‘RHONY’ Producer Reveals How Scary the Cartagena Boat Ride Became
Bravo captured some terrifying footage of a horrific boat ride during The Real Housewives of New York City season 10.
The episode, titled, The Boat Ride from Hell, showed a day trip to a small island during the ladies’ vacation to Cartagena, Columbia that went seriously wrong. So wrong, that the Coast Guard rushed the cast off the island to avoid dangerously rough seas. Unfortunately, the cast and crew encountered harrowing conditions, with some concerned they could die.
Bravo producer Michael Beck was in the thick of the incident and recounted the terror on Reality Life with Kate Casey. Beck says the New York cast is one of his favorites, but the scene was nothing short of terrifying.
The rush to leave was intense
When Casey asked about the boat trip, Beck said, “It was so dangerous that we had to put our cameras down. It was too dangerous for the cameramen to have the cameras on their shoulders. The most crazy parts of that trip they had to put their cameras down … and it was crazy.”
He adds that the cast and crew had been the sun all day. Some people had been drinking too. “We were having fun, the women were having a great time,” he recalled. “And that boat trip was weird. Because what happened was the Coast Guard of Columbia, or whatever, said OK, we need to get back to land because the water is going to start getting rough.”
Beck says the group had to scramble to get off the island. “Load up the crew, load up the cast. Start on our way,” he says. “So the water got rough so quick. The boat was rocking,”
The boat was almost sideways
Beck says at one point the alarm on the boat went off. “And it turns out the anchor of the boat had dropped. I don’t remember if you saw that on the show, but what happened was the waves were so rough, that it knocked the anchor off the boat and made it drop in the middle of the ocean, so it was kind of dragging it” he says.
The combination of the waves and the anchor drop made the boat travel sideways, Beck says. “The fact that it didn’t flip was mind-boggling to all of us. Everybody was scared. Some people were crying. I think somebody may have peed their pants literally.”
Then he shares who was the only calm person on the boat. “The only person who was calm about the whole thing was Tinsley,” he says. “Tinsley’s been on boats for a long time, and she’d been there. Literally the entire time she was as calm as a cucumber. It was amazing.”
Although many of the cast members threw up from the motion sickness, Beck said he was able to hold it together. But he says the one really letting loose was Carole Radziwill. “She was the one who was vomiting on the boat. And Bethenny was trying to help her. It was complete chaos.”
