Sailing for Blues

We were under full sail aboard the Carowee, a 30 foot sail boat making 7 knots on a heading of 120 degrees true.  The sun was only 30 minutes over the horizon turning the sea from black to the wonderful deep blue only found in the Gulf Stream off Charleston.  We had two flat lines skipping bait behind the boat and another skipping a ballyhoo just ahead of the boat on the port side from a Malay Kite line being used as an outrigger.  We were there to fish, I had just picked up the rod on the kite outrigger when I spotted a silver flash and a splash behind the bait and the line was yanked from the outrigger clip.

The voyage started the evening before at Toller’s Marina with five of us, taking a break for the week end, quickly loading gear and bait aboard the Carowee for a departure time of 7 PM for a trip to the Gulf Stream.  Our plan was to sail overnight and put our lines in at dawn about 50 miles offshore and come about at noon to arrive back at the dock following night.

I raised the rod tip and tightened the drag on the reel.  There was a long drop back due to the height of the kite and the fish had taken the bait, the hook was set.  The fish made one leap out of the water, it was a blue marlin, it was big, and I was not ready.  The marlin went straight down, peeling the 50 lb line off the reel, while the other guys were dropping the sails and starting the engine to try to keep up with the marlin.  In our haste to leave the dock, we forgot to load the fishing harness and gaffs.  I sat on a boat cushion with the butt of the rod resting between my legs.  I reeled in sixty yards of line and the marlin took eighty yards back for over two hours, while the helmsman kept the stern of the boat pointed toward the marlin with little or no headway.  At this point someone spotted a container ship heading directly for us about five miles away.  What to do?  We could not move the marlin nor did we have enough line on the reel to move the boat out of the way and keep the marlin on.  As the ship approached, I decided to cut the line and move the boat.  Just before the line was cut the ship turned enough to steer around us.  Just as the ship passed by the marlin broke the surface and jumped in the wake of the ship.  We could see crewmen on the bridge wing pointing to the marlin as the ship passed.  Both the marlin and I were spent, but I finely pulled the marlin alongside the boat.  With no gaff aboard, one guy held the bill, another put a line around the marlin’s tail and used the main sail winch to pull the marlin aboard.  At the time it was the first reported marlin, (266 lbs) caught from a sail boat in SC.

-Phil Williams