Captain Glenn Shephard Reveals the Surprising Cost to Repair the Yacht Crash Damage
There's been a recent development in what actually caused the Below Deck Sailing Yacht accident.
The Below Deck Sailing Yacht crew gathered virtually to discuss the biggest moments of Season 2 during Part 1 of the reunion on Watch What What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on June 21. So, of course, that included a look back at the crash into the dock, the biggest boat crash in Below Deck history.
As you may recall this season, after hitting the dock earlier in the day, the Parsifal III smashed into the dock a second time when it malfunctioned and the vessel continued to move backward, even as Captain Glenn Shephard tried to propel it forward. The yacht totally uprooted the dock's concrete blocks in the crash, but fortunately, the boat only really incurred cosmetic damage to the transom.
Captain Glenn wasn't 100 percent certain what caused the crash immediately following the accident or even in the months after. However, he recently learned what actually led to the malfunction, thanks to Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season 1's chief engineer Byron Hissey. "I kind of understand what happened now. I talked to Byron a couple days ago, and he had a very similar problem. When you're in high revs, when you're maneuvering, and you go under a stern, it gets stuck sometimes, and it's exactly what happened. I didn't realize it until I spoke to him," Captain Glenn shared. "He spoke to the manufacturer of the, it's a controllable pitch propeller, and he said it's a known issue. I didn't know about it. I wish I had. I wouldn't have used the higher revs."
Even though the damage to the stern of the boat looked pretty nasty after the accident, it actually wasn't that costly to repair, Captain Glenn revealed during the reunion. "The people who painted the boat just prior to this season owed us a free transom paint job," he told host Andy Cohen during the sit-down. "So I think it was a couple grand just to fill it."
Captain Glenn explained that they were fortunate that the transom hit the dock in the way that it did. "It was just filler that was damaged, which we were really lucky," he said. "Those stones lifting up and riding up the back, that was like a massive shock absorber, and it saved us."
As for the cost to repair the dock, Captain Glenn said, "I think it was five, six grand. Our insurance took care of that."
All in all, it sounds like the real damage was done to Captain Glenn's ego. "Yeah, I mean, that stuff doesn't happen, doesn't happen. And it happens, and of course, it's on film, so that's even better. Everybody I've ever worked with is gonna see that," Captain Glenn said of the crash during the reunion. "So, yeah, it's not fun."
The one good thing that came out of this incident is that it showed Captain Glenn just how skilled of a deck crew he had in Gary King, Sydney Zaruba, and Jean-Luc Cerza-Lanaux as they did an "exemplary" job of handling this emergency situation, according to the Parsifal III boss. "They were amazing. I mean, I don't see it 'til after because Gary and Sydney and JL, they're sorting out this problem at the back. I'm like 35 meters away trying to control what the boat's doing," Captain Glenn said. "Everybody did amazing."
The Below Deck Sailing Yacht Season 2 reunion continues with Part 2 on Tuesday, June 22 at 9/8c.
