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Mock pirate ship sinks

The Treasure Seeker, a tourist attraction at the Pier, sank during its owners' attempted move to the Virgin Islands.

By Leonora LaPeter Anton, Times Staff Writer
Published March 9, 2008

	The Treasure Seeker, formerly the Lady Betsea, was moored at the St. Petersburg Pier for almost two years until last month.
[Courtesy of Tripp Hixon]

ST. PETERSBURG - For almost two years, the mock pirate ship for tourists, with its dangling skeletons and decorative sails, was tied up snug and secure at St. Petersburg's Pier.

Last month, the Treasure Seeker finally got its chance to ply the high seas. Ray Hixon, and his son, Tripp, voyaged south to the Virgin Islands where they hoped to continue their pirate adventures with tourists from the visiting cruise ships.

But just south of the Turks and Caicos Islands, it became clear there would be no more "Yo ho ho" aboard the Treasure Seeker.

The 55-year-old ship sank in 7,000 feet of water.

* * *

It was dark on the Caribbean the night of Feb. 26, so dark that Capt. Tripp Hixon could barely make out his hand in front of his face on the deck of the Treasure Seeker. But he could feel the waves building rapidly as a fierce wind seemed to come out of nowhere.

Before long, the 65-foot Treasure Seeker was struggling against 22-foot waves, rolling port to starboard at 70-degree angles, wave after wave.

So violent was the movement, Hixon said, the rudder poked out of the water and he could hear the air being sucked beneath the boat.

"They were big, slow rolling monsters, not that fast, but consistent."

Five people were on board the 65-foot diesel-powered vessel, including Tripp Hixon, his 60-year-old father and owner of the boat, Ray Hixon, Tripp's grandfather, 80-year-old Webster Knight, and two other men.

They were headed to the Virgin Islands for a fresh start. Ray Hixon spent 30 years as a traveling furniture salesman before he retired and bought the pirate replica in South Carolina several years ago.

Tripp Hixon, who had just graduated from the University of North Florida, joined his dad in the business.

"All of my friends at the fraternity said, 'Oh, we're going to be doctors and lawyers,' and I was like, oh, I'm going to be a pirate," said Tripp Hixon, now 26.

They leased dock space from the city at the Pier for $900 a month, and began offering 90-minute cruises around Tampa Bay, hoping to fill up the ship for weddings, birthdays, family reunions and the like.

In February, they gave the Pier notice that they would be leaving, repainted the boat so that it was red and black instead of red and canary yellow, and set sail for the Virgin Islands and its bounty of tourists. Ray Hixon left behind some financial difficulties, including a mortgage foreclosure. His wife, Betsy, a schoolteacher, was planning to follow soon.

They were about a day and a half from St. Thomas, their destination, when they were pounded by rough seas.

The next morning the sun rose about 6 a.m., and Tripp Hixon began to relax a little. He could see the seas calming down.

Suddenly there was another problem. The engine room filled with thick smoke. Water was coming in through the exhaust and flooding the engine room.

The boat has a bilge pump, but it wasn't keeping up with the incoming water. Tripp and his dad got two additional pumps running, each capable of moving 2,200 gallons an hour. The water kept rising. Tripp Hixon ran up to the cabin and woke everyone up, then back below again. The water was 4 feet deep.

"We were like, let's get out of here, let's go," Tripp recalled.

He got on the radio and called mayday. He also activated his Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon EPIRB, a device that emits a distress signal and a GPS location. By this time, the boat was just south of the Turks and Caicos Islands and east of Great Inagua, Bahamas.

A sailing vessel from the Turks and Caicos, the 104-foot schooner Juliet, heard the mayday. The Juliet was about 13 miles away and crammed with tourists headed out on a dive trip, but they began a 31/2-hourjourney to reach the Treasure Seeker, according to the Juliet's owner, John Beltramo, 39.

All five people on board the pirate ship got into a dinghy they tied up to the pirate boat and waited in their life jackets."That's the biggest mistake people make," Tripp Hixon said. "You can't leave the boat or no one will find you."

As they sat in the dinghy, there wasn't much talk. They watched their dreams sink slowly into the waves.

"We watched that boat go down, foot by foot," Tripp Hixon said.

When the Juliet arrived, the tourists who were diverted from their dive trip began snapping photos of the sinking pirate ship and the five men, four of them over 60, grimy, salty and stunned.

A Coast Guard helicopter arrived and asked the Hixons if they wanted to try to save the boat. But there was no hope for the Treasure Seeker.

"It went down, bow first, swoosh," Tripp Hixon recalled.

The five shipwrecked men were dropped off in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where they boarded a plane, still in their life jackets, and returned to Miami.

"It was a family decision to go and live in paradise," Tripp Hixon said. "We decided to go and this is what happened."

The Hixons wouldn't say how much they lost at the bottom of the sea.

Despite financial difficulties in the court record, including the mortgage foreclosure on a waterfront house they paid $812,000 for in 2006, the Hixons have a line on another pirate ship.

"It's a piratey-looking boat," Tripp Hixon said. "We're trying to buy it and start from ground zero."

They hope to fix it up and head to the Virgin Islands again.

Leonora LaPeter Anton can be reached at lapeter@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8640. Times researchers Carolyn Edds and Will Gorham contributed to this article.

[Last modified March 8, 2008, 02:10:36]