Stories from the past

Ever since Gloucester as been around there have been fishermen in and around it The fishermen in town have been known to get out of hand every once and awhile, but things are kept pretty orderly.  The men come in after 6 weeks at sea and want to be home, be with friends, drink and see women.  When they come back they always have stories to tell their friends, but they aren't all big fish stories.  Read down the page for more.

Of all the men on the boat Murph, Bugsy, and Billy have been together the longest.  Thirty-four years in all.  Even good friends can go crazy after being at sea with each other for a long period of time. Murph had the worst, or maybe the best luck of them all.  At least he has the most close calls with death.  Murph is 6'2", 250 pounds and hard to kill.  A mako shark took a bite of his arm and held on and the crew had to beat it to death before it would let go.  That cut his fishing time short because he had to be taken to a hospital.  Then another time a common accident happened to him.  While laying out the longline for the upcoming days catch a hook went through his hand.  This hook didn't just go through his hand, it went through his palm, out the other side and back into his finger.  As if that wasn't bad enough he was dragged overboard and out to sea like a piece of bait.  He thought that was the end and that it was all over.  A crew member happened to turn around and saved him by hauling him in like a fish at the end of the day.        Those are bad enough to imagine but there is something even stranger.  He was sleeping on deck one night but it was to hot to his liking.  He decided to go down below to where his bunk was and try sleeping there.  Again it was to hot because the air-conditioning wasn't working.  It was a problem they hadn't had time to fix yet.  He then went back up on deck and fell half asleep.  That's when he awoke to a horrible metal shriek.  A British nuclear submarine had gone underneath them and the conning tower had torn a hole in the hull.  Murph was lucky to be on the deck because his bunk was crushed like a soda can. Just another lucky chance.  He even told his new wife that he wouldn't make it past thirty.

David Sullivan, or Sully,  was one of the men on the Andrea Gail.  Someone else had backed out and Sully had been chosen to take his place.  Sully was a good man to have on board.  Once, at night, they were out at sea tied to another boat when Sully's boat started taking on water.  The crew yelled and hollered and  no one from the other boat heard them.  That's when Sully jumped overboard and swam to the other boat for help.  He saved the crew.

On the Hannah Boden, Bob Brown was pulling in a full set of gear in a 60 knot wind.  Then a wave came, knocking two men overboard.  They were in their full fishing gear and could hardly move in the freezing water.  One man went under immediately, the other hit the hull.  A member threw over a line with a hook on it.  They caught the man like a fish.  The hook went through his hand and they pulled him on board alive.  However they had to travel 400 miles to be within helicopter range so he could get to a hospital.

A memorial wall in The Crow's Nest to all those who didn't make it back to tell their storys.