>From the May, 2002 issue of SAILING magazine. When I sat down to transcribe this piece, I thought I was simply sharing the story of an obnoxious jet skier vs. a sailor. But as I typed I caught a detail I hadn't noticed when I originally read the story: The jet ski operator was a lobsterman. So perhaps his actions, still unjustifiable, were motivated by the schooner's keel fouling his pots.
-------------------------------------------------- Schooner v. Jet Ski: Warning Shot Justified The U.S. Coast Guard arrested the wroing man, an administrative law judge in Maine suggested in March when he cleared Capt. Neal Parker of charges that he assualted a jet skier who was threatening his schooner. Judge Peter A. Fitzpatrick ruled that "the Coast Guard has failed to prove that Capt. Parker assaulted the jet ski operator. Indeed, the evidence on this record shows that Mr. Marves (the jet ski operator) may have assaulted the captain and the others aboard the Wendameen." That's what a lot of people thought after learning of Parker's plight (reported in Full and By, January 2002 SAILING). His alleged "assault" consisted of the firing of an antique pistol loaded only with a percussion cap toward the water to warn off a jet ski that was on course to collide with his schooner at high speed. The ruling ended an eight-month ordeal for Parker, who faced the loss of the mariner's license he needs for his livelihood. Parker sails his 90-foot (LOA) charter schooner Wendameen out of Portland, Maine, on overnight cruises to nearby anchorages. Wendameen was anchored in Pulpit Harbor on North Haven Island on July 25, 2001, with the seven paying passengers and the crew about to have dinner on deck, when a jet ski piloted by a 20-year-old lobsterman started performing what the court described as "high-speed, unsafe and harassing maneuvers around the schooner." When Parker signaled him to slow down, the jet skier responded with shouted obscenities and sped away. "Suddenly," Parker recalled, "the jet ski turned and bore down on us at full throttle, square for our transom." After Parker fired his warning, the jet ski stopped some 10 from the schooner, and its operator, according to the court record, "threatened to do bodily harm" to the schooner's passengers and crew. Parker called the Coast Guard, but it was he, and not the jet skier, who was charged. In the decision, Judge Fitzpatrick wrote, "The reckless actions of the jet ski operator ultimately threatened the safety of the passengers and crew . . . The principal culprit in this incident is the jet ski operator." The judge noted that Parker had held his captain's license for 25 years with no violations and has an excellent reputation as a professional seafarer. Going to sea as a teenager, Parker, now 45, worked his way up through the ranks of crews of traditional ships on the East Coast, and went on to serve as master of a number of vessels. He bought Wendameen, a virtual derelict, in 1985, and spent four years rebuilding her. Built in 1912, the yacht was John Alden's first schooner design. In connection with the jet ski incident, Parker was found to have violated Coast Guard regulations by failing to get approval from the Coast Guard commandant to carry black powder aboard the schooner. In giving Parker a sentence of six months porbation, Judge Fitzpatrick observed, "This requirement was not widely known among the vessel owners in the schooner fleet in Maine or even to the Coast Guard inspectors." --Bill Schanen _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
