Image of the Week: Too Close for Comfort

Every morning before Bob Teague, my friend and former colleague at Powerboat magazine, and I tested boats, he used to look at me and say, “Just remember, it takes at least 100 ‘Attaboys!’ to erase one ‘Oh crap.’” Words of wisdom, for sure, and words I personally never had to put to the test—OK, there was that little sandbar issue in Sarasota Bay—during 17 years of testing boats with him.

Photographer Tim Sharkey: “All the center consoles were rafted up together at the lunch stop at Gilbert’s during the lunch stop, and this guy just kind of slowly drove up the back of them.” Photo courtesy/copyright Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images

I’m not sure exactly how many “Attaboys” the driver of the unidentified Cigarette in the photo above needed to erase this “Oh crap” moment, which was captured by photographer Tim Sharkey of Sharkey Images during the 2012 Miami Boat Show/Islamorada Poker Run in February. But I am sure, as Teague warned me every morning when I tested boats with him, that it took at least 100.

“All the center consoles were rafted up together during the lunch stop at Gilbert’s, and this guy just kind of slowly drove up the back of them,” said Sharkey. “I don’t know how much damage there was—I don’t think there was a lot if any—but it was weird. I was shooting the center consoles, and then, there he was.”

For his sharp eyes and quick camera work, Sharkey deserves at least one “Attaboy.” And as his photo proves, those are worth saving for a rainy, ‘Oh crap” kind of day.