Boating In Tacoma Narrows, How A Heart Stopping Sequence Of Events Unfolds In Only 30 Seconds

30 Seconds From Disaster

Sometimes things go from blissful ignorance to disaster in seconds. The ability to recognize potential dangerous situations and avoid them is what makes a good skipper, or just common sense. Sometimes blind luck is what saves the day. We were on a one week boat trip traveling from Olympia Washington to Victoria BC and as we are transiting the "Narrows" at Tacoma we are fighting a very strong tidal current. The incoming tide rushing under the Narrows Bridge is running at over 6 mph and we are at half throttle just to stay even with the ground. I am busy marveling at the new bridge construction with all the construction cranes and many barges securely anchored under the bridge. Work has stopped for the day so there are no tug boats or workers around, I yell to Quintin to maneuver a little closer as we go by. I am getting an up close water level look at a major bridge construction project, what can be cooler. We have just cleared the last of the barge anchor lines with their big orange warning buoys and are settling down for the long grind battling the relentless current when the motor suddenly dies. We have run out of gas. Our 26 foot boat is only a few hundred feet upstream from the barges. Instantly we begin hurtling backwards with the current, back towards those buoys marking the half submerged half in the air anchor cables. Back towards the high sloping bows of the work barges. If we somehow don"t get sliced in half by an anchor cable, the current will surely drag us under a barge. I jump up from where I am sitting on the bow, in two steps I leap over the cabin and land in the cockpit where Quintin is already at work. He quickly removes the gas line from the empty tank, while I pull the shift lever to the start position. The instant he has the line attached to the full tank I squeeze the primer bulb a few times and hit the start switch. The motor obediently comes back to life and I quickly slide the shifter forward engaging the propeller slowing our backwards free fall. As we gain water speed I look up at the barges and see how close we are. Even with life jackets it is unlikely a person would survive being dragged under a barge. I steer the boat to the side, if the motor should fail now we would drift beside the barges not into and under them. As skipper of the vessel I had violated a cardinal rule by letting her get close to danger. No one in their right mind would operate a boat above a waterfall, or in front of a ferry or ship. Anchored barges in a swift moving current are no different. I have thought about what happened many times and how it could have turned out so very bad. It is just blind luck we didn"t run out of fuel a few seconds earlier. I"m thinking of all the times things have gone smoothly, have they just been blind luck too? Have I been blissfully ignorant not knowing when disaster is seconds away? More sailing articles may be found at
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John