NAV EX 3rd QTR Spec. Ed. 2018 NavEx 3rd Qtr - Spec Ed 2018 - FINAL | Page 3

oto by Todd Wilkinson
OR express
Auxiliarists
Respond to the Branson Duck Boat
TRAGEDY
Story by Todd Wilkinson
“Sector has said we’re a go to get underway.” Every Auxiliary coxswain
has uttered a version of this phrase before commencing any routine weekend
patrol, QE session or operational exercise.
Only this was hardly a routine mission.
A DUKW boat from Ride the Ducks in Branson, Missouri had capsized and
sank near the Showboat, Branson Belle, on Table Rock Lake after a squall line
blew through earlier on the evening of July 19. Steve Larsen, coxswain of the
Auxiliary facility, had called the Vice Commander of Division 5 to let me know
that his crew was responding.
Brock Stephens, District Captain, Darrel Kerr, Division Commander, and Todd
Wilkinson, Vice Division Commander spent until midnight on the phone and
texting about the escalating incident. Word soon came down from District
Commodore Robert Tippett that we were to head to the Showboat Branson Belle
first thing in the morning to coordinate auxiliary boat crew efforts in support of
Sector Upper Mississippi River (SUMR) personnel who were deploying to Table
Rock Lake.
Friday morning proved to be a typical hot and muggy one in Southwest
Missouri, yet the scene at the Belle was anything but typical when Auxiliarists
arrived in the parking lot. Sheriff’s deputies, Missouri Highway Patrol divers, first
responders and Belle employees were preparing for the day’s events. Captain
LEFT: Lt. Daniel Burke of the USCG Salvage Engineering Response Team (SERT), examines Stretch
DUKW 07 from a crane barge after it was raised some 80 feet from the floor of Table Rock Lake.
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