Jeff the "Suicidal Sailor" was another sailing buddy of mine who at
firwst was fairly lucid and a very good sailor and as he truly loved
sailing, I gave him permission to use my 28' S2. After awhile he began
to act sorta erratic and told bizarre stories of sailing on "Ragtime"
under poor conditions. At this time, Bob (previous post) was
recovering from a second stroke and was in a longer term recovery place
like a short term nursing home. Jeff, by this time had started acting
very impulsively and talking suicide so I called the suicide hotline
but they were no help. I told Jeff he could not use my boat to kill
himself. Jeff and I decided to go visit Bob at the nursing place.
We made small talk with Bob for awhile while Bobs wife stood by. We
started joking about going on a sailing trip. Jeff started acting like
he was serious so Bob held up his arm with a bracelet saying that if he
tried leaving it would set off alarms. Jeff whips out a large knife
and in a flash suddenly cuts off the bracelet from Bobs arm and tries
to lead Bob out. Bob's wife yelling "NO, NO" while I got Jeff to see
reason.
Jeff kills himself a week later (gunshot). At his wake where everybody
was discussing his sailing skills, people would talk about how Jeff had
taken them on wild sailing trips in a boat called "Ragtime".
Bobs health goes slowly downhill and he dies a year later. I never
could bring myself to tell him about Jeff's demise.