Craziest night ever in the canyons

[clt_capt]

That is PRETTY WORK Captain - Damn fine Job.

You earned yourself some Karma right there.

[Ravens16]

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."


Tip my hat to you Captain, one fine job!!!!!

[Animal 1]

Great job,FatCat.Anyone know what sank her?

[dunn6253]

All the respect in my book captain, you will never be forgotten by that crew.

[gradyfish265]

I praise you guys for what you did, it takes a lot to pick up your gear and go search for a crew not knowing what you may find. I had a similar instance 2 weekends ago in OCMD when we saw flares shot just before sun up and we ran to the location but found nothing and radioed it into the coast guard, after 45 min of searching the area the CG told us to continue with our trip and they would search the area since they were on scene. We heard a few others also call in the sighting, we heard later that day a crew never made it home the night before. Leaving the scene not finding anything killed us. I applaud you and your crew for your actions!!

[Talbot29]

So, do they know why the vessel sank?

[fat2na.com]

Being a former rescue swimmer in the CG I can tell you that those 15+ minutes seemed like 15 hrs to those guys, it really puts things into perspective. Whether you were in the middle of a red hot bite or not I'm sure you would have still done it. Good job, you most likely saved a few lives, maybe not, but that fact that you were selfless and made the effort not knowing what you'd find should be commended and commended until this thread can't support any more posts. Congrats, you are a perfect example of our industry and should be commended on every level.
GREAT JOB GUYS!

[Nauti Natured]

Thank you .... not only to those of you that acted and saved the lives of those men ... but to all of us who have read this thread and have gone through the same response in our heads. Hopefully, we will all have the courage when the day comes to deliver. Lord knows we would hope for the same upon us.

[bc reef]

My first post here on Sportfisherman.com

Shipmate Bill,

Great job to you guys!!! We were on the Contender that arrived on the site as the 5 guys were climbing onto your boat. We thought your Captain handled the situation very calmly and professionally...

To all here reading and supporting these guys, they definitely deserve your recognition...

At 12:30 am we were just arriving into the West Wall area of the Hudson just about to put lines in. We got a late start leaving Bay Shore, plan was to chunk for few hours and be ready for the early am troll...

At around 01:00 we saw 2 red flares deployed followed by a May Day Call on vhf 16, "Our boat sunk we are in a liferaft". Position ...n .... w (West Wall).

We were a few miles away, punched in the coords and headed over to the site. On the trip over we monitored the vhf, the Phat Cat was on their game and immediately in contact with the 5 on the liferaft via their handheld vhf. The guys on the raft could see the Phat Cat but they could not see the liferaft. The guys on the liferaft were obviously experienced offshore (they also sounded calm and focused), they directed the Phat Cat right over to them within minutes. During this entire time the CG was intermittently communicating, however the comms were a bit spotty at first and Phat Cat did a superb job handling the vhf traffic and focusing on the rescue. We stayed off the air since is was apparent they had a handle on the situation.

One the spookiest things pulling up and seeing the debris floating in dark waters. As we arrived we watched the 5 guys safely climb aboard the Phat Cat. Thank god all were ok and their handheld worked. The CG finally had a handle on the situation, although it sounded like the woman used the wrong checklist (inshore maybe)? Some of the questions on their checklist were pathetic, "Capt. what is your cell phone number??". Uh, hello they are offshore and for the huggers, "How much fuel was onboard". All respect to the CG, but when they heard 5 guys in a liferaft, the matter should have worked its way up the chain of command quicker.

Anyway we received a thumbs up and wave from someone on the Phat Cat and stood by while the CG was going through their checklist. Then we saw the mast light on the top of the sunk boat and drifted away from the floating debris, didn't want to run the motors and get hung up...

Wx was picking up, we rechecked our ditch bag attached to our liferaft, all in order. It contains a waterproof handheld VHF & GPS charged with extra batteries and we moved our EPIRB into the bag. The tools that made this rescue for these guys as smooth as it can be...

As we drifted off, we started to fish. At 03:00 we had a sword on and landed it, nice fish around 125lb's. Wind against tide and our chunking was not going very well. Had a few small runoffs and the sun came up quickly...

On the troll at 6am, we had few skippies and continued SW past the SW corner, zig-zagging the deep into the flats. 8am port rigger goes off, nice 80lb yft hits the Trophy Tackle rainbow bar and we land the fish few mins later...

All in all an adventurous trip, lots of meat to go around and 5 gentlemen safely with their families thanks to Captain of the Phat Cat and crew...

We will be out soon. "Cudda Bin".

[tunafisher]

Here is a pic of the partly sunken boat taken yesterday in the canyon...