Sea Screamer back on the water
PANAMA CITY BEACH — The original Sea Screamer is back in the water, fully recovered from the iconic boat’s run in with Hurricane Michael.
After a test drive Saturday, the vessel made its first trip of the season on Sunday, 160 days after the storm. The company plans to run 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. cruises all week.
“It was like the dolphins missed us,” owner Andy Redmond, said of the first test run. “Dolphins from everywhere just started falling in behind the boat and jumping. It was like they were welcoming us back.”
While the Sea Screamer 2 made it through the storm unscathed, it’s bright yellow counterpart had a rougher ride.
To protect the boat, Redmond had moved it from its slip in Panama City Beach to Watson Bayou in Panama City, the same place he had put all his boats for the past 25 years during hurricanes. He secured it with 11 lines three-fourths of an inch thick, he said.
But in an unfortunate twist of fate, moving it the bayou — a safety precaution many, many boat owners took — moved the vessel deeper into the storm.
“It broke all 11 lines. It boggles my imagination,” Redmond said. “This storm was so much.”
The boat was thrown on shore, where in late October a crane hoisted her into the air and then plopped the beloved vessel back into water. There were dings, scratches, and the covering was gone, but there was no hull damage and when Redmond fired up the engine it was ready to go, and he piloted it back to the slip.
During the winter, the boat spent 109 days at the shipyard getting a new coat of its signature yellow paint and a new canopy among other repairs.
“We fixed everything even marginally wrong, and somethings that weren’t,” Redmond said.
Now, the vessel has passed the “very strict” Coast Guard test, and Redmond’s even stricter assessment, and is ready for passengers, most of whom he doesn’t think will be able to tell the boat was ever caught in one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit the United States.
“It’s that same feeling of when I first brought her back from Alabama (when I bought her),” he said. “The newness. She felt so good and ran so smooth.”
The Sea Screamer is a family-run business. To book a trip, call 850-235-3000.
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