Ghost Boat
Reader's Digest US|May 2022
There was no one aboard the pleasure craft that almost T-boned them. So father and son went fishing for answers.
By Derek Burnett
Ghost Boat

IT WAS 11:30 a.m., and the fishing so far had been a bust. Still, floating on the water 40 miles off the North Carolina coast was a great way to spend a lazy July day. Calm seas, clear skies, hint of a breeze. Not another boat in sight. Until now. Andrew Sherman, a 50-year-old investment adviser from Roanoke, Virginia, spotted a speck on the horizon. As the speck approached, it started to look like a boat. “Jack,” he yelled to his son, a 21-year-old U.S. Naval Academy midshipman, “some yahoo's headed straight at us!

Unbelievable. Miles of open ocean, and this idiot was on course to T-bone them. Andrew steered their boat up a couple of lengths just as the interloper whizzed by their stern. The Shermans а stared incredulously. Four fishing lines out, music blaring—your average recreational fishing craft, except there wasn't a soul in sight. The idiot must have gone below, leaving his boat cruising along at 10 mph.

“Follow it, Jack,” Andrew said.

This story is from the May 2022 edition of Reader's Digest US.

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This story is from the May 2022 edition of Reader's Digest US.

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