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Lots of boats come to Oriental, some tie up at the Town Dock for a night or two, others drop anchor in the harbor for a while. If you've spent any time on the water you know that every boat has a story. The Shipping News on TownDock.net brings you the stories of the boats that have visited recently.
November 2, 2009
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The trawler “Emily Brooke” hit the concrete wall at Oriental’s Town Dock around 8:45 Saturday morning. The 83-foot long trawler crushed a 9-foot inflatible dinghy that visiting cruisers had tied to the wharf just moments earlier.
Not a common sight. The starboard side bow of the Emily Brooke where it came to rest along the Town Dock wharf.(Photo credit: Charlie Garrett)The “Emily Brooke” went wayward as the crew was trying to move the trawler forward at the docks of the Garland Fulcher Seafood Company. Sherrill Styron, who owns the plant and the boat, attributed the incident to a crew member unaccustomed to being at the controls.
“I learned a long time ago,” Styron said, “that you come in slow and check your reverse.”
The “Emily Brooke,” where it shouldn’t be.The captain of the “Emily Brooke” was not on board as he had gone home Friday night after bringing the trawler in from a week of fishing. Styron said the captain had planned to return Saturday morning for the unloading of the catch. On Saturday morning, though, the seafood plant was ready to unload that catch “quicker than anticipated,” Styron said. The captain hadn’t yet returned and it fell to a crew member to move her up to the off-loading spot.
The gears and controls of the boat had some quirks. “You have to sort of bump and pull it,” Styron said. In addition, he said that “something had come apart” in the transmission when the boat was put in to gear. That only compounded the crew member’s unfamiliarity with the controls and when he tried to maneuver the “Emily Brooke” by going into reverse, the boat wouldn’t respond and kept going forward and plowing in to the Town Dock.
Next, the focus was to get the deflated and soggy dinghy — and its motor — out of the water.It is thought that the silted area near the wall may have slowed the trawler in the last few feet.
But it wasn’t enough to save the a cruising couple’s dinghy from being ruptured.
A little more room to get the dinghy out once the “Emily Brooke” found reverse.A crowd gathered along the sidewalk after the impact and watched as the trawler did eventually find reverse and pull back. From among the spectators, a small team emerged to retrieve the dinghy from the water and save the Johnson motor that was permanently attached (thanks to rust) to the transom.
Many hands on.
Dinghy retrieval team. Donn Erickson and Ben Oponick who, along with others, helped Neville Clement retrieve the punctured dinghy and save the dinghy’s motor from sinking.
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Posted Monday November 2, 2009 by Melinda Penkava
