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07/23/2008: "Stupid Is As ... Well, You Know ..."
Many of us have spent a lot of days on the seas, and you tend to gain a real appreciation for the strength of the ocean. One of my earliest lessons learned as a fisherman was that you just don't take the power of nature lightly - too often, those who do pay a very high price.
It's because of those lessons, gained in a lifetime fishing offshore, that I find stories like this next one to be particularly disturbing. Earlier today, Hurricane Dolly hit land at the southern tip of Texas. When it did, it was a Category Two storm packing winds up to 110 miles per hours. And when it crossed the coastline, the crew of a charter boat were sitting onboard, waiting for it.
Steven Murphy is the 41-yr-old captain of "Murphy's Law", a 65-ft charter boat based out of South Padre Island. When everyone else fled in front of the storm, Murphy, along with his girlfriend and the captain of a sister ship, opted to stay with the boat.
"It's probably not the best decision to ride it out," said Murphy, 41, but he said he felt that he didn't have a lot of choice.
Only one shipyard in the area can pull a boat such as his out of the water, he said, and there are more boats than there are spaces, "so you pretty much have to man it."
The charter company is a family business, and Murphy has been working on boats since he was 9.
He said his brother was in a boat anchored next to Murphy's Law. He was alone because his deckhands left.
Clearly, the deckhands are smarter than the captains.
I'm not sure what irritates me more about this story - the fact that this guy, whose judgement is clearly in question, has a license that puts the lives of others in his protection while offshore, or that they spent the day giving cellphone interviews to incredulous news crews who will make him out as some kind of hero. As Ron White put it, "it isn't that the wind is blowing, it's what the wind is blowing." In this case, that included all the other boats in the harbor, which slammed into Murphy's Law, damaging but not sinking the vessel. But, much like the Skipper and Gilligan, they'll convince the world that if not for the courage of the fearless crew, the ship would have been lost. And they demonstrated about the same amount of common sense as that fictional crew, as well.
Look, I know how important a boat is to any business, especially a family-owned one like this. But as hard as it might be to replace a boat, just try replacing a brother or girlfriend. No amount of insurance forms will bring you back from the dead, my friend ...
To the other captains out there reading this: You guys are smarter than this, right? Riiiiiiight?
