What a Ride!: HIGH SEAS, OUTRAGEOUS PARTIES, AND HUGE BILLS. THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM OWNING A NINETY-FOOT YACHT

By David Dimmick

Over the radio the warship ordered Emily to stop. The American flag flew on Emily's stern, so the request was made in English. As the Mexican ship hovered within 100 yards of Emily, all three of its gun turrets were turned and the barrels lowered to give the gunners the ability to instantly destroy Emily. Our crew was literally staring down

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Dimmick
• Release date: Nov 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986374925

David Dimmick

David Dimmick was born on the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo, California. He is a fifth-generation Californian and a fourth-generation graduate of the University of California at Berkeley where he learned to sail at the CAL Sailing Club.After graduate school at the University of Southern California he spent several years doing marketing and advertising for Silicon Valley firms. In 1988 he and his wife, Donna Fornari Dimmick, founded Dimmick & Fornari Advertising. The couple have two wonderful sons, daughters-in-law, and two grandchildren.David has sailed over 10,000 miles in both power and sailing yachts. He holds a U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Marine Captain's License for vessels up to 100-tons.He and Donna live steps from the water in the small town of Benicia, California. David can often be found sailing on the San Francisco Bay. What a Ride! is his first book.

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CHAPTER 1

DEATH’S DOORMAT

Motor Yacht Emily in Redwood City, California (Personal photo)

Captain Dave came into the pilot house and whispered, Water is above the floorboards of the forward crew’s quarters. He didn’t want to alarm the others, but he knew I should be aware of the situation. Dave usually has a calm, confident way about him. The uncharacteristically worried look on his face said it all. We were in deep shit.

The forward bilge pump wasn’t keeping up with the amount of water that was flooding into the boat. Captain Dave didn’t yet know the full extent of the flooding, but it was clear that time wasn’t on our side. If water kept coming in at this rate our beautiful yacht, Emily, was at risk of sinking.

It was time to make the call no mariner wants to make. We were off Morro Bay on the central coast of California in heavy seas. Captain Dave picked up the microphone to our VHF (very high frequency) radio.

"U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard, this is the motor yacht Emily. Our boat is taking on water. We are a ninety-foot, white-hulled, motor yacht. There are four souls onboard, over." Captain Dave also gave the Coast Guard our GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates.

Immediately a calm voice came over the speakers in the pilot house. This is U.S. Coast Guard Station, Morro Bay. Vessel calling Coast Guard, state the nature of your emergency.

Captain Dave quickly responded, We have water coming in the forward hatches. At this point the water is still entering the boat faster than our bilge pumps can manage. We are riding bow down and require a portable pump.

It was June 1998, and we were headed north from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay aboard Emily, our office. Emily was intended to be the floating headquarters for our small Silicon Valley advertising agency. At ninety feet long, and weighing one-hundred tons, she was more than seaworthy. However, Emily had by now proven she had a darker side to her. Emily had endangered us and her crew more than once in the past three years.

A week earlier we had an uneventful two-and-a-half-day cruise from Emily’s home port of Redwood City, California, down the California coast, and on to San Diego. We then spent the week using Emily as a floating billboard for one of our dot-com clients.

We had been steaming north for the past 24 hours with another day and night to go. In addition to me, onboard were David Captain Dave Meanor; my wife and business partner, Donna; and our friend, Roy Swidan. We had had a wonderful week in San Diego, but Donna and I needed to get back to our real life, running an ad agency.

Captain Dave had been with us since we bought Emily in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, three years earlier. We met Dave while looking for a place to dock Emily. At the time, Dave was managing a dock for the Port of Redwood City.

After he told us about his experience as a delivery captain, as well as his part-time job skippering a charter yacht on the San Francisco Bay, we hired Dave to bring Emily through the Panama Canal and on to Redwood City, which is in the lower part of the San Francisco Bay, 25 miles south of San Francisco.

