General:
Name: East Coast Living – Winter 2021
Format: pdf
Size: 20.87 MB
Book:
Title: Neptune’s Nor’easter: The True Story of a Storm at Sea
Author: Paul J. Doucette
Language: English
Year: 2018
ISBN: B07K5ZN3LW
Total pages: 48
Description:
Neptune’s Nor’easter, is the story of a severe storm which struck the Western North Atlantic, on November 14th and 15th, in 1962. The storm was unexpected, and the U.S. Weather Bureau did not forecast that it was coming. This unknown nor’easter generated 105-mph winds from a low pressure of 968-millibars, with seas reaching 60-feet in height. It reached out 1,000-miles from its center, and in 48-hours it caused the sinking of six ships and resulted in the death of thirty-six seamen. These losses include the F/V Midnight Sun, a New Bedford scalloper, and her eleven man crew.
Captain Louis Doucette, Jr., was aboard the F/V Venus in this storm and was fishing on the Northern Edge of Georges Bank. Although he had weathered three named hurricanes at sea, including the famous 1938 New England Hurricane, he always maintained that this storm was the worst heavy weather event he ever experienced, and it was the only time in his 50-year career that he thought he would be lost at sea. During this storm, the F/V Venus, a 74-foot dragger, was "Hove Down" (capsized) at the most dangerous part of Georges Bank, the area between the Cultivator Shoals and Georges Shoal. This part of the fishing bank, 120-miles east of Cape Cod, has charted points that are 9-feet deep under normal conditions, and 3-feet deep in storm conditions. The F/V Venus required 10-feet to float. The book begins and pivots around the recollections of Captain Doucette, but it also encompasses the stories of the other boats and ships that were caught unaware by this monster storm. The death toll could have easily exceeded 200-men, but for the skill and experience of the mariners involved, and the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy.
Today, this storm would be defined by meteorologists as an Extratropical Cyclone with Explosive Cyclogenesis, or in the newly popular definition, as a "Bombogenesis Storm."
This book highlights the skill, courage, and tenacity of the men who are called, New Bedford Fishermen.
