Subscribe to RSS Feed...that last blog entry was pathetically poor. No mistaking me for Byron, huh? Soldiering on . . .
Back in 2006, there was big tug named the "Valour" that foundered and sank. It was a real mess of an event with gorilla seas, gale force winds, and a couple of deaths. I just read the U.S. Coast Guard report (available online) and the fact narrative gave me that churning sensation when you know something bad is unfolding; that heavy transom slipping too fast toward the cement pier feeling. Even the most hardened of you, won't be able to read the damn thing without wincing at the hopelessness of the circumstances. Like how all these things seem to unravel, the problems just seem to keep piling on top of each other. A list to port, ballasting gone awry, a fall, broken legs, man overboard, an overrunning barge . . . . Sweet Mother Mary! The clinical and stair-step description of events based on the surviving crewmember interviews is awesomely terrifying. Give it a read and see what you make of it. (Do you agree with the Coast Guard's enforcement recommendations against certain surviving crewmembers?) Let me set the reading stage . . . it's January, around 11:00 p.m. at night off the coast of North Carolina with forty to fifty mile an hour winds gusting to seventy and 15-20 foot seas . . . .
Give your own salute to the crew that didn't make it. This Blog entry's mine.
Underway and making way.
--- JKF
Comments
Post has no comments.