It has been said of Edgartown Harbor that there are the haves and the have-yachts.
And amid all that extraordinary wealth, represented by the fleet of oversize motorboats with multiple outboard engines, and the grand schooners with polished teak decks, there is one $30 million superyacht out of Newport, R.I., named the Ruffian that showed itself to have little regard for a much smaller, local fishing boat named Payback that was badly damaged when the Ruffian crashed into it.
The local Islander who owns Payback makes his living on the water, and now he is fighting to get badly needed compensation for damages caused to his vessel, and to make up for lost wages from the June 2 accident. In other words, the Payback’s captain, Donald Benefit, 66, is looking for, well, payback.
To be precise, Benefit, a conch and charter fisherman, originally looked for a total of nearly $300,000 to repair his boat and make up for losses suffered by his business at the height of the season. The yacht owner’s attorney has offered only $23,000 for compensation. So far, Benefit says, he has not received a penny of compensation.
Benefit’s attorney recently revised the compensation request to a lower amount in order to expedite repairs, so that he can get back to status quo.
The incident not only damaged Payback, but also amounted to an estimated thousands of dollars in further damages to a dinghy and a docking system, which the yacht also crashed into.
Benefit is a born-and-raised Islander, and working fisherman. He says his entire life is his boat, a 36-foot commercial fishing vessel. Besides harvesting conch and chartering fishing trips, Benefit often takes the elderly out on his boat for fishing trips in what might be some of the last years of their lives.
He maintains that his livelihood, however, was disrupted by the incident, caused by the yacht, partly owned by a multimillionaire, three times the size of his boat, and worth 200 times the amount.
“He’s really screwed up my life this summer,” Benefit put it.
Negotiations between legal representation for both parties have not been able to reach an agreement on the cost of damages, which both a surveyor and Environmental Police officer reported were because of the yacht, and compensation for four weeks’ worth of work lost at the start of summer.
On June 2, the wind was blowing southwest about 7 to 13 miles per hour when the 125-foot Ruffian started down the main channel of the harbor.
Locals at a memorial service at the Edgartown Yacht Club said the Ruffian came through the crowded waterway at a good pace, around seven or eight knots. One observer pulled out his phone to record, on a hunch that something was about to go wrong.
And he was right. It was just about low tide when the yacht made an operational error near the Atlantic Fish & Chop House while attempting to park at Harborside Docks, where the boat was supposed to stay for three days.
The vessel came in closer to the yacht club instead, and in more than one effort to back up and move over to the correct dock, the yacht crashed into the club’s docking system, a dinghy, and Payback. A “sickening crunch” can be heard from videos taken as the yacht crushed the smaller boat onto the dock, one man who was at the scene told The Times.
Benefit had gone fishing that day, and after he parked his boat next to the yacht club, he went home for a break.
In the middle of his coffee, he got an urgent call from Charlie Blair, the longtime Edgartown harbormaster.
“You get down here. They just crushed your boat,” Benefit said Blair told him.
Observers say that when the Ruffian attempted to move back and over toward Harborside Docks, the vessel reversed straight alongside where Payback was secured. If compared to an automobile accident, the Ruffian sideswiped Payback, one observer said.
The captain shouldn’t have backed up, said Ed Holmes, Harborside dock master for the past 11 years, and captain for 40 years on commercial vessels and private yachts. Holmes was waiting on the Harborside Docks for the Ruffian’s arrival at the time of the incident.
Payback’s hauling davit, used to lift and lug equipment, was bent, and the mounting fasteners were pulled free from the boat’s deck. Decking was also pulled free from the deck of the boat, and the roof extension on the starboard side was pulled free from the roof, according to a survey done at Niemiec Marine in New Bedford. The 8D battery below deck was also dislodged, and there was cracked tabbing along the thwart below the propeller shaft as well as on the waterway support knees, a form of bracing in boatbuilding.
The superyacht was captained by William Biggs at the time of collision, according to Rachel Self, a local attorney who is representing Benefit pro bono.
Biggs could not be reached for comment by email or phone. The boat is currently anchored in Newport, according to marine traffic tracking.
Randall Pittman is the owner of the yacht, according to Self. He is CEO of Forest Health Medical Center in Michigan, believed to be worth more than $100 million dollars, Self said. The vessel is owned in name by Eyrie Holdings, LLC, according to the incident report filed by Sgt. Matthew Simmons, Massachusetts Environmental Police officer.
After attempting to reach Pittman by email, The Times was contacted by his legal representation. Laurence Lenz, an attorney for Pittman’s company, confirmed that Pittman is one owner of Eyrie Holdings, LLC.
