It’s that time of the month again. Time to meet my deadline so our fearless editor Dan doesn’t get cranky. This month we’re peeling back the curtain to the not-so-glamorous realities of traveling the world in the yacht design business. Here are three weird ones off the top of my head.

Young Bill was the “new guy” at Island Packet Yachts in Largo, Florida. While I held one of the key positions in the company at the tender age of 28, I was very much the low man on the totem pole six months into my employ when the 2003 winter boat show season got underway. So the boss sent me to frigid Atlantic City in February while he jetted off to Miami. 

Fine. I can stand in the display all week answering inane questions about which end is the bow and why aren’t the zincs painted a pretty color. My reward after one long day was a seat at the hotel bar and a delicious-looking plate of shrimp scampi on the boss’ nickel. But a showgoing New Jerseyoid suddenly appeared who had obviously been overserved. I know this, not because I administered a breathalyzer but because he sat down next to me, grabbed a fork and plowed it right into my pile of shrimp scampi. “Hey! HEY!” Now that I had the bartender’s undivided attention I told Mr. Atlantic City to hit the beach and go shrimping himself. At least the bartender saw the noodles leaking from the guy’s fat face and had a fresh plate delivered to me minutes later after kicking him out. “I wonder how those stone crabs at Joe’s are tasting in Miami right about now,” I thought aloud.

Fast forward to 2018 and I’m in a hotel in Vancouver, BC, comfortably distant from the New Jerseyoid. Now self-employed for years, I’m there to kick off the Tactical Custom Boats 77-footer at the Crescent Yachts shipyard. My hotel room is high atop a trendy downtown waterfront Hilton. How trendy? There’s a Porsche 356 Speedster parked in the lobby. I’m in the shower early one morning when the fire alarm goes off. So I drip-dry over to the window and look down, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but six fire trucks, lights a-blazing. 

Now I smell smoke. I run back to turn off the shower, pull some jeans on and a shirt. Shoes. I grab my briefcase and head for the stairs. Thirteen flights to go. I channel my inner John McClane. Yippie-ki-yay. I reach the ground floor which appears not to be on fire, stroll past the Speedster and head outside. What IS on fire is a 110-foot motoryacht tied up at the hotel dock, spewing smoke everywhere. I’m happy to report that the yacht was neither designed by Bill Prince nor built by Crescent Yachts. But I could not get the smoke out of my clothes for a week.

Third and final story: I’m on a flight to Ft. Lauderdale. I’ve boarded early and taken my aisle seat. A guy in his early 40s boards next. He’s wearing a navy sportcoat and offers no visual clues to the utter mess his life currently is. He takes his aisle seat across from me. 

There’s a flash of fear in the flight attendant’s eyes. “Hi, Ma’am! Remember me?” he says gregariously. “I’m the guy the police dragged off the plane yesterday after I had that medical reaction to the chicken salad at Chili’s! That chicken salad is evil. They let me out of the hospital three hours ago!”

Alrighty then.

Blue blazer guy chats his way through the safety presentation and we’re off. Two minutes airborne he goes into a grand mal seizure, his forehead banging violently into the seatback pocket in front of him. Torso flailing, sweat flinging from his bruised brow. Incontinence occurs. The petite attendant approaches, unable to physically restrain this guy. The throttles are pulled back and soon we’re dumping fuel. I text my wife: Emergency landing. We come in hot. After 25 minutes of unconsciousness, he pops up like nothing happened and says, “We’re here already?”

At least it was the chicken salad and not my shrimp.

This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.