Manager's Memo

Manager's Memo

By Tony Martin

Back in the day, shareholder Rusty Milstein and I were licensed youth, adult, high school and college soccer referees for many years. We accumulated a lot of stories about and had a lot of fun in games which we officiated together. Some did not seem very funny at the time, but now we can laugh about them.

All that said, I got a call recently on a sunshiny and very windy day from Rusty. He said that if I looked from the office to the east, I could see him sitting on the bottom of his capsized sailboat at the edge of the open water. My assistant, Shane Leach, and I jumped in a patrol boat and managed to get my very cold old friend into our boat and get him home. We had no luck at all in dragging the capsized boat. The next morning, Shane put on his diving gear to recover the tangled mast and sail, and free the boat from its anchor that had fallen out and wedged on the bottom. Our Maintenance crew innovated and found a new use for the pile driver barge, easily yanking the boat straight up out of the water to drain and be set upright for towing to its home pier.

The reason for all these words is to point out how proud I am for all the things that Rusty did right, and the reasons we did not lose him.

He has been sailing for decades, with years in the same boat in area lakes and in the Gulf of Mexico. With all his experience, a sudden and unexpected strong gust of wind blew him over and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. But, his wife had made him promise to wear his personal flotation device, and he did. He stayed with the boat. He had his cell phone in a waterproof pouch attached to his life jacket. He made his way from underneath the overturned boat and got out of the frigid water as quickly as possible. He stayed calm and composed despite some bumps and bruises and exposure. He said that within seconds of hitting the water, he could feel the cold sapping all his strength and credits the life jacket for saving his life.

It can happen anywhere to even the most experienced boaters in any kind of watercraft. Are you prepared like Rusty was?