10 Times Boat Captains Went Terribly Wrong

10. Killing the Date Jack Shepherd was 31 years old when he met a girl off the dating site OkCupid. Her name was Charlotte Brown, but unfortunately for Charlotte, she wouldn't live past their first date. When the pair met in December, Jack took Charlotte out for a nice dinner at a restaurant in London. The two made a lot of jokes and laughed a lot. They drank two bottles of wine together, and afterward… Well, things got a little steamy. Jack invited Charlotte back to his houseboat, which he had parked on the River Thames. And this is where Jack went from a charming and handsome date to a deadly ship captain. Once back at the houseboat, Jack suggested that the couple take a midnight drive up the river.

But not on the houseboat, on a speedboat that he had bought previously. Neither one of them wore a life jacket, both of them were wasted, and the boat wasn't in the best condition. As Jack floored it, going well over 30 knots – that’s about double the speed limit in the river, a tree trunk came out of nowhere. The boat smashed into the floating tree trunk, the boat capsized, and both Jack and Charlotte fell into the river. This ended up being the worst first date in history. Jack was rescued a little bit later, found clinging to the hull of his boat for dear life.

But as for Charlotte, she was found much later, unconscious and unresponsive. By the time she finally got to the hospital, she was dead. Two years after this terrifying incident, Jack Shepherd was put on trial for manslaughter by gross negligence. Apparently, he was so drunk during their date that he couldn't even remember Charlotte's name the next day. The police investigation uncovered that he had taken at least ten women out on his speedboat as part of his seduction routine. Hopefully, it was worth it because Jack got six years in prison for what he did.

9. The Bad Duck Boat Captain 63 felony criminal charges were recently laid against three employees who had been present during a tourist boat accident in July of 2018. The accident took place on Table Rock Lake in Mississippi, and it resulted in the deaths of 17 people. Charges were laid against the captain, the general manager, and the manager who was on duty the day of the incident. The captain himself faces the most charges, 29 in total, with 17 of them being first-degree involuntary manslaughter.

As a licensed and experienced captain, he took the duck boat onto the lake in the middle of a thunderstorm. As you can probably guess, taking tourists sightseeing on a lake during a storm is a bad idea. The thunderstorm generated winds similar to those found during a hurricane. The winds were so strong that the boat flipped over and 17 people were killed – and all because the captain wanted to make those tourist dollars. We don't know how long the captain will get in jail, but with 17 cases of manslaughter, he probably won't be on another boat for a long time.

8. The Bluebelle The Bluebelle was a twin-masted sailing vessel based out of Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Its captain was a pretty bad guy. In fact, he committed mass murder back in November of 1961. The captain’s name was Julian Harvey, and before the horrifying incident would ruin one family's life forever, he was a respectable yachtsman. To understand what happened, we need to go back to the summer of 1961. The Duperrault family had been saving money for years to go on a special one-week cruise on their very own private yacht. They traveled all the way down to Fort Lauderdale from Green Bay, Wisconsin. They went down to the marina where the Bluebelle was stationed and paid $515 to rent it out for their trip.

They then hired Julian Harvey for $100 a day to be the captain of the vessel. They also hired Harvey’s wife to serve as the cook. Everything seemed just perfect, and they set sail on Wednesday afternoon, November 8, 1961. The last time the vessel was ever seen, they were sailing out of port. Several days later when their trip was coming to an end, Julian Harvey set the boat on fire while his guests were asleep, jumped into a dinghy, and floated away. He was found a few days later and told police that it was a freak accident that destroyed the ship. In reality, Julian Harvey had killed everyone on board so that he could collect the massive insurance policy on his girlfriend. But don’t worry, he didn't get away with it. One of the Duperrault children, young Terry Joe, was discovered alive several days later and she testified to witnessing Julian burn down the vessel, killing everyone on board.

7. The Medusa The story of the Medusa is one of incompetence and cannibalism. It goes back 200 years, to the summer of 1816. The frigate Medusa was on its way to Senegal, carrying French officials to assume control of the country following the fall of Napoleon the year before. But unfortunately for everybody on board the Medusa, it was captained by a very incompetent man who hadn't been at sea for 20 years. Before they even made it to Senegal, he ran the ship aground – and because there hadn't been much thought into the preparation of the voyage, there weren't enough lifeboats for the 400 crew members and passengers.

Those on board had to build a makeshift raft, which they then towed with what few lifeboats they did have! But here's where the story of the Medusa gets absolutely insane. Not only did the captain cause all this because of his incompetence, but then the prestigious folks in the lifeboats were fearful that the makeshift raft would slow them down. So, they cut the ropes and abandoned the 147 people on it. What happened next was horrifying. The 147 people turned into complete savages, eating one another, throwing weak people overboard, and just trying to survive. They weren't picked up for 13 days – and when help finally arrived, only 15 of the original 147 were still alive. Back in Paris, five died and only 10 were left.

6. Captain Coward His name is Francesco Schettino, but people these days simply call him Captain Coward. He recently started the 16-year prison sentence that he earned for abandoning a sinking ship that ended up killing 32 people. He was the captain of the Costa Concordia back in 2012 when it crashed into some rocks off the coast of Tuscany. The dramatic collision ripped a huge hole in the hull of the ship, at least 160 feet(48m) wide. The engine room was flooded, the ship listed toward the island, and within just a few hours, it was underwater. To this day, the Costa Concordia is the largest passenger ship to ever get wrecked like this.

