Help Captain George buy a new boat

Hello everyone, I'm fundraising for my dad George Romero. My dad George has been a commercial fisherman pretty close to my whole life. He loves the water, he loves the outdoors. It's his livelihood, hobby and lifestyle all in one.

Dad went on last Tuesday 8/8. He fished all day Wednesday and into the night Wednesday 8/9. He was in the Gulf just outside of Southwest Pass on the Freshwater Bayou side. Around 3am Thursday 8/10 he was catching some large shrimp so he fished even though seas got rough. One of his outriggers got caught in the mud and then a wave shoved it into the side of the boat, knocking a huge hole under the water line.

Dad says less than 30 seconds later he saw the boat wasn't gonna make it, he ran into the cabin to grab his phone and maybe make a mayday call on his radio, but the waves were already smashing into the cabin. One of them knocked into the cabin door and threw him into his shower. He barely got out of the cabin.

He escaped out of the cabin to the back deck which was already basically under water and he climbed to the top of the cabin. He figured he could call someone from the rigging. Well, the waves were so bad they were rolling the boat over. So, he leapt off the side into the water.

The waves were 4-5 ft and absolutely obliterated the boat. Dad says he watched the whole thing break apart.

He had his life vest on, one of the good inflatable ones, and he tread water for a little while. Then he grabbed part of one of his deck boxes and floated on that. He grabbed some other parts of the boat he found and made a jury rigged raft. Once the sun came up, he made a little lean to to keep himself out of the worst of the sun. He noticed that his lean to was catching the wind and dragging him towards land so he angled it so it would push him back towards Southwest Pass. He basically floated around the entire day and night Thursday 8/10. He ran into a barrier island sometime just before sunrise on Friday 8/11. He decided to swim/walk towards the Game Warden camp. He had basically floated about 10 miles west at that point. He did this all day Friday and into Friday night. Saturday morning sometime he was spotted by a charter captain out of Cypremort Point and rescued.

All told, he was in the water something like 55 hours.

Absolutely crazy story, it's incredible that he survived.

I'm raising money to buy my Dad a boat. It doesn't need to be a new boat, but I think it's really important to get Captain George back out on the water.