Anglers Rescued From...

Randy Tilley, 48, and his buddy David Herbert, 30 – who had never been offshore before – found themselves at 11 a.m. last Friday, April 6, in a 23’ center console which was sinking fast. “The seas had come up to four to five feet and I was trying to turn the bow into them as several waves came over the stern,” said Tilley.

The 23’ vessel was built in 1991 and powered by twin 130-hp outboard motors, according to Tilley. According to owner, the automatic bilge pump stopped working on the way out to the fishing grounds, but he wasn’t worried as he planned on fixing it once they started fishing. Later, Tilley said, water sloshed into the outboard well in the transom and flowed into the boot through the holes for the steering cables and fuel lines.

“Because the boat was low in the water,” he said, “the self-bailing cockpit wasn’t draining and were just two more holes in the bottom of the boat.” Tilley says he tried to get the boat up on plane and asked Herbert to stand in the bow, but by that time the boat was too heavy and would not get on plane. Then the engines died.

Tilley says he opened the hatch in the cockpit sole and there was water over the batteries. He says he doesn’t know if the engines ingested saltwater or “shorted out.” “That’s another lesson I learned,” he said, “why do they but the batteries so low in the boat? They should be up higher in the console.”

With the boat dead in the water and waves sweeping over the transom, Tilley got on the VHF and sent out two Mayday calls. He says the radio was operating, but no one seems to have heard his transmission.

“We got all of the life preservers out (6 or 7), and the float buoy, some food and water, and about 90 seconds later we were in the gulf with about five feet of the bow above water,” he said “I didn’t think about the flare kit until we were bobbing in the water, and then it was too late,” Tilley reported. “I learned a lesson there. I should have had the Flare Kit tied to the life preservers. I just never thought of that before…I can tell you when your boat is sinking fast the brain doesn’t work well.”

But why was the stern so low in the water in the first place? Were the twin 130-hp engines too heavy for the boat, particularly considering the live bait well was in the transom? How much freeboard was at the transom when the boat was at rest?

“The boat had six or eight inches of freeboard at the stern,” said Tilley who was possibly unsure of the question or the exact answer. “I can tell you that I was out a couple of times in rough water and it scared me. I knew that I had to keep the boat headed into the waves,” he said. “There may have been too much weight in back,” Tilley said. “Another lesson is that I’ll never have a cut down transom again. I’ll have full transom with the outboard on a Gil bracket.”

Not only was this David Herbert’s first trip on the Gulf of Mexico, now he was in it up to his neck. “We spotted the dive boat and it looked like it was only a mile away,” Tilley said. “David said he was going to swim for it and I told him ‘if you do that I’m going to have to tell your wife that you drowned. It’s better to say with the boat.” The two men had been in the 68-degree water about two hours by this time.

Aboard the “Conch Quest”, a 34’ custom-built dive boat owned by the Scuba Quest Company, someone spotted what looked like an orange flag being waved. The captain of the dive boat Lt. Kenny Jenkins, 45, a 22-year veteran of the Bradenton Fire Dept., steered his boat over to the anglers and rescued them. Coincidence had put the “Conch Quest” over a 19th Century steamer wreck and just a mile or two from the two men.

It was Good Friday. One that Randy Tilley and David Herbert will always remember.

18 people have died since the first of the year in Florida boating accidents. Most were in small boats and did not involve other vessels.