A tale of a schooner captain, a jet skier and weird justice

Many would have considered Neal Parker a lucky man on July 25, 2001. He was aboard his beloved 89-year-old Alden schooner, the classic he found rotting on a mudbank and rebuilt himself. On this pleasant evening the boat was anchored in a picturesque harbor on an island off the coast of Maine, and Capt. Parker was about to enjoy dinner with his seven paying passengers and crew of five. But when an obnoxious jet ski operator destroyed this summer cruising idyll, Parker’s good fortune seemed to disappear with it. He has been fighting ever since to save the mariner’s license that is essential to his livelihood, and has spent the earnings from his charter season on lawyers’ fees. The jet ski may have been the direct instrument of his tribulations, but it was the United States Coast Guard that put Parker in a tough—and undeserved—spot.

There’s little dispute about the plain facts of the matter. The jet ski, piloted by a 20-year-old lobsterman, entered Pulpit Harbor on North Haven Island at high speed. It passed close to some swimming children, carved donuts in the harbor near several anchored boats, then began turning fast, noisy circles around Parker’s schooner Wendameen. Parker signalled to the jet skier with a downward motion of his hand, meaning “slow down.” The jet skier responded with a shouted obscenity and sped away.

Let Parker pick up the narrative: “My guests were upset and frightened. I thought it was over, and I apologized to them for the rude disturbance. Suddenly the jet ski turned and bore down on us at full throttle, square for our transom. I sent a deckhand for our signal gun, which I fired as a danger signal into the water. That stopped the jet ski about 15 to 25 feet from our stern. The single shot antique pistol wasn’t charged with anything other than a percussion cap.”

Parker called the Coast Guard. Good thing, you might say—they would investigate, and arrest the renegade jet skier. That’s what should have happened. What did happen was that Parker was charged with assault—for firing an unloaded antique pistol toward the water. The Coast Guard threw in a second charge of improperly storing black powder. Parker faced suspension or revocation of his 100-ton near coastal license if found guilty of the charges.

For the Coast Guard to conclude that the schooner captain was the wrongdoer in the Pulpit Harbor confrontation required a prodigious leap over obvious evidence and common sense. Parker’s passengers and crew backed up his story to the word. This included accounts of how the jet skier returned to the schooner and threatened to kill Parker, cut the anchor rode and set the schooner on fire.

When Parker got his day in administrative court in Portland, Maine, in early November, nothing had changed. Two of his passengers, one, ironically, a Coast Guard reservist, and the other a clergyman, backed him up again with their testimony. The reserve Coast Guardsman told the court, “I believe Capt. Parker did everything he could to ensure the safety of the crew, the passengers and the ship.”

The jet skier was true to form too. His demeanor at the administrative court hearing was so belligerent that, after he admitted making a death threat against Parker, the judge issued an order requiring him to stay away from Wendameen.

A decision was not expected until after this goes to press. Judge Peter Fitzpatrick’s closing comments, however, suggested he was skeptical of the Coast Guard’s judgment in charging Parker and not his tormentor. “It seems to me this incident was caused by some pretty serious behavior on the part of (the jet skier),” he said. “I think he bears a lot of responsibility for what happened on July 25. The respondent (Parker) is here, and the jet skier fell though a gap.”

Parker, who is 45, has worked most of his life to build a distinguished career as a professional sailor on historic vessels. As a teenager, he sailed as a deckhand and mate aboard a schooner, brigantine, skipjack and the Hudson River sloop Clearwater. He worked his way through the crew ranks of traditional East Coast sailing vessels, becoming captain of charter schooners in his early 20s. He went on to serve as master of the schooners Stephen Taber and Charlotte Anne, among others.

In l986 he bought Wendameen, which had lain for years all but derelict on a New York mudbank. So historically significant that it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the 90-foot (LOA) schooner, built in 1912, was John Alden’s first schooner design. Parker spent four years rebuilding the hull and deck and restoring the beauty of one of America’s great yachts.

This is the man the Coast Guard wants to put out of business, all because in a eureka moment worthy of the bumbling Peter Sellers’ character Inspector Clouseau they discovered an actual smoking gun. Never mind that it was a harmless gun that managed, without harming a soul, to stop a jet skier bent on some sort of mayhem.

And what about that sinister discovery of a jar of black powder aboard Wendameen? Parker keeps it for a small cannon used to signal sunset for the entertainment of his guests. He said Coast Guard inspectors were aware of it from earlier inspections; in fact, one was aboard at a time when the cannon was fired.

Jet skis have become a sort of cliché irritation for sailors. We grouse about their noisy intrusions into our quiet world, then get on with our lives and enjoy sailing. But what Parker and the people for whom he was responsible were subjected to was far more than an irritation. Parker put it like this: “We were being terrorized.”

To charge the target of this harassment rather than the perpetrator, the Coast Guard had to overlook a number of possible violations by the jet skier including, according to Parker, speeding in a near-shore area and operating too close to boats and swimmers, not to mention threatening murder and arson.

Parker’s response to the actions of the flagrantly misbehaving jet skier, on the other hand, seems measured and reasonable. Some sailors who heard of Parker’s prosecution and sent supportive e-mails think it was too measured and reasonable.

“A lot of people,” Parker told me, “have said things like, ‘Too bad you didn’t really shoot the bugger.’”

Well, he didn’t. That’s the part the Coast Guard apparently just can’t get.

Friends of Neal Parker have organized a legal defense fund. Started in December with proceeds from the sale of antique ship models from Parker’s collection and donated marine art, the fund is also accepting cash donations sent to: Wendameen, P.O. Box 252, Rockland, ME 04841