alleybaggett.net ~ View topic

Rank: Veteran Joined: 09 Aug 2008 Posts: 664

I was recently assigned to a 48 hour duty call. I've recieved such before, but this time, I responded to a call which, as the title gives away, made me wonder if there is really a point to fancy, expensive private schools.

Me and my team were out on patroll about two miles out, when CC came over the radio with the following

"This is Coast Guard Central Command, dispatch to any available units in the immidiate area. A unit is needed for immidiate response to a V.I.D in harbor district 18. Any unit in the area has green-light to respond."

My crew was 5 minutes away from H.D 18, so I radioed back, informing CC we were responding.

Five minute later, we're pulling into the harbor, and this is the scene we notice at first; A large, expensive yacht appears to be free-floating out of control in the very crowded harbor, with only the harbormaster there to try and keep thing in control. One thing didn't make sense however. How could the yacht truely be free-floating if the owner and crew were all onboard? And why was the pier moving so violently?

That's when I pulled up my RBS next to the Harbor Masters vessel and one of my GM's got the story from him. I don't think ANY of us were expecting this.

The yacht, who's owners were in from St. Croix for a leasurly weekend vacation, had docked in harbor on Friday. They had followed all correct protocol in docking, bow and sternlines secured and bumbers out. But, they had also decided to lower their anchor, and action completely un-neseccary when tied to dock. Then, when they decided to depart for home, they followed the same protocols in reverse for leaving dock, but failed remember to weigh anchor before taking off, resulting in them making it fifty feet from dock before their achor became tangled with the mooring line for the dock. They then decided, for some reason beyond me and possibly even god, that the way to fix whatever was going wrong was to gun the motors F.S.A, reacting in them all but dragging the dock until it could go no further and the yacht began to fishtail into the other boats in the harbor.

Thankfully, we managed to un-tangle the achor from the mooring line and prevent any damage to other boats in the area. As for the boats on the dock however, needless to say, there was some damage.

Makes you wonder what good expensive schools are good for if the people who attend them wind up stupider than those who's parents merely send them to "commoners school".

Royal Member of BonBon Joined: 08 Sep 2008 Posts: 3428

well to tell ya the truth i dont know. (bet thay pay the teachers for them to pass, or bully some one else into doing there work)

Royal Member of BonBon Joined: 31 Jul 2008 Posts: 1578

No matter how intelligent you are, and how well taught you are, that doesn't necessarily mean you have a lot of common sense. Laughing

Royal Member of BonBon Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 2311

the very reason why wisdom and intelligence are truly two different things (and I'm not just talking role-playing games, either)

Rank: Veteran Joined: 30 Jul 2008 Posts: 860

Hear! Hear!

Rank: Chatter Box Joined: 25 Aug 2008 Posts: 928

did anyone get a mental picture of me possibally doing something like that?

I Sure Did.

Rank: Senior Member Joined: 15 Sep 2008 Posts: 277

Probably the owners wife. I could see my mother saying to my dad, if he had a yaht and docked by correst protocols, "Honey why don't you put the anchor down, just in case your knots come undone." Yeah my moms that stupid, she'll do ANYTHING in her power to try to act the 'smart one.'
Thank god, allah, buda, or whatever that I finally got out of that place. If I had to take another 15minutes of my life to learn "again" how to get to the grocery store, or pump gas, or even back seat driving, I'd purposely would try to make myself deaf. Anyway, glad that nobody got hurt, though I think I recollect you saying it hit some other boats because Dock 18 was crowded or something. If so how much was it? And do you think their insurance will cover it?