The Perfect Storm

1. The Perfect Storm The Perfect Storm Ana Laura Neumann Laura Regina Haddad Natielle Colloca (Nivel 6 – Prof. Cristina Gil)

2. Chapter 1 In 1895, a mackerel schooner’s crewhad found a bottle with a note inside. The bottle was floating off the coast of Massachusetts. It was from a Falcon’s crewmember, which apparently sunk the previous year. "Our cable is gone... our rudder gone... God have mercy on us..." The Falcon was lost the year before.

3. Chapter 2 In 1991, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was a quaint town dominated by the fishing industry because that city has been considered a fishing village since the colonial days. Bob Shatford came from a fisherman‘s family. So, one rainy October day,he was ready to go on a sword fishing trip aboard the Andrea Gail. The trip last a month. Bob was separated from his wife, had two children and a new lover named Christine Cotter. His ex-wife was suing him for child supported that his mother recently paid to keep him out of court. Because of this, Bob decided to go on this trip because he wanted money. So he hoped that this latest trip would yield at least five thousand dollars - enough to pay for his divorce and remarriage. Bob's mother was a bartender at "The Crow's Nest." Gloucester was full of bars like "The Crow's Nest," The Irish Mariner” etc. She didn’t want his son Bob go on this trip because she known it was very dangerous.

4. Chapter 3 The Andrea Gail was ready to go to the sea. Meanwhile, the crewmembers were saying the ‘good-byes’ to their friends and families. Billy Stratford and his girlfriend were using a friend's bedroom when they got a call from Sully. She said it was time for Billy to go. Alfred Pierre and his girlfriend came down from a room upstairs in the Crow's Nest. She had been crying. Chris and Murph got lots of movies for the trip. Sully and Alfred were complaining to Bugsy that Sully had a bad dream about this trip. They had one last drink and filled out the door. Bob and Chris were talking inside the car. Bob said he didn’t want to go and Chris asked him why he didn't stay back and he answered “Because I want money”. And then the crewmembers entered inside the boat.

5. Chapter 4 This chapter began with a sword-fishing’s history in New England. It returned to the stories of the Mary T. and the Andrea Gail. In the 1800's,New England sward fishermen harpooned their fish. Things remained the same for decades until the invention of the long line ship and spotter planes. Spotter planes were first used in 1962 to locate fish. Canadians were the first to invent long line boats, also in the 1960’s. The new boats created a ‘boom’ in catching sword – fish that didn’t last long when the USA government detected dangerous levels of mercury in the fish and sea. It wasn’t until 1978 that the USA government relaxed standards for mercury. This created another ‘boom’ in the 1980's, when hundreds of long liners were fishing and using millions of hooks.

6. Chapter 5 Most sword fishermen underwent a certain amount of denial about their profession’s dangers. They ignored weather reports, overloaded their ships, unplugged emergency radios, stowed life rafts in the boat’s wheelhouse and otherwised indulge in unsafe practices. Billy was ‘no exception’. Although, once a storm hit a boat at sea, the crew immediately began to close every hatch, porthole and watertight door on board. They took everything off the deck and lashed down things that could break loose. On board the Andrea Gail, Billy Tyne was in charge of the engine room. He was the only one who checked everything before a storm hits. He read the weather faxes that said that Hurricane Grace was moving in and would develop into a dangerous storm.

7. Chapter 6 Albert Johnston aboard the Mary T. recalled the October 28th’s night. He said that once he known the weather forecast, he headed for colder waters because cold water was denser and therefore the waves may not be as high. Albert recalled that he personally had seen only fifty-foot waves, not hundred feet as predicted. The Mary T. crew synched the boat with the waves’ RPMs and rode it out. About a hundred miles west of this boat, however, the waves were a hundred feet high – the largest waves ever recorded on the Scotian Shelf, and among the highest measured at anytime. Not much is known about how such big waves really worked.

8. Chapter 7 Long factual information’spassages about the mechanics of how ships go down at sea and the human drowning’sscience. About forty years ago, the USA Navy was experimenting detonation nuclear bombs in the sea. The experiments were called off because it was so dangerous to undersea landmasses. The Navy conducted experiments to determinate how much stress and force their ships could handle before sinking. These were done by using model ships. It was determined that ships could flip over if their bows got caught in a large enough wave’s crests. This was called "pitch-poling." "Floundering" was a series of waves that could drive a ship underwater. The Andrea Gail probably "pitched-poled" or "floundered" the night of October 28th.

9. Chapter 8 It was about what went on the other ships in the Andrea Gail’s vicinity. The passengers and crew on these ships managed to survive the storm, but not all the rescuers made it back home. Albert Johnston was on the Mary T. when the winds became so strong that they took out the anemometer that was supposed to measure them. Johnston's goal was to stay in "heavy" cold waters and avoided the Gulf Stream. On October 29th, early in the morning, Johnston was aware that Hurricane Grace was colliding with the cold front and then running into the Sable Island storm. When this happened, the gale winds were over a hundred miles per hour.

10. Chapter 9 A dangerous rescue at sea had done and almost all families lost men on the Andrea Gail in that chapter. Christina Cotter hadn’t heard from Bob Stratford in three days an she had a nightmare that he was dead. On October 30th, Susan Brown, the owner of the Andrea Gail’s wife, told Chris that they couldn’t contact by radio with the Andrea Gail. Christina went to the Crow's Nest where two Bob's sisters, his mother and his brother were drinking. Everyone was getting drunk and fearing the worst for the Andrea Gail. Bob Brown, the owner of the boat, had radioed Linda Greenlaw on the Hannah Bolen. She and her crew had survived the storm, but no one had heard from the Andrea Gail. So Brown called the Coast Guard.

11. Chapter 10 The "perfect storm" that took the Andrea Gails’s crew’ life was wreaking havoc on the towns on the New England coast. The wind hit October 30th at hurricane force. People couldn’t walk. Houses float out to sea: over one hundred were destroyed in Scituate. The Hudson River backed up to Albany; the Hudson and the Potomac both flooded. Damage was estimated at over a billion and a half dollars. People were still searching for the lost diver, Rick Smith, as well as the Andrea Gail. Coast Guardsmen had found the lifeboat dropped by Mioli's helicopter and one abandoned by the Tamaroa. On October 31st, a Coast Guard plane spotted Day-Glo green dyed in the water, which may had been dropped by Rick Smith as a signal.

12. CREDITS The book: The Perfect Storm The Images: Google – Key words: “Perfect Storm Book and Film” The Group: Ana Laura Neumann Laura Regina Haddad Natielle Colloca The Teacher: Cristina Gil The Level: Level 6