Perhaps, someone in the MIT ocean engineering program doing a semester at sea on the Corwith Cramer breaks bad. Back in the day they would lure crew by using ladies of the night to entice a victim into a Shanghai Tunnel [0] where they would be abducted. Our protagonist working on submersible project on the Corwith Cramer gets seduced by a yacht crew member while having a drink at the Leeside Pub or the Captain Kidd bar in Woods Hole. It wouldn't be the first time.

Personally, I had planned to spend a season working in a restaurant in Miami Beach and was evacuated from the inter-coastal because of hurricane Irma. The only bed I could find was in a crew house in Fort Lauderdale. All the windows were boarded with plywood and they had several kegs and dozens of bottles on the table as we waited out the storm with a party. Fortunately the storm tracked the West Coast. Someone asked what I did and I said I was a chef. They suggested I become a private yacht chef. Two weeks later I was cooking on a private sailing yacht in the Bahamas.

Probably more interesting if a storm blows the protagonist into a situation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghaiing