Bill Verge joined the crew of the Levin J Marvel and changed the course of his life.
The summer of 1955, Bill Verge took a job as a deckhand on the old schooner that was sailing vacation cruises out of Annapolis. He had just completed his junior year in high school and was looking for some adventure. Boy did he ever find it!
Within the course of just a summer, Bill went from being a fairly typical highschooler to a would-be shipowner to a Coast Guard recruit. He never did get around to finishing high school.
Bill wasn’t on board for the last voyage of the Marvel. Instead, he was in Baltimore meeting with a group of investors who were willing to support his purchase of the ship with his friend and fellow deckhand, Steve MacDougall. What had started as a summer job looked like a good business opportunity to the sailors. The current owner and captain, John Meckling was struggling to keep up financially, and had decided to turn over the business to a new syndicate. If the ship had not sunk, Bill and Steve would have taken on the refitting and running of a Windjammer business on the bay. ,
Instead, the ship was lost, along with 14 lives. After this tragedy, there was a Coast Guard investigation followed by a federal trial of the captain on manslaughter charges. As the school year approached, Bill decided his days as a student were over. By the end of September, 1955, Bill verge was in Boot Camp in Cape May New Jersey as a Coast Guard recruit.
After his first four years in the US Coast Guard, heearned bachelor’s degree from University of Miami, where he was accepted without a high school diploma. Four years later, he rejoined the Coast Guard, serving a year in Vietnam and four as commanding officer of the organized reserve training center in Washington D.C. For four more years he worked for Henry DuPont as president of Cytec Inc., leaving to form an aviation company, Skyway Aviation. Two years he got on his boat and sailed to Florida. He spent 20 years operating, then owning marinas in Melbourne, Florida. Finally he moved to Key West, where he served as a city commissioner. He now chairman and executive director and founder of the Coast Guard cutter Ingham memorial museum in Key West.
Bill saved the ship from the scrapyard and has spearheaded it’s preservation for generations to come.
Most days you will find Bill on board the ship. If you make your way to Key West, be sure to stop in and ask about that summer 67 years ago.
Levin J Marvel 