On February 3, 1983, the men aboard Americus and Altair, two state-of-the-art crabbing vessels, docked in their home port of Anacortes, Washington, prepared to begin a grueling three-month season fishing in the notorious Bering Sea. Eleven days later, on Valentine's Day, the overturned hull of the Americus was found drifting in calm seas, with no record of even a single distress call or trace of its seven-man crew. The Altair vanished altogether. Despite the desperate search that followed, no evidence of the vessel or its crew would ever be found. Fourteen men were lost. And the tragedy would mark the worst disaster in the history of U.S. commercial fishing. With painstaking research and spellbinding prose, acclaimed journalist Patrick Dillon brings to life the men who were lost, the dangers that commercial fishermen face, the haunting memories of the families left behind...and reconstructs the intense investigation that ensued, which for the first time exposed the dangers of an industry that would never again be the same. Susan Salter Reynolds Los Angeles Times Book Review A gripping account... Lost At Sea is a better book than Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, even more thrilling, more mysterious. Rinker Buck USA Today Dillon meticulously recreates the events leading up to the 1983 capsizing of the Americus and Altair ...[and] artfully chronicles the lives of the lost fishermen and their families. Sudip Bose The Washington Post Book World A meticulously detailed narrative, pieced together with the deft touch of a suspense writer -- a fine accomplishment. Tom Walker The Denver Post Patrick Dillon's deftly written Lost at Sea is more than just another man-vs.-the-sea story. It's an engrossing, evenhanded look at how greed, negligence, naivete and downright stupidity can lead to tragedy when man and nature collide. Patrick Dillon is the Adventure and Sailing Events Programming Director at QuokkaSports, Digital Sports Entertainment. He has won numerous awards, including a share of the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. His columns and essays have appeared in many publications throughout the nation, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Fast Company. Lost at Sea By Patrick Dillon Touchstone Books Copyright © 2000 Patrick Dillon All right reserved. ISBN: 9780684869094 Chapter One On a clear March day in 1982, just off False Pass threehundred miles west of the Alaskan Peninsula, an alarm sounded inthe engine room of the fishing vessel Antares . She was out ofAnacortes, Washington, two thousand miles to the south. Steve Carr,the twenty-five-year-old engineer, climbed down the stairs to investigate.When he reached the engine room it was filled with smoke.He could tell by the thick, oily smell that the fire was coming fromthe hydraulic system that supplied power to run the winches ondeck. He called the wheelhouse on the vessel's intercom and reportedthis to Kevin Kirkpatrick, also twenty-five, the captain and alifelong friend. Kirkpatrick immediately throttled back and thenshut down the work on deck, directing the crew of five to go to theirfire-fighting stations. Carr donned a mask and an oxygen tank,armed himself with a carbon dioxide extinguisher, and plunged backinto the engine room. Gradually, on the wheelhouse monitor of theengine room, Kirkpatrick could see the smoke clearing. Withinminutes Carr called again over the intercom and said it appeared thefire was out. Kirkpatrick gave the crew a break. They gathered around thegalley table and ate a meal, each of them worn out by the rush ofadrenaline but still tensed for the sound of another fire alarm. Nonecame. Before getting under way, though, Kirkpatrick and Carr headedback down to the engine room to assess the damage the fire hadcaused. When they opened the hatch, the innards of the Antares erupted. The rush of fresh oxygen had acted as a bomb for thestill-smoldering fire. Kirkpatrick scrambled up the stairs to the wheelhouse and sentout a distress call on his VHF radio. He stayed calm and went bythe book: "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY," he repeated, beforegiving the vessel's name and call sign three times. He reportedhis latitude and longitude and that there was a fire on board. Hereported the number of crew and gave a description of the 123-foot Antares . He waited for a response. In the meantime, several crewmembers climbed up the stairs into the wheelhouse. The fire wascompletely out of control, they told him. He repeated the distresscall, and when a German fish-processing vessel just ten miles awaypicked it up and said it was heading in his direction, Kirkpatrickradioed back that he and his crew were abandoning ship. As they had been trained, the six-member crew lay on the floorof the ten-foot-wide wheelhouse and wriggled into their thick neoprenesurvival suits. None took more than two minutes. They loweredthe two life rafts into the water, making certain the rafts werestill tethered