Capt. Anderson V replaces boat lost in hurricane

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Deral Smeby cut a bundle of red snapper from a hook hanging from the Capt. Anderson V and yelled out “43!” on Tuesday. One of the dozens of people who just left the boat following a six-hour fishing tour, checks his ticket and walks forward to collect his fish.

The Capt. Anderson V is the newest boat in the Capt. Anderson fleet and replaces the Gemini Queen that was destroyed in Hurricane Michael. The new fishing boat is a catamaran, like the Gemini, but is slightly larger, has more comfortable seats and other features that should make it easier to fish from. Capt. Anderson officials held a ribbon-cutting for the vessel on Tuesday, though it has been in service for about two weeks.

Smeby works as a deckhand on the Capt. Anderson V and said he has many fond memories of the Gemini. He was 13 years old when he first fished on the Gemini with friends when the boat was based out of St. Andrews. His father was the captain, and when Smeby was old enough he worked as a deckhand. He worked on the boat for 20 years.

One of the things he liked about the boat was the trough along the rim of the boat.

“It was almost like a food trough,” Smeby said. “It made it easy to put on your bait. A lot of good people came on that boat. Dealing with customers for so many years, you become friends with a lot of them.”

Still, Smeby said he is excited about the new boat.

“It’s a really nice boat, a comfortable boat,” he said. “I think it’s a really good addition to the Anderson fleet.”

Because it is a similarly sized catamaran-style boat, customers have mostly not noticed that it is new, he said. The only difference people have noticed is the smaller canopy, which means less shade but more room to cast fishing lines.

Getting the new aluminum hull catamaran was out of necessity after Hurricane Michael.

Days before the storm made landfall, forecasts led Pam Anderson, operations manager at Capt. Anderson’s Marina, to believe the hurricane would be only a Category 2 or 3 hurricane. The company took the Gemini and tied it down to three boats in Watson Bayou. After Michael, they found all the boats tangled together on land in a “spiderweb of heavy lines,” she said. All the boats were damaged, but the Gemini Queen was damaged beyond repair.

“It’s a part of history,” she said.

The new boat still is connected to Anderson history. When Pam and her husband first started dating, the pair would go fishing off the original Capt. Anderson V on Friday nights when it was based in her hometown of Sarasota. They would catch black snapper from 7 p.m. to midnight. They decided to name the new boat after the original.

Anderson said she is excited about the new boat. The aluminum hull will make it easier to maintain, and the new “airplane”-style seats are more comfortable inside the boat, she said.

Red snapper season is almost over, but the boat will be available for fishing during upcoming fishing seasons.