Bosun (The Chase)
The Mary Celeste’s boatswain ranked below Captain Briggs and First Mate Richardson. He served aboard the ship on her voyage from New York City for Genoa, Italy, in November 1872. (TV: The Chase episode 3, "Flight Through Eternity")
On the 25th of November, off the coast of Santa Maria, Capt. 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. (TV: The Chase episode 3, "Flight Through Eternity")
As the crew searched for the two stowaways, a Dalek time machine materialised on the deck, having chased the First Doctor to the spot. 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. Neither his remains nor those of anyone else from ship were ever recovered. Like the others, the boatswain is assumed to have perished on or shortly after 25 November 1872. (TV: The Chase episode 3, "Flight Through Eternity")
Behind the scenes
- The boatswain is never named in the episode, being referred to exclusively as "Boatswain" or "Mister Boatswain".
- Actor Patrick Carter affected a lower-class north-eastern American accent; whereas the ship's real-world second mate, Andrew Gilling, was Danish. Capt. Briggs, Mr. Richardson, and cook/steward Edward Head were Americans; four German seamen rounded out the crew.
- Boatswain was spelled phonetically, "Bosun", in the credits for "Flight Through Eternity".
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