Tag Archives: The Perfect Storm
What You Didn’t Know About the Andrea Gail and ‘Perfect Storm’ Location
In the fall of 1991, a catastrophic storm swept the northeastern coast of the U.S., wreaking havoc along the coast of Massachusetts. The Andrea Gail set out from Gloucester on what was meant to be a month-long fishing trip off the coast of Newfoundland, covering a total of 900 miles. What they didn’t know was that the storm heading up the coast would take the lives of 13 people and cause millions of dollars in damage from Florida all the way up to Nova Scotia. Winds from the storm reached strengths of 120 miles per hour, and when no communication was heard from the 72-foot Andrea Gail, which was right in the center of the storm, the search was called off in a matter of ten days. To this day, the trawler, and its crew, have never been recovered. Here’s what you never knew about the Andrea Gail’s last communication, speculation about what exactly happened, and the haunting clues that have surfaced since. more, >>click to read<< 09:49
‘The Perfect Storm’: A look back at the historic Halloween event that shook New England
It’s been 32 years since what we know as the “Perfect Storm” reached its peak intensity along the southern New England coast. You may have heard of the classic film, “The Perfect Storm,” starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, which follows the journey of six crew members aboard the 72-foot commercial fishing boat, “Andrea Gail.” This storm continued to intensify as the two fronts merged. At one point, the large system shifted south, where it strengthened into a hurricane, but NOAA refrained from naming the storm so they wouldn’t confuse the public. Video, >>click to read<< 07:39
Deadliest Catch’s newest star: A Q&A with Maine’s Linda Greenlaw
The newest season of Deadliest Catch will feature a Maine connection, with popular fisherman, author and reality TV star Linda Greenlaw joining the cast. Q: You’re known to most Mainers and wider audiences as a fisherman of swordfish and lobster. Did you find transitioning to crab fishing difficult for “Deadliest Catch?” A: Transitioning to the crab fishery was not too difficult for me – I have been involved in the offshore red cred fishery here in New England and have been fishing fixed gear on and off since I was a kid. The difference was primarily hauling single, massive pots as opposed to trawls of smaller traps. Finding crab was the biggest challenge. This was my first experience with Bairdi crab and also my first trip on the Bering Sea. >click to read< 16:21
Linda Greenlaw to be featured on upcoming season of ‘Deadliest Catch’
The state’s most famous living fishing boat captain will be featured on the upcoming season of the popular reality television series, “Deadliest Catch.” Greenlaw said Friday that she went to Alaska last fall with “a positive attitude, strong work ethic and the good sense to know what I didn’t know” about the particular challenges of fishing for Bering Sea crab. She said she learned a lot from ‘Wild’ Bill Wichrowski, the notoriously grumpy captain and owner of F/V Summer Bay who has appeared on the show for 13 seasons. “I wanted to learn from the best — and I did,” Greenlaw became well known 30 years ago after being written about in “The Perfect Storm,” a nonfiction book by Sebastian Junger about a powerful Nor’easter storm that sank the sword fishing boat F/V Andrea Gail in 1991. >click to read< 07:15
The Story Behind ‘The Perfect Storm‘
When the 70-foot longliner Andrea Gail was lost off Canada’s Grand Banks on October 29, 1991, Sebastian Junger was living in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the boat’s home port, working as a tree climber to support his freelance writing career. The F/V Andrea Gail was on day 40 of an extended commercial swordfishing trip when three powerful storms converged on the Northeast. Data buoys measured waves as high as 100 feet, and the boat was hit with winds measuring 80 knots (almost 150 miles per hour). The night before the storm, on October 28, Andrea Gail’s captain, Billy Tyne, radioed to area fishermen, “She’s coming on, boys, and she’s coming on strong.” >click to read< 07:20
UPDATED: The mystery of the lost-and-found ‘Perfect Storm’ photo album – “Don’t come back to my bar.”
