Robert Brown
The incredible true story of two brothers on an unprecedented fifteen hundred mile, unescorted voyage across the treacherous North Atlantic Ocean…in a single engine twenty foot flats boat.
My brother Ralph invited me to go from North Carolina almost 700 miles to Bermuda on his own designed flats boat called the Intruder 21. The catch was that the boat was really only 21 foot long and with only two foot sides before we loaded it up with nearly 2000 pounds of gasoline, we now only had less than a foot above the waterline. We were also to go by ourselves without any type of escort.
His plan was to make it to Bermuda, spend the night and return this time to New York Harbor. After topping off the original 288 gallons plus an addition 50 gallons of gas; the trip back would be about 100 miles further. That, was his plan!
I am 49 years old and have been married to Jill for about 21 years. We have two boys Bryan and Jonathan. The family owns two pets, Casey their Golden/Labrador Retriever and Benny their black and white cat.
I have spent much of my youth around the Banana and Indian rivers and surfing in the Atlantic Ocean in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I am still a surfer and have surfed for over 35 years. My favorite board from my quiver at this time is a 9’0” bisect board I made from a 9’4” board that I broke in half a couple of years ago. It’s a little slow paddling, but it rides nice and fits in my work van.
I used to scuba dive a fair amount, but have slowed down because lack of partners, it’s expensive and I don’t own a motor boat anymore. I’ve been a certified scuba diver since the 80’s. I used to take my 21 foot Bayliner Bowrider (don’t own it anymore) out 26 miles to the Pelican Grounds off Cape Canaveral, Florida to bottom fish and dive at 100 plus. Once I caught an 11 pound barnacle crusted lobster there. I still own an 18 foot Hobie sail boat with a broken mast (Ralph helped me break it after going five miles out in the Ocean). I still use the fiberglass kayak that I built in Cocoa Beach High School in the 70’s.
I am still a handyman/house painter and have been self employed for over 26 years.
I can be contacted at bobbrown1408@aol.com
(the following events occurred during our departure from N.C and arrival at N.Y.)
May 7th was believed to be the largest rescue in which the 5th district Coast Guard was involved in. Their search along with others totaled more than 282,000 square miles of the Atlantic and lasted six days. The Coast Guard were attempting to rescue 13 people from four sailboats. (Search ended the same day we arrived back in Florida, May 13th)....
...wrote it off as a crackpot idea.
On Thursday morning at about 8:30, I returned Ralph's phone call. Ralph told me about the trip, and I told him he was crazy and anyway, I was really busy. I had to finish Jill's parents' house and that I was scheduled to go on a long weekend camping trip in Georgia with Vince and Chuck, two high school friends. I was leaving at 2:00 p.m. today. I knew that I wasn't going to be able completely finish the tile job by two, but figured that if I could get the tiles cut and glued down. Then I could maybe persuade Vince and Chuck to leave a little later today, so that I would have time to grout the floor before we left. On Sunday when I was to return, I could seal the grout and push the furniture back.
Ralph explained his plan and told me that he'd been planning this trip for about a year. Yesterday Patrick, the guy who that had planned to go with Ralph, while they were out in the bay doing their last day testing on the boat, kept getting cell phone calls all day. From the parts of the conversations Ralph could hear, "Not as dangerous as you think it is!", he had a feeling that Patrick was getting some heat about the trip. At 8:00 on Wednesday night of April 25th, Patrick said that he was sorry, but that he had to back-out. Evidently Patrick's family and friends had been giving him a lot of grief about the dangers of taking a small boat way out in the ocean. Patrick asked Ralph, "Is there any way we could go to the Bahamas instead?" Ralph's answer was, "How many newspapers and magazines are going to write about us going there?"
Ralph begged me, saying he was going to loose thousands of dollars if I wasn't able to go with him. He had already paid a lot of people to be in the right places to document the trip. The photographer was flyiing into North Carolina to go out in a hired boat along with the Mayor and another city manager of Atlantic Beach, N.C., to videotape the departure. He also had people lined up to drive up with him from Hudson, Florida to Atlantic Beach, N.C. then take his car and trailer up to New York, while we headed for Bermuda. Then wait till we arrived in New York to trailer the boat back with us to Florida. There were also hotels already paid for. He had a national blog for about 3,500 dollars to help advertise the trip. He really sounded desperate. I still said no, I had too many bills and I was really swamped. I was starting to feel bad for him, but this was his hole that he dug himself into and it wasn't my problem. He still begged and then asked me how much money I made in a week? Then he agreed to pay me that and then some; if I would go with him. He said that two brothers making this trip would be even better for the promotion of this trip. I finally agreed after he explained the injection foam in the hulls, proving to me that the boat is unsinkable. As soon as I hung up, I got a knot in my stomach, how was I going to get this tile job done by two?
