From time to time I get a 911 call from a broker, builder or yacht owner in need of replacing a captain who has "behaved badly." The situation occurs, usually, in some remote hard to get to location.
Such was the case last week with a 73’ Outer Reef yacht, which wound up orphaned by a "Captain Morgan" and needed a replacement captain in Clarence Town, Long Island, Bahamas to see the boat back to Fort Lauderdale. I arrived at the vessel and met the owners and their first mate. After check of the engine room and transfer of fuel to the day tank, the plan was to troll the 71 nautical miles up to Georgetown, Exuma the next day.
The first thing that I noticed is that this is not your garden variety Outer Reef. A beautiful and "beamy" trawler, the owners extended the aft deck 3 feet and with the leaning post makes an effective fishing platform. With severe clear skies and calm seas, it wasn't long before the back deck crew started boating a couple of nice sized schoolies. At 7.8 knots, its lines were wet all day long for the 71 miles to our anchorage at Georgetown.
The next morning, we were underway at the crack of dawn. With surface baits set out on riggers and weighted rigs set inside, we droned on for the morning bite. Dragging along the 360-foot contour line produced more sizable dorado than the day before. It wasn't too long that an inside rig hit and the fight was on for a 50-pound wahoo!
The next day, we are underway back out to the Exuma Sound to troll our way up to our next anchorage at Highborne Cay. The morning bite produced a couple more schoolies and a bull dolphin or two which were lost at the boat by bad gaffing. After a day of fishing, we anchored down for the night on the bank side of Highborne Cay to enable me to make a pre-dawn departure for an 11-hour run the Chub Cay Club in the Berry Islands.
By the time we reached Chub Cay, there was already a pretty good chop on the ocean. Forecast winds were 25-35 knots with gale force gusts and were up all day, so we take a lay day and I entertain the owner in the engine room teaching preventative maintenance and system identification. Weather is calm, the next morning, considering the blow out we experienced the day before, but as we made the turn at Mackey Shoal on the Grand Bahama Bank I could pick out Florida weather radio which forecasted more wind for the following day; I set our course directly to Fort Lauderdale. After a 15-hour run, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale no worse for wear.
- Captain John Wampler, Yachtaide
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