After three days missing, The Crow’s Nest, the Gloucester bar featured in the 2000 movie “The Perfect Storm”, has had its photo album honoring the film and those who died on the original Andrea Gail returned. “We are thrilled to have our photo album back! It was sent overnight from Georgia,”. An anonymous note accompanied the album. The photo album, which went missing from the neighborhood bar on Sunday, featured photos of not only the actors in the film, but the original crew aboard the vessel who died. >click to read< 09:41
Stolen photo album that documents ‘The Perfect Storm’ filming returned to owners – Maryanne Shatford and her husband, Gregg Sousa, have their memories on display at their Gloucester bar, the Crow’s Nest. Among their most prized possessions was a photo album with pictures of Hollywood stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and the other actors in the film. “Don’t come back to my bar. But I’m glad we got it back,” Sousa said. >click to read<
Everything You Didn’t Know About Andrea Gail, The Fishing Vessel Lost In ‘The Perfect Storm’
In the fall of 1991, a catastrophic storm swept the northeastern coast of the U.S., wreaking havoc along the coast of Massachusetts. The storm would strike the coast with no name, afterward only gaining the title of the ‘perfect storm’ and inspiring a movie of the same name. It made landfall suddenly with no one anticipating its hurricane-strength devastation, with those on land feeling its effects but those at sea having a first-hand account of the strength of its winds and rain. The Andrea Gail set out of Gloucester on what was meant to be a month-long fishing trip off the coast of Newfoundland, covering a total of 900 miles,,, What they didn’t know is that the storm heading up the coast would take the lives of 13 people and causing millions of dollars in damage from Florida all the way up to Nova Scotia. photos, >click to read< 10:20
On This Day – November 4, 1991 – Swordfishing Boat Missing, Overdue
The Coast Guard continued searching today for a fishing boat due back in Gloucester last Friday from a trip to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, Canada. The 70-foot Andrea Gail was supposed to have returned to port by Saturday with its crew of six fishermen. Several Gloucester fishermen were said to be aboard the vessel, but Coast Guard officials were withholding crew members’ names this morning pending notification of their families. The vessel has not been heard from since Thursday when it was reported to be 180 miles east-northeast of Canada’s Sable Island. The missing vessel was reported to be encountering 30-foot seas and 50 to 80-know winds kicked up by the northeaster that devastated coastal New England last week. click here to read the story 08:13
Video: Coast Guard crew says goodbye to the Tamaroa
Forty-four boarded a boat in Cape May early Wednesday morning, including 10 former Coast Guards, to say goodbye to a storied ship with decades of service. The Tamaroa, a 205-foot Coast Guard cutter featured in the “The Perfect Storm,” was scuttled earlier this week 33 miles off of Cape May, becoming part of New Jersey’s artificial reef program. The sinking was delayed numerous times due to rough seas since last October when the state’s Department of Environmental Protection’s had originally planned to sink the ship on the storm’s 25th anniversary. Click here to watch the video, read the story 12:29
25 years ago, the crew of the Andrea Gail was lost in the ‘perfect storm’
At the heart of Gloucester, America’s oldest seaport, visitors will find an eight-foot-tall bronze fisherman at the wheel of his ship. Engraved at the base of the Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial are the names of more than 3,000 residents who were lost at sea and the following words: “They that go down to the sea in ships, 1623-1923.” Twenty-five years ago, one ship in particular gained national fame when it was lost during the “perfect storm” of 1991. The “storm with no name” claimed the lives of six fishermen and the captain and crew of the Andrea Gail, a disaster that was later chronicled in Sebastian Junger’s bestselling book and a film starring George Clooney. The storm left a trail of destruction from Nova Scotia to Florida, killing 13 people and causing close to $500 million in damage as it lashed the coast from Oct. 26 through Nov. 1 of that year. Read the story here 08:12
The 106th Rescue Wing: Pararescueman from ‘The Perfect Storm’ will speak in Westhampton October 22
In one of the dramatic scenes in the movie The Perfect Storm, a rescue helicopter appears, hovering in the wind and rain over the 80-foot seas—possibly the largest seas ever off the Northeastern shore—so its occupants can attempt a daring rescue of two women and a man aboard a 30-foot sailboat that has foundered down below. There are five men aboard this helicopter—Lt. Colonel Graham Buschor, it’s co-pilot, Lt. Colonel David Ruvola, the other co-Pilot, Jim Mioli, the flight engineer, and two pararescuemen, John Spillane and Rick Smith. Over the foundering ship, Spillane and Smith fearlessly leap out of the chopper carrying 110- pound packs on their backs, splash into the water and proceed to put the three victims into baskets that have been lowered by cable. Then, above the rolling, violent seas, the victims are choppered over a nearby Coast Guard ship and lowered down to safety. Of course, this story is not over. The chopper returns and with the same rescue method, cables up the pararescuemen. But now the chopper is running low on fuel. An attempt is made to conduct a mid-air refueling with a propeller driven Hercules four-engine refueling plane that comes over. But the wind is so high, the effort fails. They try again and again to link up, but in the end, the helicopter goes down into the ocean. And though four of the five men onboard are rescued from these enormous seas by the Coast Guard cutter, the fifth man is lost, never to be seen again. Of course, there are other dramatic activities going on in this monster storm—indeed, the main plot of The Perfect Storm is of the men aboard the Andrea Gail fishing boat, out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, who are also never seen again. Read the story here 18:15
The Long Blue Line: Cutter Tamaroa and ‘The Perfect Storm’
This year marks the 25th anniversary of “The Perfect Storm,” also known as the “Halloween Nor’easter” because it struck in late October 1991. It was the third major weather event to hit the East Coast in an unusually active month. By October 28, two large weather systems collided off the East Coast. Hurricane Grace had formed the day before and was moving from the southeast on course for an un-named extra-tropical cyclone. The two weather systems spawned a much larger and more powerful storm. By October 30, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoys reported sustained winds of over sixty miles per hour with gusts well over 70 mph, and waves as high as 40 feet. Read the story, Click here 09:18
Albert Johnston IV recalls surviving “The Perfect Storm”
Albert Johnston IV has devoted much of his life to saltwater fishing, both for sport and professionally. He has numerous stories to tell that span the globe, including fishing for swordfish in Mexico and chasing bluefin tuna near Canada, but one story Johnston will tell for the rest of his life is the story of when he was the captain of the fishing vessel the Mary T in the fall of 1991 and being at sea during “The Perfect Storm,” a nor’easter in the Atlantic Ocean. The Perfect Storm famously claimed another fishing vessel, the Andrea Gail, and its crew. How it started. Read the rest here 09:05
