Andrea Gail
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The Andrea Gail was a fishing ship that was used for swordfish fishing. On October 28, 1991, she disappeared in the North Atlantic during a severe storm that had formed from the remains of Hurricane Grace and two other weather systems.
The fishing boat was built in 1978 at the Eastern Marina, Inc. shipyard in Panama City, Florida as Miss Penny . The ship had a steel hull. It was diesel-powered and had a propeller, two decks, a mast and a rectangular transom.
The story of this ship served as a template for the novel The Perfect Storm and its film adaptation.
The misfortune
On September 21, 1991, the Andrea Gail ran to the Newfoundland Bank (English "Grand Banks") for swordfish fishing from Gloucester in Massachusetts . She headed for this port mostly to load her catch and replenish fuel and supplies. There were six men on board, Captain William “Billy” Tyne, Robert “Bobby” Shatford, Dale “Murph” Murphy, David “Sully” Sullivan, Michael “Bugsy” Moran and Alfred Pierre, as well as supplies for almost 40 to 50 days. She carried 34,000 liters of diesel fuel and 7,500 liters of water in tanks for the journey. In addition, around 6,000 liters of diesel and almost 2,000 liters of water were stored in barrels on deck. Because of poor fishing results, the captain steered a north-east course to Flemish Cap , 560 km east of St. John's , Newfoundland . The return journey began on October 26th. Towards the evening of October 28, 1991, she got caught in a severe storm. Captain Tyne reported his position at 44 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ N , 56 ° 24 ′ 0 ″ W , 330 km northeast of Sable Island . His weather report reported 9 m waves and gusts of wind up to 80 knots (150 km / h). Nothing is known about the whereabouts of the ship and crew, except for the life raft, tanks, small parts and the emergency radio transmitter (EPIRB) of the Andrea Gail, which was found on November 6, 1991 on the shore of Sable Island, everything else remained lost. The Andrea Gail probably capsized in the waves, which were up to 18 meters high, and the crew drowned.
The severe storm that fatally caused Andrea Gail to come about as a result of the meeting of three weather systems: a low pressure area moving east from the American mainland met a high pressure area from Canada, which carried cold and dry air with it and was heading south. This meeting was fueled by the warm, humid remains of Hurricane Grace.
The book and the movie
Sebastian Junge has written a novel about misfortune with the title The Perfect Storm , which was later filmed by Wolfgang Petersen under the English title of the same name or the German title Der Sturm . For dramatic reasons, the film lets things happen on board the Andrea Gail that happened on various other fishing boats. Also, the storm in which the Andrea Gail is missing is by far not the worst storm that has ever been recorded, as the film says.
When the author was doing research for his book, a meteorologist told him that the three above-mentioned weather systems that had come together over the North Atlantic at that time were the ingredients for a perfect storm. This then resulted in the title for the book.
literature
- Sebastian Junge: The storm - the last journey of Andrea Gail , Diana Verlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 978-3-8284-5008-0
Web links
- US Coast Guard Report (PDF file; 1.5 MB)
- German-language site for Andrea Gail
- Site to the victims of fishing Gloucester with entry to the Andrea Gail (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Meteorologists Say 'Perfect Storm' Not So Perfect , Science Daily, June 29, 2000.
- ↑ The Perfect Storm - Nor'easters