What could be nicer than a boat ride on your birthday? Last Sunday, on his 33rd birthday, Samuel Kenneth McDonough allegedly took the Victoria Clipper, a 132′ high speed passenger ferry, for a several hour joy-ride in Seattle’s Elliot Bay. He apparently either climbed over or squeezed through an opening in a fence to reach the $8 million ferry. Once aboard, he found an operating manual and a set of keys and figured out how to start the engines, which apparently is not easy to do. Reuters quotes Darrell Bryan, CEO of Clipper Navigation, the ferry’s owner, “He’s not stupid. We had engineers who have had challenges with starting these engines.” Fortunately, McDonoughdid not master the ferry’s steering, so he apparently drove the ferry in slow circles. At one point the ferry was perilously close to going aground on rocks near the Elliot Bay Marina and also nearly collided with a Washington State Ferries vessel, according to police reports.. The ferry is capable of a top speed of 30 knots and had enough fuel aboard to travel roughly 65 miles, so it is fortunate that McDonough didn’t get the steering figured out. On Monday, a judge set McDonough’s bail at $200,000.
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