Who hasn’t gotten into a spot of teenage mischief in their time? Now, maybe your mischief didn’t involve stealing a boat and fleeing the country, but for two teenage boys in the summer of 1989, it did.
In the late hours of July 13, 1989, a 39-foot sailboat called the Susan Jane ran into one of the jetties bordering Georgica Pond and came aground at Georgica Beach. This photograph from The East Hampton Star’s archive shows East Hampton Fire Department Chief John Faulhaber leaping from the sailboat after searching it and finding it empty.
The jetty the boat struck was the first of its kind near Georgica Pond. Installed at the behest of Juan Trippe, the Pan American Airways founder, it was a continuing source of controversy. Striking the jetty rendered the vessel’s rudder unusable, leading the sailboat to run aground.
The two would-be runaways were Thomas Garbut Jr. and his slightly older friend Gregory Beaulieu. The two were Rhode Islanders, and the Susan Jane belonged to Garbut’s father, Thomas Garbut Sr. According to police reports, Thomas Garbut Jr. provided the boat and Beaulieu the getaway money, a sum of $1,000 taken from his parents. The boys planned to end their daring escape in the Bahamas but made a stop on Block Island before setting out.
After the sailboat ran aground, police, Coast Guard helicopters, and the ever-intrepid Dory Rescue squad was summoned to the scene in case an ocean search and rescue became necessary. Luckily, what could have been an ordeal stretching across days ended up being resolved that night. A firefighter responding to the scene spotted the missing boys sprawled in the grass at the intersection of Apaquogue and Georgica Roads. The teens were unharmed and released into the custody of their fathers the next morning.
The ill-fated Susan Jane was removed from the beach by a private towing concern soon thereafter.
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Julia Tyson is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