Over the past three years Captain Dave had faced several trying events as captain of Emily, but this current emergency was rapidly deteriorating into a potential disaster. When a situation requires skill and resourcefulness, I wouldn’t want anyone other than Captain Dave in charge of the boat.

As we plowed north through the heavy seas, waves crashed over the bow rail and onto the forward deck. At times the deck was completely awash in cold, blue-green water. Just after dawn we saw the two hatches that allowed access to the anchor locker break loose because of the relentless pounding they were taking. With no hatches to block the torrent of water from pouring into the anchor locker, it was inevitable that it would soon be completely flooded.

The anchor locker held Emily’s six-hundred-foot-long galvanized iron anchor chain. The locker was large enough for a person to stand upright. Directly abaft (behind) the anchor locker, and separated by a bulkhead (wall), were the forward crew’s quarters.

With the anchor locker flooded, we would have thousands of gallons inside the boat. Ideally, boats keep water on the outside, not the inside.

Access to the anchor locker was via two waterproof hatches that are latched down. The hatches were made of aluminum, like the rest of the boat, and laid flush with the deck. When closed, they were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the decking in the bow of the boat. Most guests had no idea there was a large room underneath their feet.

As the waves broke over the rails, one hatch, and then the other, ripped free from the deck. The force of the water had apparently sheared off the latches.

We suspected the anchor locker was nearly full of water but were surprised to see water had entered the crew’s quarters. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The bulkhead should have been watertight, but apparently, because of a flaw in design or construction, it wasn’t.

With the anchor locker and crew’s quarters still flooding, the bow was riding lower and lower in the water. This made it even easier for water to wash onto the deck. The situation was getting worse by the minute. By now everyone onboard knew of the problem and I’m certain they were as concerned as I was.

The reassuring Coast Guardsman’s voice coming over the radio asked if we were able to make it to Morro Bay Harbor, which was about an hour east of us. He explained that the harbor was currently closed due to high waves, but they could send out a lifeboat to guide us through the entrance.

The entrance to Morro Bay Harbor is protected by two man-made concrete jetties. Storms can produce large swells that make navigating the narrow, and relatively shallow, entrance extremely dangerous. A local newspaper, the San Luis Obispo Tribune, had described the entrance as Death’s Doormat. Because of the high seas, the Captain of the Port had ordered all marine traffic to stop entering or leaving the harbor until the conditions improved.

Morro Bay Harbor

(Map Data: Google/TerraMetrics)

In 1978 the actor, George C. Scott, chartered the yacht Mojo, which was based in Morro Bay at the time. Mojo is a beautiful, 85-foot-long motor yacht available for day or week-long charters.

The harbor was also closed the day Scott wanted to go for a cruise. Mojo’s captain initially refused to go out until the swells subsided. Scott insisted and, I’m assuming that being somewhat star-struck, the captain reluctantly agreed.

Just after clearing the jetty, Mojo was thrown almost vertical by a huge wave. Several guests were injured and there was over $80,000 in damage done to the yacht. We didn’t want to experience the same fate.

Yacht Mojo attempting to sail out of Morro Bay

when the harbor was closed due to high waves.

George C. Scott and his guests were onboard.

(Photo: Scott Redd)

We were talking on channel 16, the universal hailing and emergency channel all mariners are required to monitor while underway. Not only were we in communication with the Coast Guard, but our distress call was being heard by any boat or ship within radio range. Good seamanship, as well as international and U.S. maritime law, dictates that any vessel in the vicinity of a ship or boat in distress must, if able, render aid.

During a break in our communications with the Coast Guard, a call came over the radio from a U.S. Army ship. Its radio operator stated the ship was fifteen miles west of us and could bring us water pumps. I didn’t even know the Army had ships, but I came to learn they have hundreds of them. We asked them to stand by until we could get a better read on our situation. It was, however, extremely comforting to know that the Army would come to our aid if necessary.

