Drinking and operating a boat is always a bad idea. It’s an equally terrible idea (or much worse in this case) when everyone on board a boat is so sloppy drunk they start punching anyone and anything in sight.
This was the case that Daryl Newhouse found herself witnessing from her sailboat, during the Cambridge Yacht Club Fun Regatta, after she attempted to hail a boat that was getting too close to her sailboat during a race.
The boat ignored her and continued on its course while Newhouse decided to follow the boat because of safety issues with its operation. It wasn’t long before a fight broke out on board, which Newhouse caught on video.
“We now have a fight on board the vessel and we’re going to have two drunk people in the water pretty soon, ” a witness says off-camera during the recording.
The two men wildly throwing their arms at each other bump into the throttle several times, causing the boat to slowly spin around. While many laugh at the video, it could’ve proven disastrous for everyone involved.
“You’re talking about a sailboat race on a busy, hot afternoon, and there could have been dangerous results,” said Candy Thomson, Maryland Natural Resources Police public information officer. “No one was wearing a life jacket, they could have fallen overboard, and they could have run into another boat.”
The identity of the men involved are known, though they are being withheld until charges are filed.
Charges could range anywhere from $500 to $5,000, depending if the Coast Guard brings its own charges. On top of the $3,000 owed to the rental company for damaging their boat, this turned into an expensive day of boating. Fortunately, no one ended up getting seriously hurt or killed.
