A self-proclaimed pirate found himself in an unusual circumstance Jan. 17 and summoned the U.S. Coast Guard for help with his vessel.

Thomas Scott Gregory is no stranger to the seas, but gusts as high as 53 mph caught him off guard that day, and nearly made short work of his safety measures.

Gregory is a Seattle native who was drawn to Port Townsend six months ago, after participating in the past half-dozen Wooden Boat Festivals as a pirate.

Gregory’s plans to gain local employment were derailed when he came down with a case of diverticulitis, which confined him to his sailboat on an all-liquid diet for the week prior to the storm.

“I’d been through storms before,” said Gregory, who noted that his boat’s anchor had held it in place, for the most part, until the morning of Jan. 17, when his GPS confirmed that the storm was dragging his boat to shore.

“I popped my head above deck, and saw my dinghy floating away,” Gregory said. “You know that’s not good. Fortunately, this group of people pulled it to shore, so it wouldn’t be pounded by the water. I am very thankful to those folks.”

The sailboat itself was secured with a snubber and two chain stoppers, but the continual pounding of the water eventually caused all of them to let go. Only Gregory’s action of shackling one chain to the chain on the other side kept his boat secured.

“Without that last safety measure, I probably would have run aground immediately,” Gregory said.

By 9:45 a.m., Gregory’s prior history in the fire services told him that contacting first responders to retrieve him “was inevitable.” His first call put him in touch with East Jefferson Fire Rescue.

“I’d just been given a tour of their boat the week before,” Gregory said. “They and I agreed that their craft probably would not be able to help.”

At that point, the call went out to the U.S. Coast Guard based out of Port Angeles. A crew arrived roughly one hour after receiving the call, and an hour later, crew members were able to hitch onto Gregory’s sailboat, a Lord Nelson cutter class named the Free Spirit.

With winds coming out of the southeast at 38 miles per hour, and gusts as high as 53 mph, the Coast Guard response boat’s six-person crew had its work cut out for it.

“It was a very rough ride for both of us,” Gregory said. “They were a surprisingly young crew, but they came fighting to plan and planning to fight. We were all pretty scared, at one point or another.”

The Coast Guard crew made contact with Gregory and let him know they had a rescue diver and a pump ready if he felt the need to abandon ship. Gregory instead chose to stay with his boat, taking the Coast Guard cutter’s tow line, and using bolt cutters to free his boat from its chain and anchor.

“I lost 300 feet of chain and a 45-pound anchor,” Gregory said. “It wasn’t even worth the risk to try and attach a buoy to them.”

The Coast Guard and Gregory transitioned to doing a side-tie tow of the Free Spirit as they approached the Boat Haven’s breakwater, but this only escalated the drama.

“Right outside the breakwater, one of my fenders popped off,” Gregory said. “That’s no fault of the Coast Guard’s, though. Both our boats were bouncing against each other. And when the number-three line snapped, my hat went off to their coxswain, because we lost control and spun in a circle, but he kept his bits together.”

Even with an assortment of collision hazards within 15 feet of both their vessels, they avoided hitting any of them as the Free Spirit was secured to the fuel dock.

“We all had the same goal,” Gregory said. “They appreciated my professionalism, and I appreciated theirs.”

If Gregory were to take his sailboat into a yacht repair shop, he estimates he’d spend at least $10,000, but since he’s a professional welder in Seattle, he expects he can mitigate most of those costs by making the repairs himself.

“Man can do all that he can, but it’s nothing compared to the awesome power of Mother Nature,” Gregory said. “It definitely makes me see the Coast Guard in the best light. I’m extremely grateful to them.”