COPYRIGHT 2003 The Baltimore Sun
August 5, 2003
Kathy Bergren Smith Aug.
Capt. Dave DuVall is a fixture on the water off Annapolis.
Easing his bright yellow boat through the crowds of boaters in Back Creek,
DuVall waves
and greets just about everyone. In his 20th year as the owner of the local Sea
Tow franchise,
he goes on patrol daily, ready to offer assistance to boaters in
"non-emergency" trouble.
Since 1984, a year after the U.S. Coast Guard stopped towing boaters unless
they were in
danger, DuVall has made his living by keeping a cool head and solving problems,
hence
the name of his boat, Distress Reliever. His Sea Tow franchise includes two
boats
in Annapolis, one in Kent Narrows, and the yellow paint is drying on a fourth
boat that
will serve the Cambridge area.
On one Sunday afternoon, the mouth of the Severn River is
choked with all kinds of recreational boats. Wakes from the powerboats that are
zipping
and darting add an element of confusion to the 2-foot chop ruffled up by the
stiff
southwest breeze. DuVall scans the scene and pronounces it quiet. Aboard the
Distress Reliever,
it is anything but quiet. Three VHF radios squawk constantly, and the cell
phone rings often.
Members of Sea Tow or BoatUS, another towing service that is sort of a marine
version of AAA,
pay an annual membership fee and are entitled to unlimited free towing. Members
will call
Sea Tow directly for assistance. DuVall says his company answers about 300
calls a year.
Many are simply vessels out of gas. If an unaffiliated boater finds himself out
of gas,
or aground, he has two options. He can solicit the assistance of a Good
Samaritan or put out
a request to hire help: hence the three radios squawking.
The Chesapeake Bay area is often
considered the most organized in the country when it comes to divvying up the
business of
nonemergency distress calls, DuVall said. The Chesapeake Maritime Towing and
Assistance
Association, of which Sea Tow is a member, has a response system that links
boaters with
the help they need quickly, even if it is a competitor who winds up answering
the call.
Instead of racing each other to a boater, the association members (along with
the Coast Guard)
monitor a working channel on the VHF where general assistance calls are offered
to the
closest towing boat.
Nearing what DuVall calls the "5 o'clock follies" one such call came
across the hailing and distress frequency, Channel 16. "This is the vessel Sea
Pro.
We seem to have something entangled in our prop and we will need a tow".
Quickly, a voice responds from TowBoat/US asking the vessel to switch to the
working frequency
and asks his location. "We are looking at the towers here off of Annapolis,
south of the Bay Bridge"
says the Sea Pro's captain, Waymon Lefall of Baltimore. DuVall is just north,
off Hackett Point
and within easy reach of the towers at Greenbury Point, so he swings the
29-foot boat around.
The TowBoat/US dispatcher puts out the call to check which patrol is closest to
the Sea Pro.
DuVall comes on the radio and tells Lefall that he will be at his side in five
minutes.
Assessing the vessel's exact location, he asks if the captain has an anchor out
and asks
that the captain and his passenger don lifejackets. He determines that the 26-
foot fishing
boat has gotten into shallow water and picked up a crabpot that is wrapped
around the propeller.
The engine is completely useless. His tone is calm and reassuring as he
solicits the information
he needs to begin to devise a strategy. "This could get hairy fast" says DuVall
as the Sea Pro
comes into view, bobbing dangerously close to the rock-lined shore of Greenbury
Point.
"The wind is blowing right into the shore and if we pick up a crabpot we will
both be in trouble"
Duvall says. The depth finder on the Distress Reliever begins to sound alarms
as the boat enters
the shallows. "Captain, I am going to ask you to send your crew forward to the
bow to catch
my line so we can get you out of here and we will arrange our tow in deeper
water" DuVall says in
measured but urgent tones. Without mishap, the Sea Pro is soon under tow and
headed toward its
homeport in Bodkin Creek. "We are all adrenaline junkies" DuVall says of his
fellow towboat
operators. DuVall made his way to rescue towing via hardhat commercial diving,
welding underwater
in tunnels, pipelines and under bridges. But after almost 20 years, even DuVall
acknowledges
the stress of keeping cool in rough situations sometimes gets to him. "It's
like running a firehouse
without the budget" he says. Constantly monitoring his vessels' maintenance,
directing his captains
and handling calls himself leave him little time for a personal life. "My
fiancee and I rarely
go out to dinner; I sleep with the VHF on all night" says DuVall. After the Sea
Pro is safely
delivered to its marina in Bodkin Creek, DuVall steps on the dock to watch as
the boat is pulled
out of the water. Lefall and his crewman shake hands with DuVall and thank him.
"After I went
diving to see what was entangled in my prop, I knew I wasn't going anywhere
without a tow" Lefall said.
It was a good thing he didn't. When the Sea Pro was picked out of the water by
the forklift,
a tangle of wire mesh, once a crabber's trap, was completely choking the
propeller.
"You see now why I called" Lefall said.
