I met Maratonga at the end of our docks, after towed in from USCG. I could write a book on the experience, but will only share short facts. Broken
alternator bracket and poor
VHF radio performance off the Carolinas started the troubles. They had no other means to recharge
batteries. No GOOD
English speaking person aboard -
Captain and son of
Captain (Pablo Enriques or Paul) called themselves Naval Engineers, other crew was friend of captain – lawyer. The forth crewmember flew home shortly after arriving in US. Only Pablo had visa to leave
boat, I drove him around to show Va beach and Norfolk you can see photos on his Facebook page. Father gave Paul a spot tracker when they left
Panama, never was able to get it to link to smart
phone until US when he used my phone to troubleshoot BT connection problem and set up an account. They all took a very casual approach to this problem, perhaps because failed to get it to
work for so long. When we finally got it working, they said they would turn it on for two hours a day during the trip, I only see the first day plotted on the Spot site.
The boat was in need of every kind of
maintenance, rotten
wood corners on hardtop, rust
blisters on topside and lack
bottom paint. Below
deck very dark, poor
lighting and
cleaning. None of these issues were addressed while at the end of the
dock, only the broken bracket and a new
VHF antenna. I made a spare bracket and gave it to them along with spare flashlights, (one which you wear around your
head to deal with the very dark
engine room), additional 24 AA
batteries, and a
cheap watch from Wal-Mart (the lawyer requested). They had several
gps units, and
SSB -- I shared our uscg HF
weather voice Freq and the 14.300, 7.268 net freqs.
While on the end of the
dock, they ate dinner at 10pm slept until 9am, wore the same clothes, showered with garden hose and spent a lot of time reading. We cooked steaks on our
grill one lunch; for they shared they missed “bbq” beef they would often eat in
Argentina. Commutation was hard, I do not speak Spanish, and our ideas were very different and many suggestions quickly to tension. Once offered the idea of dry ice for their
icebox which only was only cooled with running the
engine. After finding the translation of dry ice, they explained they don’t need American dry ice; they enjoy a simpler way of living. The same with stressing a need to clean the bottom, being engineers they said a dirty bottom only take 10 percent in boat speed, that is less then a
knot and they are not
racing. Only when they could barely
motor against our
knot current to the
fuel dock did I convinced them to get in the
water and clean the prop and
rudder. They only did because I changed into trunks myself right there; they told me not to enter the
water to clean bottom, they did take and use my scraper. The boat in this condition with this “book smart” crew may only get 3knots.
There was a
radio schedule THEY made on 14.155usb with
South America Maritime net 2200 utc. I was invited to call them before the net, 2100. I call every once in a while- they never answer. I have heard the name Maratonga spoken two or three times but I am unable to converse with the Spanish-speaking operator.
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