A MARKED BOAT

In Brackbill’s fictionalized memoir, an experienced sailor joins an inexperienced crew on an ill-fated journey across the Pacific.

Hawaii, 1993: Preston Brac is manning a table at a bake sale when he happens to meet a woman, Jean, preparing to sail a trimaran from the Big Island all the way to the Caribbean via the Panama Canal. Brac, a former merchant marine and charter boat captain, feels immediate envy. Then, to his surprise, Jean invites him to come along. With the blessings of his wife and children, Preston joins the four-man crew of the Sultan for one last blue-water hurrah—or at least, that’s what he intends it to be. From the first day, however, things begin to get strange. The captain is oddly temperamental and takes fewer safety precautions than any sailor Preston has even met. A weather vane falls and nearly lands on Preston’s head, and the main sail is revealed to be in a state of serious disrepair. Accidents and strange encounters continue to mount, including a dream Preston has in which his dead mother warns him, “Son! If you don’t get off this boat, You Will Die!” (Stranger still, another crew member has her own dream in which she sees Preston speaking to his mother.) Will Preston heed the warning? And what will happen to him—and everyone else aboard the Sultan—if he doesn’t? Brackbill’s prose is slightly stilted, with a bouncy tone that doesn’t always fit with the situations he describes. Here, Preston and the others prepare to fight off a possible pirate boarding party: “I hear anxiousness creep into Jim’s voice. He is so worked up that I expect him to shoot at any moment. Poised in the hatch opening, I grip the shotgun, thinking this is as real as it gets.” The story—which Brackbill presents as true—has a wonderful weirdness, and even if certain elements strain credulity, the reader is more than along for the ride. Readers will never look at a marina of sailboats the same way again.

An imperfect but thrilling tale of bad luck aboard the high seas.