For 17 seasons, NCIS' lead investigator Leroy Jethro Gibbs has been building boats in his
basement, leading to some of the most memorable moments in the series, as well as one of its
biggest mysteries.
Obviously, the boats in Gibbs' basement are very important to the character.
On NCIS, Gibbs is a fairly straight-laced guy, and boat-building seems to be one of
the few ways that he relaxes.
Woodworking is an intimate, meditative activity, and Gibbs' choice of pastime offers a lot
of insight into the character.
"You're probably wondering, perhaps I rigged it to explode."
"No.
I was thinking, 'this is a really nice chisel.'"
But Gibbs' connection to his boats goes deeper than a mere hobby.
See, Gibbs has a habit of naming each of his boats after someone close to him, often with
disastrous results.
Sure, naming one of his boats after his second wife, Diane, seemed like a sweet gesture at
the time.
After the marriage fell apart, though, Gibbs only had one choice: He had to burn the boat
to the ground.
The boat that Gibbs was building during the first six seasons of NCIS was a particularly
personal project for the Navy special agent, as it was named after Gibbs' daughter, Kelly.
In NCIS lore, Kelly and her mother, Gibbs' first wife, Shannon, were killed in a car
accident after their driver was shot by a drug dealer.
The Kelly was supposed to be a tribute to Gibbs' late daughter, but ended up meeting
a grisly fate of its own.
In the season seven episode "Outlaws and In-Laws," the Kelly, which Gibbs finished off-screen
and gave to his mentor, Michael Franks, was found drifting at sea with two dead bodies
on board.
An ominous sign for sure, but thankfully, the NCIS crew was on the case.
"So what's the deal, what's with the dead guys?"
NCIS is a show full of mysteries, as a procedural, there's a new case to solve every week, but
one in particular has vexed fans since the very beginning: How does Gibbs get his massive
sailboats out of his basement?
As far as we've seen, there's only one door to the underground workshop, and it's not
nearly big enough for a full-sized boat to fit through.
For his part, Gibbs seems to like keeping everyone in the dark.
"How do you get the boat out?"
"Just break the bottle."
Another time, Gibbs referenced knocking out a wall and building a ramp, but the logistics
of removing an underground wall remain unexplained.
Occasionally, Gibbs answers questions about his boats with his signature steely stare.
Intimidating?
Yes.
Informative?
Not so much.
As a result, fans have begun coming up with their own theories.
There's some evidence that Gibbs builds his boats in pieces and takes them outside for
final assembly, but even those smaller chunks wouldn't fit through Gibbs' basement door.
One wall of Gibbs' basement isn't ever shown, meaning there could be an opening we've never
seen, although it would have to be awfully big.
The one thing we do know?
NCIS probably won't let us in on the truth.
Only one other character, the fan-favorite forensic scientist Abby Sciuto, has figured
out the secret, and, like Gibbs, she refuses to tell.
Officially, the Kelly was a Glen-L Amigo, a 22-foot sailboat that Glen-L describes as
"a heavy boat capable of serious long-distance offshore and coastal cruising."
According to Glen-L, NCIS' producers reached out to the company directly about featuring
the Amigo on the show but required a very quick turnaround time.
That led to a flurry of negotiations between Glen-L and the NCIS production crew, ultimately
resulting in the unfinished vessel featured in NCIS' early seasons.
However, when it was time for the Kelly to set sail, production couldn't find a finished
Amigo to film, so they swapped in a different type of boat and hoped fans wouldn't notice.
Later, Gibbs began working on a Glen-L Barrelback, which isn't a sailboat but a wooden motorboat.
In the 2014 NCIS episode "Honor Thy Father," it's revealed that Gibbs and his father made
a small Barrelback named Chickadee when Gibbs was still a child.
After Gibbs' dad passed away, the NCIS investigator secured plans for a similar boat and quickly
got to work, continuing Gibbs' tradition of using his boats to honor members of his family.
All of this suggests a question: will NCIS fans ever get to see Gibbs sail away, perhaps
into retirement, on the boat he built?
Well, Gibbs is getting on in years, and operating in a demanding, stressful job for quite some
time.
In the season 16 episode "Lost Time," Gibbs addressed the possibility of retirement with
his therapist, and he didn't seem too psyched about the idea.
"What's your endgame, anyway?
When will you ever be able to say, 'Mission accomplished'?"
Gibbs had no real answer; he simply responded that he owed too much to his team to depart.
Harmon, though, has sung a different tune.
In an interview all the way back in 2010, the star said,
"From the beginning here, I always thought that part of his manner in dealing with his
team is to prepare them for a time when he's not here.
So, I could see a time certainly in the future where they take the job over and they move
on, and Gibbs gets on his boat and sails away."
That would certainly be a fitting end to an iconic character, let's just hope his team
doesn't expect Gibbs, before he sails off into the sunset, to let on as to exactly how
he got the boat out of his basement.
We have a feeling that's just something that they, and NCIS' fans, will have to keep on
wondering.
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