The Daily Times

A brawl on the open waters of the Choptank may land charges of negligent boating for an as-yet-unidentified Crownsville boat operator.

Video footage of the event, shared on Facebook by Daryl Newhouse, a content editor at ProQuest according to her profile, shows the event which took place Saturday.

“We now have a fight on board the vessel and we’re going to have two drunk people in the water pretty soon, ” a witness can be heard saying off-camera during a call to law enforcement.

In the video, two of the boat’s six passengers can be seen flailing at each other with fists and, eventually, one appears to use the boat’s antenna as a weapon. The melee occasionally pushes the two against the boat’s throttle, revving the motor and sending the vessel into a lazy spin.

“They ignored our hailing and we started to follow them because they were operating so unsafely and appeared very drunk,” Newhouse posted on Facebook.

The fight took place during the Cambridge Yacht Club Fun Regatta. The boat had strayed into an area of water that was off-limits to anyone not sailing in the event, said Candy Thomson, Maryland Natural Resources Police public information officer.

“You’re talking about a sailboat race on a busy, hot afternoon, and there could have been dangerous results,” Thomson said. “No one was wearing a life jacket, they could have fallen overboard, and they could have run into another boat.

“A lot of people are laughing at the video but there could have been deadly consequences.”

According to Thomson, the operator of the boat - a 21-year-old man who is “known to the legal system” - was the aggressor and is currently being sought for questioning. As of Monday, Thomson said that police had not yet made contact with the individual.

“We spoke to everyone on the boat except the operator and alleged assailant who seems to have disappeared,” she said, adding that police knew the address and identity of the man, whose name is being withheld until charges are filed.

Thomson said that the likely charge of negligent boating carries a fine of up to $500. If the Coast Guard decides to levy its own charge, Thomson said, the fine can reach $5,000.

Both the victim, who Thomson believes to be either a friend or family member of the assailant, and the boat rental company declined to press charges themselves. Shortly after docking, Thomson said, the group paid $3,000 to the company to cover damages to the vessel.

“Just because the rental guy and the victim have decided not to press charges doesn’t mean that the natural resource police can’t press charges, and certainly charges are pending in this case,” Thomson said.

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