It had two times more passengers on it than the Titanic did when it sank. But just what exactly was the captain doing while his guests were scrambling for their lives? First, we need to back it up, back to before the accident occurred. Captain Coward actually steered the ship too close to the island to impress his girlfriend. The bold move, this captain’s terrible ego, is what caused the crash. Then, once the crew members on board realized that there was no getting off the boat, they began to evacuate the 4000 passengers. But as they were doing the evacuations, the captain was already off the vessel and as far away as he could get. This guy sneakily escaped, abandoned his ship and his passengers, and then refused orders from the Coast Guard to get back on his ship. He literally just ran away – and it was this ridiculous cowardice that got him charged with manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning his own vessel.

5. Manslaughter in California The captain of the M/V Conception was recently indicted by a federal grand jury and brought up on 34 counts of manslaughter. But not just normal manslaughter, he was charged with seaman’s manslaughter, something reserved for the worst sea captains. His name is Jerry Nehl Boylan, from Santa Barbara. He caused the deaths of his 33 passengers and his one crew member by being inattentive and negligent to his duties.

The vessel was anchored near Santa Cruz Island when a fire broke out, engulfed the entire boat, and caused it to sink. Since the 33 guests were sleeping below deck when the fire happened, they were all trapped and ended up either burning to death or drowning. The only people who escaped were the five crew members above deck and Captain Boylan. The captain was charged with being negligent because he failed to have a night watch keeping an eye on the vessel. After all, he failed to conduct fire drills, and because his crew was not trained for emergencies. Nobody knew what to do when the fire broke out, and the crew panicked and jumped into the water to save themselves. The captain, whether he meant to kill these people or not, is now facing ten years in federal prison for each count of manslaughter, which equals 330 years! Safe to say that guy will never see the ocean again!

4. Valentina Gonzalez Medina was a 21-year-old university student who was killed while practicing amateur diving in a serious case of boat captains gone wrong. Valentina was with her partner diving in the sea, about 900 feet(274m) from the beaches of Isla Cholon, near the Colombian city of Cartagena. Because she was underwater, she couldn't exactly look up to see what was going on around her. When she tried to rise to the surface, a guy on a yacht passed directly over her, causing Valentina to be cut to shreds by the propellers as they buzzed across her head.

The young woman was dragged out of the ocean and taken to the nearby beach, but the injuries she sustained to her back and head were unfixable. She bled to death right there in the sand. As for the captain of the boat that killed her, he was gone. This guy took off, speeding as far away from the murder he just committed as possible. Luckily, justice prevailed this time… well, kind of. The horrible driver of the yacht that killed Valentina was ultimately captured by the police and arrested. His name is Jose Gertrudis, Valencia Quintana. But not so luckily, the judge released him without any charges. The whole thing was dismissed as an unfortunate accident, even though this guy had been recklessly driving his speed boat directly over the area where the young girl was diving. In this case, justice didn’t prevail at all.

3. Run Over at the Boat Launch Some people just aren't meant to be boat captains, like the guy who almost ran himself over by his own SUV just trying to get his boat out of the water. This bizarre incident happened at Rocky Point Park back in May. The police arrived at the boat launch to discover this individual’s vehicle fully submerged in water with the trailer and boat still attached. The man had been trying to take his boat out of the water when the engine prop got stuck. He got out of his vehicle to see what the problem was, and when he finally got the engine unstuck, his SUV started rolling down the hill. He didn't get away fast enough and was actually run over by his own vehicle. Then, to make things worse, after the police towed the vehicle out of the water, it burst into flames. The poor guy ended up in the hospital, though he did survive with only minor injuries. His SUV was a total write-off.

2. Parasailing Mayhem In more recent news, a boat captain in Florida has been charged with the deaths of two tourists. The tourists died during a parasailing trip that turned into the worst day imaginable. Andrew John Santeiro is blamed for causing the death of Nicholas Hayward from Costa Rica, and Azalea Silva from Texas. The problem that day was that the winds were too strong under Florida law for people to legally be parasailing. But the captain was more concerned with money than the safety of his passengers. He allowed both these individuals to go parasailing – and once in the air, the unthinkable happened. Everything started out OK.

The couple was flung into the air, they were parasailing nicely, and then they fell into the water and were dragged for several minutes. Just try to imagine being dragged at high speeds behind a boat for minutes at a time. It would have been terrifying for these two people. But we’ll never know what their final moments were like because they died. According to the Tampa Bay Times, they were both dragged through the water for about 9 minutes. Naturally, they drowned during their horrifying ordeal. The captain probably won't face any jail time, as the last, we heard he was released after being arrested and posting a bond of $230,000.

1. Pushing Past the Elderly On August 3, 1991, the Oceanos set out from London on its way to South Africa. Soon after taking off, the ship found itself in a very violent storm. During the storm, the ship lost power, there was a leak in the engine room, and the chief engineer reported to captain Yiannis Avranas that water was pouring into the hull. The engineer said that flooding would soon short circuit every last generator. That's exactly what happened, and the ship was soon adrift in the dark seas. What happened next is one of the most cowardly incidents in maritime history. The crew realized that the ship was done for, and so they threw out all standard procedures and fled in a panic. They didn't raise any alarms, they didn't tell the passengers what was happening, but instead packed up their belongings and got ready to run.

Captain Yiannis Avranas was one of the first people off the ship before he had even told his passengers that there was a problem/ It was the onboard entertainer who had to use a radio phone to broadcast a mayday signal. Luckily, the South African Navy picked up the signal and immediately launched a mission to save the passengers on board. Thanks to the entertainer, a man named Moss Hills, the passengers were eventually saved by helicopters. Seeing as this was the 1990s, nothing actually happened to the cowardly captain. He faced no charges of negligence and was even given another ship to be captain of until he eventually retired. Who’s your favorite disgraced ship captain? Let us know in the comments.

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