Menu

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Bob Banel

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2023

Stories (7)

Comments

Library

3 Followers

0 Following

7 Stories

138 karma pts

?

Captain Billy Chunk: Cold Bay or Bust!

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #313

Cheese and Crackers! What is that Captain Billy Chunk up to now? Well, suspend your disbelief and grab a steaming cuppa of Folger's, light up a Camel No Filter, and enjoy this tangled mess of a yarn..... Captain Billy Chunk: Cold Bay or Bust! Chapter One: Mouth of the Rat Magnus was cold. Magnus was old. He had been cold since birth, there in the shadow of his big brother Wernher. He had been cold at Peenemunde with the chill North Wind blowing off the Baltic Sea watching his big brother's firework show. But now he was in Florida and cold. A...

0 likes

Coffin Corner Chunk: North Atlantic

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #290

Coffin Corner Chunk: North Atlantic!It's another Captain Billy Chunk Adventure!Get ready to keep your bunk light on well into the off watch as you read along!Cast off all lines fore and aft! Here we go!CHAPTER ONE: Hair of the Black Dog that Bit Them!There was a chill in the air on a blustery October night. The freight train had arrived at the end of it's run at a town somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. Broken clouds scudded across the sky. The lonely face of the full moon made a cameo appearance as if woken up by the commotion . It's light ...

14 likes

Space Chunking

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #247

Captain Billy Chunk had the Conn of the SpaceTug Delilah. He had the throttles jammed to the firewall and was in a losing hot pursuit of the SpaceTug Medusa. The Medusa had a fouled Dok-A-Lok coupling on a Jumbo Class SpaceSkow and was now married to it for better or worse. The Medusa was being dragged along on a Nantucket sleigh ride trajectory and headed for something definitely worse than a burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. The Medusa had FUBAR'ed it drives and was neither use nor ornament. The crew headed by Captain Julie "Sweet" Stacks...

7 likes

Captain Billy: Ad Astra Per Aspera or Bust!

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #188

Author's Note: Ahoy! Follow along in Contests #180, #184, & #185. A sea change occurs for the Good Tugboat Samson and crew! Thing's get more messed up than a soup sandwich!It was 0530 Monday morning on the Seattle waterfront. The Good Tugboat Samson was all fast and standing by Pier 17, their home dock. Captain Billy stepped out of his stateroom freshly showered, shaved and squared away. He was in a "Semper Paratus" mood for facing the challenges of this particular day. An earlier message from Seattle Dispatch said there would noontime v...

7 likes

Vaudeville is Dead and Maybe Captain Billy Too

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #185

Author's Note: The saga of the Good Tugboat Samson continues. Starting in Contest #180 and #184. Captain Billy Chunk and his crew face new challenges from outside and inside on the waters of Puget Sound.It was early Monday morning aboard the Good Tug Boat Samson. The crew was mustered in the Galley for a Safety Meeting. The topic of the Monthly Safety Packet was "Ladders: Step Up to Safety!". Ladders? A sense of Deja Vu washed over Captain Billy as he was certain he had heard this topic for the umpteenth time. The verbose Mister Mate Mark be...

9 likes

Captain Billy versus The Electronic Pop-Tarts

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #184

Author's Note: Due to the bit of bad luck that befell The Good Tugboat Samson it was 86'ed out of San Francisco Bay and was repositioned North to Puget Sound. Deckhand Nicky has been replaced by his twin brother Deckhand Micky. (Refer to Contest #180 "It's Unlucky Not to Be Superstitious")Captain Billy sensed something was wrong in the wheelhouse of the Tugboat Samson. He was certain that an invisible and ever present force was out of control causing errors in his navigation as the tugboat ran up the coast from San Francisco to their new hom...

8 likes

It's Unlucky Not to Be Superstitious

Bob Banel

Submitted to Contest #180

It was Steak Night aboard the harbor Tugboat Samson moored at Pier 13 on the San Francisco waterfront. At the dinner meal , Deckhand Nicky, a flibbertigibbet in Captain Billy's well seasoned opinion, spilled the salt shaker onto the galley table and apparently didn't possess enough common sense to toss a pinch over his left shoulder smack dab into The Devil's eyes. The other two crew members, Mister Mate Mark and Chief the Engineer, were too occupied chowing down their supper and were oblivious to this transgression. After all, it was Steak ...

13 likes