Part 19 – All the Men In the Sea: The Untold Story of One of the Greatest Rescues in History
Under the Hull
Waves now were so high that as the 269 sank into a trough they would sizzle past the men on the heliodeck 40 feet above the waterline. Each time the heaving line went out from the bow of the barge and fell into the sea, and Trosclair would again back his tug just ahead of the menacing bow, which with one blow could sink his vessel, just push her right under. In seconds the sea would pour in and she and her crew would likely be trapped under the 269‘s hull. The scenario of a tug run over and trapped under her tow is one with which all experienced towboat crews are familiar, and the men on the Captain John realized only too well that they were just one miscalculation away from it happening to them.
To compound their problems, Trosclair was having trouble keeping the Captain John’s bow into the wind. As he backed down on the 269, the wind and seas would push his bow to one side or the other, and the tug would start to go broadside to the barge astern of them. Only rapid corrections of heavy throttle and hard rudders saved them. Then, once more, Trosclair would begin backing down toward the behemoth in his wake.
Waves Like Mountains
The men on both tug and barge persevered in trying to reconnect the towline. They knew that in the prevailing wind and seas the North Carolina could not keep the 269 in position by herself, nor was her single towline likely to hold for long. Many crew members on all three vessels were surprised that with the stresses it was undergoing it had not parted already. By noon the tug’s crew had finally managed to secure the new tow cable, and the Captain John was back on station. It had taken more than three hours to replace the line and to rejoin tug and barge in the face of a hurricane that was now nearly on top of them, only about 75 miles away. The wind was gusting to 80 miles an hour, and seas were rising like mountains above the top of the two tugs’ pilothouses, sometimes breaking on the boats and sending waves of water surging down their decks. While the 269 and her tugs battled Roxanne, far to the north the U.S. Gulf Coast was enjoying a peaceful Sunday morning.
Charles Morgan
Just after the Civil War ended, Charles Morgan, a Gulf Coast steamship operator, bought the bankrupt New Orleans, Appaloosas and Great Western Railroad at a sheriff’s auction. The Appaloosas had operated from Algiers—just across the Mississippi from New Orleans—to Brashear, Louisiana. The lower Mississippi at that time was undredged, permitting only small boats to reach New Orleans. Brashear, on the other hand, was a deepwater port on the Atchafalaya River 90 miles west of New Orleans and only 25 miles’ sailing from the Gulf. Morgan resurrected the railroad, and Brashear became a main port for his fleet of cargo and passenger steamers sailing to the major Gulf ports, as well as to Cuba and even to New York. In 1876, to honor the man who put it on the map, the city renamed itself after him.
Morgan City
Morgan City lost its steamship prominence when the Mississippi was dredged and opened as far as New Orleans to oceangoing steamers in 1879. However, in the twentieth century it regained some of its importance as a fishing port, home to a large shrimp fleet. There was even a celebration called the Louisiana Shrimp Festival, which was ushered in each year by the blessing of the fleet. The festival then turned into a citywide party centered on a gala Cajun dance called a fais-do-do. This was Cajun dancing at its best. You could, in one evening, do the swamp pop, dance to old-fashioned waltzes and two-steps so sentimental that your heart would nearly break, and, if you had at least a drop of Cajun blood, work up a mighty great thirst hopping to a zydeco chanka-chank. A good fais-do-do was not to be missed.
Shrimp & Petroleum
In the 1950s gushers from offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico produced what was then America’s newest black-gold rush, and Morgan City, one of the sheltered harbors closest to the Gulf where waterfront land, and in fact all land, was still cheap, hit the jackpot as a premier oil-supply port. The new industry became so important to the city that the shrimp festival was renamed the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, and everyone locally is quick to reassure the visitor that, indeed, there is no incongruity: oil drilling has hardly killed any shrimp or other marine critters at all. Many of the shrimp fishermen who also have family members working in the offshore oil industry keep their lips tightly sealed on the subject—even though they know better.
Growth of an Industry
In 1956 Morgan City took off when J. Ray McDermott established a major construction yard there dedicated solely to building offshore oil-drilling platforms. Then other big companies came wading in. Tidewater Marine, one of the world’s largest operators of towing and supply vessels for the offshore oil industry, chose Morgan City as its principal Gulf port and brought in more than 200 vessels. Two large commercial diving companies, Oceaneering International and Cal-Dive International, set up bases of operations, employing between them nearly 1,500 people. And for every large company that came to Morgan City, dozens of smaller ones sprang up too.
One of the smaller companies, North Bank Towing, dates back to 1956, when Sam Smith, a local boy, started its predecessor, the F&S Boat Company, with his one and only tug, the Saratoga. North Bank grew along with the industry it supplied. In 1995 it had 19 vessels, nearly all tugs and oil-supply boats, though it did own one geophysical research ship, and it still operated from Morgan City.
It Was Urgent
On the morning of October 15 the Miss Robin, one of North Bank’s tugs, was quietly moored at a fuel dock on Bayou Boeuf, a branch of the Atchafalaya River, just south of Morgan City. As always, single-sideband chatter blared out on 8 megahertz, the frequency most used for calls to and from North Bank vessels. Shortly after 1200 a call came in for the Miss Robin from the Captain John. It happened that Robert Trosclair Jr., the son of the Captain John’s master, was aboard and received it. The senior Robert asked his son to call Chuck Denning, North Banks manager, at home and ask him to immediately go down to the company office so that Robert could talk to him over single-sideband. It was urgent. Robert Jr. called Chuck at home and passed on the message.
Chuck Denning was a stocky, good-natured forty-seven-year-old Louisianian who had tugboats in his blood. He had worked on and around them most of his adult life and had owned and managed them since 1978. Now that Sam Smith was pretty much retired, Chuck ran the show. After he received Robert Jr.’s call he raced down to the company’s modest office, a remodeled bungalow sitting on the west bank of the Atchafalaya in the Morgan City suburb of Berwick.
Situation Changed
Denning had already been to the office. That Sunday at 0700 he had checked in by radio with all his tugs that were working or were at sea. When he had spoken with Robert Sr. on the Captain John at about 0730, Robert told him they were going through heavy seas associated with the return of the hurricane but that everything seemed under control. Chuck then went home to enjoy his Sunday morning breakfast. Now, obviously, the situation had changed.
When he got back to the office, Chuck immediately went to the single-sideband transmitter in the radio room. “KZJ930 Morgan City base to Whiskey-Charlie-Yankee 5568. Captain John, Captain John. Come on in, Captain John.”
A long pause, then “This is Whiskey-Charlie-Yankee 5568, Captain John, back to KZJ930.”
“Robert, Miss Robin called me, and they say you have a problem.” And Robert began telling his boss what was confronting the Captain John, the North Carolina, and especially the 269. The towline had broken again. The crew was repairing it and they hoped to be back on station soon, but even with both vessels towing, they were not able to maintain their position. They were losing ground steadily, being pushed to the southeast at better than 3 knots. And, to make matters worse, according to word they had received from the barge, the 269 had developed some serious leaks.