We then got a call from the sailing ship, Alma. She is a 60-foot scow schooner built in 1891. A scow schooner is a flat-hulled sailing vessel used in the 1800s to haul freight. Alma was designed for inland waters like the San Francisco Bay. To say the least, however, she wasn’t built for heavy seas.

Scow Schooner Alma that had offered us assistance (Photo: Alexander McClearn)

Alma was also returning from San Diego. She was there to help educate school children about the early nautical history of California. The old boat was slogging north at two knots (2.3 mph) and her crew offered their assistance.

This call was particularly embarrassing. We could hear over the radio that the helmsman was outside in the howling wind and wet spray. Here we were, a luxury yacht with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and two functioning 660 horsepower diesel engines. We were being offered help from a turn-of-the-century scow that had no business being out in these seas herself. Since the Coast Guard and Army were standing by, we respectfully declined Alma’s help.

As soon as we ended the initial call to the Coast Guard, we turned east toward Morro Bay, putting the wind and the waves at our stern. Emily was no longer crashing headfirst into the waves. But she was still taking a lot of water over the bow and into the anchor locker, just not as much as before.

Roy glanced out the sliding door at the back of the salon (living room) and was amazed to see both hatches floating on the aft deck. Their latches were broken off but otherwise they appeared to be in good condition. He retrieved the hatches and brought them forward to Captain Dave.

The captain grabbed a battery-powered drill and some self-tapping screws. Because of the heaving deck, walking was impossible. He pushed his way out the galley door and onto the starboard (right) walkway.

On his hands and knees, he dragged both hatches behind him and crawled up to the foredeck. It was wet, slippery, and what he was doing was beyond dangerous. He told me later that he was truly terrified. Despite being pummeled by the crashing water, he was able to drill holes through the deck and screw down the hatches.

With the water now blocked by the reinstalled hatches, we were no longer in danger of additional flooding. The water level in the crew’s quarters, however, wasn’t going down. We assumed the bilge pump in the front part of Emily had failed. An electrical issue or unexpected debris getting jammed in the pump were likely causes. There was no way of fixing the problem while in these conditions.

Even though Emily was riding low in the water, Captain Dave felt we could safely make it up the coast to San Francisco. That seemed a better alternative than risking going into Morro Bay. Thanking Alma, the Army, and the Coast Guard, we turned back around and continued up the coast. The waves kept washing onto the foredeck but flowed harmlessly overboard.

The rest of the trip seemed safe enough, albeit uncomfortable, but the seas remained rough all the way to the San Francisco Bay. Conditions onboard turned from bad to truly miserable, however. It was necessary to crawl on our hands and knees to get around the boat. To make matters worse, the refrigerator door had burst open, dumping all the refrigerator’s contents onto the galley floor. A stew of milk, eggs, and orange juice sloshed around at will. We closed the door to the galley and kept going.

The next afternoon the Golden Gate Bridge came into view. We had passed under the Golden Gate many times, but that day it looked particularly beautiful. It represented safety as well as some much-needed relief from the terrible conditions onboard.

Little did we know at the time that over the next four years of owning Emily we would again long for the welcoming sight of the Golden Gate Bridge and the safe harbor it represented. The good ship Emily had much more in store for us.

CHAPTER 2

THE INSPIRATION

Emily came into our life in 1995. Buying Emily was based on a logical, well-thought-out, plan. Or so I thought. Our Silicon Valley advertising agency had just started to turn the corner after years of ups and downs.

The dot-com craziness of the mid-1990s was in full swing, creating millionaires and billionaires. Even though we were never part of the huge stock windfalls, the boom allowed us to finally make a very nice living.

We were doing well but were far from having enough money to realistically afford a luxury yacht. Donna and I both grew up in Sunnyvale, California. Sunnyvale is in the heart of what is now known as Silicon Valley. During our formative years, Sunnyvale had more orchards than businesses and semiconductors (made of silicon) were in their infancy.

My father was a staff engineer at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. Donna’s dad was a salesman for a wholesale plant nursery.