolis. A good deal of luggage had been taken off in the Whaler.

The next morning we waited at the station for the salvage diver's report. About 10 a.m., we received a radiotelephone call. It was from the salvage boat, "Is the owner there?"

I took up the microphone, "This is Captain Leboy."

"Well, sir, you'll be glad to know I've got one very angry and wet cat here!"

When the dive boat came ashore, we heard the whole story. The salvage diver had gone down and removed the galley skylight. He then entered the hull, which was still sitting on its starboard side. He came up in one of the portside sleeping cabins, which, because part of the hull was still not submerged, had its port out of the water. There, sitting on a piece of floating wreckage was a mewing cat. The diver opened the port and tried to put the cat out on deck. "Folks, you ever try to put a cat that's gone critical through a port?"

When Katie was dry and cuddled in my arms, she started to purr in her old familiar manner.

Dan and my other friends rented a car and set off north, back to Philadelphia. I rented a second car. Katie groomed contentedly on the seat next to me.

When I reached Annapolis, I became tired and decided to stay the night. I carried Katie into the lobby of an Annapolis hotel and asked the desk clerk for a room. "Oh, sir, I'm terribly sorry, sir, but we cannot accept live animals," he said.

I poured out my tale of woe. I didn't state my curiosity about whether they would accept dead animals. The clerk was adamant.

I went outside, unbuttoned my shirt and stuffed Katie in the front. As I refastened the shirt, Katie shifted, squirmed and meowed. I returned to the hotel desk and again, asked for a room. The clerk stared long and hard at the gyrations of my shirtfront. "Please sign the register here, sir."