Bill Roman, manager of the yacht club, said he was promised payment for damage to the repairs of the docking system, and was told the check was on the way, but he had yet to have the money as of Friday. He sent an invoice of just under $2,000.
Shep Murray, co-founder and CEO Vineyard Vines, also had his dinghy damaged, but has been compensated, according to both Self and Lenz.
Though Lenz said efforts to compensate those affected were immediately taken within a few days, Self said they never proactively reached out.
Once connected, Self sent over an initial demand of $282,549.06, an estimation of repairs based on what they believed to be wrong with Benefit’s boat, as well as 14 weeks’ worth of conch wages and chartering income lost. Lenz said the amount was “unreasonable.”
The attorney argues that the damage wasn’t necessarily caused by the yacht, insinuating some damage was because of the boat’s age. “It’s a very old boat,” he said.
Benefit purchased Payback in 2006 as a 2000 model. The 36-foot Wayne Beal commercial lobster boat has a single Cummins 450 CTA six-cylinder inboard diesel propulsion engine.
The initial damage survey eventually estimated that Benefit would need to shell out $26,984.76 to fix his vessel. That number doesn’t include more damages he’s discovered recently, including leaking windows and a hatch door that won’t close. It also cost $1,276.56 to haul the boat, and $272.50 to survey the boat, which were paid out-of-pocket by Benefit.
Pittman’s legal representation also had problems with the claims made of lost income. They are exorbitant and unfactual, Lenz said.
Lenz gave a counteroffer of $23,000, a far cry from the nearly $300,000 Benefit was asking.
“That’s not for my time. That’s not for the haul. That’s just for fixing the boat,” Benefit said. And that wouldn’t actually cover repairs.
From June to September is Benefit’s busy season. He said that he typically conducts three to five charters a week at $800 per trip, and hauls about 800 pounds of conch four days a week, at about $3.50 per pound. Benefit estimated he lost $50,000 in income for the four weeks out of work, but because he missed the summer conching season, he probably lost much more.
The supposed lost income is not something that was explained, and “from our understanding would be extremely difficult, considering the area we’re talking about,” Lenz responded. The initial demand letter included a breakdown of estimated income lost.
After the survey was done and he got the go-ahead after about four weeks, Benefit was able to start taking charters, but he’d already lost the beginning of the summer. The conch season is also basically over until the fall now, and there’s no sense putting in the gear, he said.
“This is not time he can make up once the boat is repaired,” Self said. “We are a seasonal economy. Once the summer is gone, it is gone.”
Benefit isn’t in a position to front the total cost of repairs. He was able to fix the davit with a few friends, but Benefit has yet to be made whole.
“My boat isn’t my boat,” he said. “I still can’t swallow it all.”
Self said she countered with a lower amount, closer to $100,000, than the initial demand, but hasn’t heard back from Pittman’s legal team since, and she’s never heard from the captain. They also continue to refuse to provide insurance information, she said.
Lenz confirmed that he hadn’t spoken to Self since their proposal of $23,000 was offered.
Benefit said that he’s partially frustrated because the money he feels he’s owed is minimal compared with the wealth of the yacht’s owner. “I’m one fuel-up to him,” Benefit said. “He wouldn’t even know it’s going out of his checkbook.”
The yacht never actually docked in the harbor. A tugboat came, but the damage was already done. The captain eventually got the boat out, and drove it to Vineyard Haven, then back to Newport.
Massachusetts law says that the operator of the vessel involved in the collision is obligated to give their name, address, and identification of the vessel to any person injured and to the owner of any property damaged in the boating accident before they leave the scene. It is unclear whether this happened.
It also requires the operator or owner of a recreational vessel to immediately notify and file a boating accident report with the Environmental Police if damage exceeds $500 within five days of the incident.
Self wasn’t sure if an accident report was filed by the owner or captain. She reached out to the assistant master chief Coast Guard, Michael St. Louis, assigned to the investigation of the incident, but hit an access roadblock.
In some cases, a drug test is also required for the operator of a vessel within a certain amount of hours after the accident, if requested by law enforcement.
Lenz said that the incident was reported and documents were submitted on time to the proper authorities. He said that a drug test was taken at a local hospital, and came back negative.
Now Benefit has to decide when to get his boat fixed, during which the vessel will be laid up for at least another week.
“I’m putting out all this money and not making any,” he said. Benefit decided to get started early on maintenance for the town dredge, which he runs, to balance his lost income. He normally starts in the fall.
“This is a story that has sadly become all too common on our Island, where housing is in increasingly short supply and resources are monopolized more and more by the few,” Self said. “The ultrarich are not satisfied to push Island natives off the land — now they have to push them out of the water too.”
