High Seas, High Risk: The Story of the Sudburys - Hardcover

Norris, Pat Wastell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1550172085 ISBN 13: 9781550172089

Publisher: Harbour Publishing, 1999

Synopsis

Island Tug & Barge, once the largest employer in Victoria, BC, was a Pacific Ocean marine salvage company world famous for deep-sea rescues and long distance towing feats - and infamous for superior crews and a feisty little fleet, including the renowned Sudbury and Sudbury II. Most famous, however, was the unstopable, fiery owner, Harold Elworthy - "H.B." for "Hard-boiled" - a boy who started with nothing and became a maritime giant. Together these ships and men proved themselves as some of the best marine salvors in the world. High Seas, High Risk recounts the Sudburys' most notable and dramatic tows and rescues, told mostly through the memories and anecdotes of former crew members.

Island Tug & Barge made headlines around the seafaring world. The Sudburys made almost impossible rescues with ease - towing their charges through typhoons, pulling them off pinnacles of rock, fighting their fires and keeping them afloat with batteries of pumps. Beset by storms, lightning, and impossible conditions, the two tugs always made it home safely. Year after year the drama was repeated, until, one day, the headlines stopped. The Sudbury and the Sudbury II disappeared, Island Tug & Barge was gone.

Writing with the care and detail of a historian, and the passion of a maritime adventurer, Pat Wastell Norris has parlayed her childhood seafaring passion into every story and anecdote - an interest instilled by her father who carried her about his 60-foot tugboat before she could walk. This never-before told history of Island Tug & Barge is a must-read for mariners and yachtsmen of every ilk--the armchair adventurers, professionals and everyone in between.

About this title

About the Author

Pat Wastell Norris was carried aboard her father's tugboat before she could walk, and has been addicted to salt air ever since. The author of Time and Tide: A History of Telegraph Cove, (Raincoast Chronicles 16) the bestselling High Seas, High Risk: The Story of the Sudburys and High Boats: A Century of Salmon Remembered, Norris now lives in Vancouver BC.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Effectively isolated from the visible world by the early darkness of a winter afternoon and a dense fog, dimly lit by the small glow of the binnacle and the twinkling lights of the electronic equipment, the pilothouse of the steam tanker Mandoil II seemed suspended in space. Ten years old, the 700-foot Mandoil II was a state-of-the-art example of Dutch ship-building expertise. Now, on the last day of February 1968, she thrummed alon some 340 miles off the mouth of the Columbia River, carrying 300,00 barrels of light Sumantra crude oil. For a few moments her mate watched wisps of fog stream by the windows. Then he turned his attention to the radar screen and as the sweeping electronic illuminated blips he went rigid with horror. Even as he stared at the screen another ship burst through the wall of fog and tore into the starboard bow of his own ship. There was the ear-splitting screech of tearing metal and a shower of sparks fanned into the air. Instantly a great fire-ball erupted and rolled down the length of the vessel, destroying everything in its path. On the other ship, a log carrier, the deck cargo burst into flames. Then the groundswell worked the ships apart, and within minutes each was drifting alone in the fog.

The tanker was blazing from stem to stern and settling in the water. Her radio was silent. But from the log carrier a voice, taut with terror, screamed into the radio, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday...Mayday."

Edition details

• Publisher: Harbour Publishing
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1550172085
• ISBN 13: 9781550172089
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240