Rough Sailing

The rains fell and the winds hissed during a harrowing February storm in Newport Beach.

Tooling along MacArthur Boulevard in his Chevrolet Blazer, ship captain Scott McClung saw motorist after helpless motorist trapped in pounding, racing flash floods. Yielding to his urge to help, the Newport Beach resident spent the day hitching a big hook from his winch to the vehicles of stranded motorists to pull them free.

“He’s always been a rescuer. Always had that kind of rescue equipment, every kind of vehicle, and winches--he always had a winch,” said his sister, Sherie Weatherby of Templeton. “He was always prepared for emergencies.”

Friends, crew mates and members of Newport Beach’s close-knit charter boating industry are recalling such stories about McClung, 35, as he faces an uncertain future in the Mexican criminal justice system, where he stands accused of illegally bringing weapons into that country.

A former volunteer firefighter and an emergency medical technician, McClung is described as a lifelong adventurer and fun-seeker who loved to introduce others to the thrill of a good time, but also ensured their safety.

He also is considered deeply sensitive and emotional by those who know him, and as passionate about his religious faith as he is untiring at work at his business, Certified Marine Expeditions, an 8-year-old charter company with a boat named the Rapture.

“He’s very protective of his crew, his boat and the people on his boat,” said Chris Lagerlof, a friend at Mariners South Coast Church. “Scott was absolutely always the first one there to help.

“I guess there’s some irony in this: He cared about his people and did everything he could to protect them.”

When McClung sailed into Cozumel on his new boat, the second Rapture, it was the two rifles and three shotguns, which his attorney maintains were being carried for protection against high seas piracy, that landed him, his father, Eugene, and first mate Noah Bailey in a Mexican jail.

To crew members, Scott McClung is an able and natural captain. To people at Mariners Church, he is a devoted advocate of youth ministries. To his family, he is the baby of four children. And to admiring nephews, he is the uncle with boats, motorcycles and “all sorts of really cool stuff.”

Yet, faced with a trial on charges of illegal gun possession, McClung collapsed in a Mexican courtroom last week and was hospitalized. He is now undergoing treatment for stress disorders. Although charges against his father and Bailey were dropped, a judge found enough evidence to order Scott McClung to stand trial in Cancun.

Along “Charter Row,” the west side of Newport Harbor where the charter companies anchor their craft and have their offices, the first Rapture was once the biggest boat around.

The McClungs’ new boat would be among the largest in the harbor, docked near the even larger Catalina Flyer along the Balboa Fun Zone.

Norm Goodin bought the first Rapture from Scott and Eugene McClung, renamed it the Icon and is putting it into his charter service.

“I know Scott and his family and can tell you that you won’t find anyone nicer,” Goodin said. “They are decent, honorable people.”

Goodin and other operators, even though technically competitors of the McClungs, offered to lend time and crews to help the McClungs during their ordeal.

“If I didn’t know them as well as I do, I might think that there’s something else behind all this,” Goodin said. “But there’s nothing else behind it. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.”

And, for a while, it has dulled Goodin’s appetite for Mexican charter business. Instead, he will be taking clients to Alaska.

“I wouldn’t take the chance of taking a boat and passengers into Mexico,” he said. “I’m just not interested anymore.”

The McClungs are a seafaring family. Scott’s grandfather had several boats and the family owned a succession of pleasure craft.

For Scott McClung, it translated into other water sports. He was an avid surfer, diver and snorkeler. He swam competitively in high school.

At Mariners Church, Scott McClung has been a volunteer staff member and group leader for high school and college students. He opened his Corona del Mar house to students for Bible study meetings and loaned out audio and video equipment for church youth ministries.

For a time, Scott McClung was part of Newport Harbor’s commercial charter boat life: corporate trips, harbor cruises, weddings and private parties.

“He started out with almost all secular charters,” Weatherby said. “Then he started getting some church groups and pretty soon, he dropped the weddings and parties and harbor cruises, which were nothing but trouble anyway.”

Throughout the summer, the Rapture takes church youth groups on four-day expeditions to Santa Catalina Island, blending a hectic recreational schedule with spiritual music and prayer meetings.

“His boat ministry has been huge, gigantic,” said Tim Timmons, a high school pastor at Mariners. “There’s nothing like it in the country.”

Later, McClung’s firm expanded the Rapture’s mission from commercial and religious to religious and educational, hiring a marine biologist, 29-year-old Jason Cassista, who began shaping an educational program for the Rapture.

Now, public and parochial schools use the Rapture for oceanographic studies, typically four days of whale watching, snorkeling, water quality sampling and marine biology studies. More than 200 schools have sent students on Rapture expeditions, Cassista said.

Adam Weatherby, Sherie’s son and Scott McClung’s nephew, spent two summers during college working on the first Rapture.

“He could make a lot more money doing the commercial charters, but Scott’s heart wasn’t in that,” Adam Weatherby said. “He wanted to do the spiritual trips. That was the aspect his heart was in.”