NCL Majesty - rescue of crew of small boat in bad weather

**Ally** · 05-26-2008, 03:31 AM

Quote:

Mark Harold's calls for help kept going unanswered.

A fierce thunderstorm had swallowed the Mount Pleasant man's boat, Not On Call, and the four-man crew was running out of options.

Lighting crackled all around the 24-foot vessel as huge waves crashed against its bow, dumping vast amounts of sea water onto its deck. The water was pooling so quickly that they didn't know how much longer they could keep afloat.

Their only choice was to keep riding into the storm as it came in from the northeast, slowly pushing the boat farther from the setting sun, some 30 miles from shore. The battle went on for hours, nearly draining its 170-gallon fuel tank and all of its two-start motor oil.

'Mayday,' Harold called.

What happened next was nearly as surprising as the storm itself. Little did any of the crew know that within 24 hours they would spend Memorial Day weekend sipping beer and eating lobster tails beneath the Bermuda sun.

That might have been the least likely scenario for Harold, whose repeated distress calls were overshadowed by other troubled boats closer to home.

For nearly two hours, Harold listened as aid came to other boats. One local boat started taking on water and was rescued by a cargo vessel.

Harold's only hope came from a strong signal from the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Majesty, which left Charleston around 4 p.m. and was on its way to Bermuda.

Harold started calling specifically for the Majesty. Two hours later the cruise ship answered the distress call and turned around.

But Not On Call was not out of trouble. Harold said the boat had only about 20 to 30 gallons of fuel left and almost no oil. The boat would shut down any minute, and even if it didn't, he would no longer be able to see the seas once the sun set.

'It would have capsized us,' he said.

Within an hour, the huge cruise liner pulled up beside the boat and blocked the strong winds as it took in Harold's three crew members, Michael Cease, Greg Stevenson and Allan Narowski.

Harold was the last to leave his cherished boat. The network engineer with Nucor Steel dropped the anchor to keep it from going adrift. As he did, the boat finally shut off and lurched away from the liner. He clutched a rope held by the liner's crew members, and he blistered his hands pulling himself to safety aboard the immense ship.

It was about 8:30 p.m., 15 hours after the four men first left the Wappoo Cut that morning to troll for mahi. Several of the large fish still were aboard the ship, which Harold watched disappear after boarding the liner.

'The thought of losing my boat was just about more than I could stand,' he said.

The staff gave the freezing crew members hot coffee and towels and set course for Bermuda.

Twenty-four hours later, Harold was in an office aboard the cruise ship, retelling the story over the phone while sipping a beer and wearing freshly pressed clothes.

'I'm about to eat lobster tail and beef Wellington for dinner,' he said.

The cruise is nice, he said, but he plans to come back as soon as possible so he can hopefully be out again this week, fishing. He won't know his boat's fate for a couple of days, after a friend checks on it.

Things could be worse, he said. He could be aboard a freight liner like that other boat's crew.

'They're probably in the bottom of the boat smoking a cigarette with some Russian guy, drinking vodka.'

Boat rescued by Bermuda-bound cruise ship