Hello, BoatUS?

C.E. Grundler

I suspect I may have some interesting comments in my file over at BoatUS. I call them every so often, though in the many years that they've insured various boats of mine I've never had a claim. Not one, and I'd like to keep it that way. But the kind folks over at BoatUS are a very helpful group, and I imagine if anyone's seen just about every possible thing that can go wrong aboard a boat and the resulting consequences, it would be them. And they're always so friendly and willing to answer my questions, no matter how strange, which is why, when I was researching a possible fictional fatal boating mishap, I decided to give them a call. It was an entertaining conversation for all concerned.

Before we even got started, they asked if I was a member. "Ah, yes. 32' 1977 Cheoy Lee Trawler. So how may we help you today?"

"I have a bit of an unusual question," I explained. "Hypothetical. Fictional. You see, I'm a writer, and I'm trying to determine the potential crushing power of a powerboat against a dock, and the resulting harm that might come to specific body-parts caught between said boat and dock."

Silence.

"It's for something I'm writing," I assured them.

"What do you write?"

"Murder. Mayhem. On boats."

That led to a short discussion on me and my books, (which I'm sure they were Googling at the time, just to be confirm what I was telling them,) then back to the topic at hand. I explain the scenario – a struggle on the dock, and one character pushing the other back, a fall, the boat swinging inward and a human head in the place where a fender should be. (Ever seen a fender crushed to the point that it blows out? Just think 'skull'.) How heavy of a boat? Around 20,000 pounds, roughly 36 feet, single screw, full displacement. Again, a pause of silence.

"That boat sounds very similar to yours."

"Just a coincidence. My boat's still up on the hard." And will be some time to come. And

the fictional boat existed long before I wound up buying one that did, in fact, bear an uncanny resemblance to Hammon's Revenge. That was even tossed around as a potential name. Then again, perhaps that explains what drew me to my present boat to begin with.

"But we are talking fiction?"

"Yes. Purely hypothetical. I'm just tossing around an idea."

Happily for the person on the other end of the phone, they had never come across a human-head-in-place-of-fender situation, but they assured me they'd ask around and put the question out there, and someone would give me a call back. And later that afternoon someone did. From what I was told, my little query made for some lively conversations throughout the day, and I was given a run-down of possible head vs. boat vs. dock situations. None ended well, which was just what I had in mind. And confirming that made me very happy.

This wasn't my first call of this sort to them, and it's unlikely it will be my last. And they've been more than helpful each and every time. I can only imagine what interesting notations they've added to my file.

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