Distinguished Crew Award
The International Superyacht Society gave out a Distinguished Crew Award last week during the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. It went to Capt. Bob Corcoran and the team onboard Argyll, a beautiful 153-foot motoryacht that is available for charter as part of the fleet at Northrop and Johnson.
I managed to finagle about a private hour or so onboard Argyll, where I sat down with Capt. Corcoran to get the full story behind the award. Here’s what happened:
The yacht was not on charter at the time, but was instead moving from St. Thomas to Miami with only crew aboard. The bosun who was on watch noticed a small boat about three miles off Argyll’s port bow. “We were 110 miles from land in every direction,” Corcoran recalls. “This boat had run out of gas, lost a propeller.”
Corcoran made sure that all of the doors leading to Argyll’s interior were securely closed as he moved the yacht closer to the boat. The people onboard were waving their hands as if in distress. As Argyll got closer, he realized that the other boat was just 36 feet long–and packed with 31 Cuban refugees, including some children.
Argyll’s engineer is Venezuelan and speaks Spanish, so he talked to the Cubans to determine what had happened. They said they’d been adrift for three full days without food or water.
Corcoran and his crew gave the Cubans four and a half cases of bottled water, plus some small bags of food and medical supplies, while simultaneously calling the U.S. Coast Guard for help. Argyll then stayed alongside the refugees’ boat for about five hours until the Coast Guard arrived and released Argyll to continue on to Miami.
“Our owner felt good that we were cautious,” Corcoran told me, “but you have to check something like that out. We took our time and assessed the situation.”
That’s good thinking, not to mention good seamanship, which is no doubt what attracted the attention of the International Superyacht Society in the first place. Congratulations to Capt. Corcoran and his charter yacht’s crew on a job well done. Here’s a shot of him standing in the yacht’s main saloon with the well-deserved award:
If you’re interested in chartering Argyll and meeting her fine crew, contact any reputable charter broker.