“Navigator 2, Navigator 2, this is the motoryacht Angelo, channel 16. Switch to channel 68 and come in, please…come in, please.”
The urgency in the voice coming from the flybridge VHF radio surprised us. For a couple of hours, our radars had been tracking the vessel closing in on us from astern—which, at present speed and course, presented a potential collision risk.
Now, we learned, the boat had been following us on purpose. Responding on channel 68, an agitated voice informed us that the late-model, 40-foot motoryacht had been experiencing problems since leaving Cape May, New Jersey, which we’d had about 5 miles directly abeam some 12 hours earlier. The weather had since shifted: The wind was blowing a solid 20 knots from the north, gusting to 45. Seas were…