by Richard Saare

Created on: July 18, 2008

The frigid North Atlantic

It is early in the evening on December 20th, 1976 and the weather is abominable. High winds and snow are in the forecast for the next week as they have for the last week. Seas are raging and breaking on the beach with a thunderous roar that can be heard for miles. The skies are gray and the air is nothing short of frigid, the winds are blowing steadily at ninety; and gusting to more than a hundred miles per hour. Enough that the sand blown up from the beaches will strip the paint of a car in twenty minutes!

Suddenly, "All Hands to the ready, Distress call on channel 16 FM. The Happy Jack is in the distress. Prepare to get underway. Duty crews to your life boat stations on the double. Duty Driver to the duty truck immediately," a tense excitement hangs in the Radio Watches voice.
The van stops and I race down the ice covered pier, McMillan Wharf and start the twin Detroit V-6-53 Diesels. I can here them rumble to life from deep within the 44 foot motor lifeboat. A call of distress was heard 8 minutes ago, the "Happy Jack" is taking on water; her pumps are failing to keep up with the flow and she is bound to sink.

Lives are at stake, there's first and ours last, seas are breaking at 35 to 45 feet, but it doesn't make any difference, we are the last hope of the imperiled at sea. These chilling words are a death knell to those in danger in the frigid North Atlantic in the months of winter, "May Day, May Day, May Day!" I have heard these words and that is what springs us into action. I am the Engineer on a Coast Guard Search and Rescue Motor Life Boat crew, and it is my job to light the engines and keep them running no matter what it takes!

Four men set sail from the sanctuary we call home, A Small Boat Rescue Station, in some obscure little nook along the coast of Massachusetts. The winds are well beyond Hurricane force and they threaten everyone; especially anyone misfortunate enough to be out at sea in this storm. Night is coming soon and that is when it gets bad, bad for us; deadly for them. They are sinking and we must find them, they are no more than a tiny little blip on the Raytheon Radar screen, in a sea of blips cast across the screen by the cresting of the waves, we must now stare into the frigid winds; and pray!

Pray to God that we have the correct coordinates of their last known position by way of the RDF, Radio Direction Finder. In a storm like this with snow falling visibility can drop to a hundred feet and I can tell you from

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