Bosun (The Chase)

Bosun
Species:	Human
Place of origin:	Earth
Appearance:	The Chase
Main actor:	Patrick Carter

The Mary Celeste's boatswain ranked below Captain Briggs and First Mate Richardson. He served aboard the ship on her last voyage.

Off the coast of Santa Maria, Captain Briggs ordered the boatswain to pipe the crew to midship. Mr Richardson had been attacked by stowaways. The boatswain opined that the recent storm must have driven them out of their hiding places. In fact, the purported stowaways had been Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister who exited the TARDIS during its brief sojourn aboard the Mary Celeste. The boatswain took Starkey and Willoughby with him in the search, directing the other crewmen to search the hold but keep their hands off of the cargo.

As the crew searched for the two stowaways, a Dalek time machine materialised on the deck, having chased the First Doctor to the location. The boatswain was the first to spot the Daleks which he identified as the "white terror of Barbary." The Daleks' appearance frightened everyone aboard into immediately abandoning ship. The boatswain was one of the first to leap overboard from the gunwale in the hope of escape. (TV: "Flight Through Eternity")

Behind the scenes

• The boatswain is never named in the episode, being referred to exclusively as "Boatswain" or "Mister Boatswain".
• The credits for "Flight Through Eternity," however, spell his name phonetically, as "bosun."
• Actor Patrick Carter affected a lower-class north-eastern American accent; whereas the ship's real-world second mate, Andrew Gilling, was Danish.
• The boatswain is also visibly older at death than his real-world counterpart's 25.

External links

• United States "List of Persons" form for Mary Celeste, filed 4 November 1872