Michael J. Tougias - Rescue of the Bounty: Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy

ALISON OLEARY

MICHAEL J. TOUGIAS is the author of a number of books, including A Storm Too Soon, Overboard!, The Finest Hours (with Casey Sherman), Fatal Forecast, and Ten Hours Until Dawn . He is a sought-after lecturer who gives more than seventy presentations each year. He lives in Massachusetts.

MONICA CAMPBELL

DOUGLAS A. CAMPBELL spent three decades in daily journalism and twenty-five years as a staff writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer , where two of his stories were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Campbell is the author of The Seas Bitter Harvest and Eight Survived .

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A LSO BY M ICHAEL J. T OUGIAS

A Storm Too Soon

The Finest Hours
(coauthored with Casey Sherman)

Overboard!

Fatal Forecast

Ten Hours Until Dawn

Until I Have No Country

Theres a Porcupine in My Outhouse

The Cringe Chronicles

Dereks Gift

King Philips War
(coauthored with Eric Schultz)

A LSO BY D OUGLAS A. C AMPBELL

The Seas Bitter Harvest

Eight Survived

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Copyright 2014 by Michael J. Tougias and Douglas A. Campbell

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First Scribner hardcover edition April 2014

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Jacket design by Ervin Serrano

Jacket photograph Tim Kuklewski/Lightroom Photos/USGC/Alamy

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013042684

ISBN 978-1-4767-4663-0

ISBN 978-1-4767-4665-4 (ebook)

Permission granted by the Cassie Brown Estate for the excerpt printed in this publication from Cassie Browns Standing into Danger.

Photograph credits: 18 courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Bounty under sail was a handsome ship.

A view of Bounty s deck and some of the rigging.

The Great Cabin belowdecks at the stern.

Captain Robin Walbridge, who made the fateful decision to leave New London, aboard Bounty .

On October 25, 2012, the day Bounty set sail on its eventual clash with Hurricane Sandy, Claudene Christian was on deck with the visiting sailors from the submarine Mississippi as they attempted to learn Bounty s complex and elaborate rigging.

Doug Faunt was the most senior crew member on board.

These seas, encountered during Bounty s November 2010 voyage to Puerto Rico, were, according to survivors of the final voyage, in the range of those that took her down during Sandy in 2012.

A few hours after Bounty rolled to her side, her masts began to rise as water spread throughout her hull.

The third coast guard helicopter arrived on the scene later in the morning and found Bounty in this position.

Rescue swimmer Daniel Todd was in the second helicopter to arrive on the distress scene.

C-130 pilot Wes McIntosh flew into the hurricane at night. Here he is receiving an award from Commandant of the Coast Guard Robert Papp.

The first helicopter to arrive on the emergency scene was crewed by ( left to right ) Randy Haba, Steve Cerveny, Jane Pea, and Michael Lufkin.

The second helicopter crew ( left to right ): Daniel Todd, Jenny Fields, Steve Bonn, and Neil Moulder.

To all the librarians who have helped my writing and speaking careers. Our public libraries are national treasures.

MICHAEL TOUGIAS

To those who loved Robin Walbridge and Claudene Christian and who now grieve.

DOUG CAMPBELL

The autumn afternoon was perfect, untroubled on the New London, Connecticut, waterfront. The rippled river water sparkled; the blue sky was washed clean as fresh laundry. The late-October sun came low behind the womans right shoulder, casting sharp, long shadows before her. For twenty years Beth Robinson had been part of the engrossing world of tall ships and she still thought, This is why we go to sea, days like this. She walked onto the City Pier, where, ahead of her, a crew of sailors hustled to their assignments on deck below the three towering masts of the historic square-rigger Bounty . Robinson, a relief skipper on a nearby schooner, knew the ship, a 180-foot, fifty-year-old wooden shipan expanded replica of the original 1784 ship HMS Bounty . She made a casual inspection, passing the soaring sixty-foot bowsprit, thrust upward toward shore, before reaching the freshly painted black hull. She knew Bounty s captain, too, Robin Walbridge, and thought her friend of two decades had his boat looking pretty good.