The Sea's Bitter Harvest, by Douglas A. Campbell. Carroll & Graf. 288 pages. $25.
The recent deluge of weather-related seafaring adventures is proof that facts well told can be more dramatic than fiction, no matter how finely crafted.
Douglas A. Campbell's The Sea's Bitter Harvest is the saga of 13 days on the Atlantic in January, 1999, when four commercial clam boats sank, taking with them 10 men, and making it the deadliest toll in the industry's history.
Campbell, who wrote about the accidents as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, continued to probe the events, interviewing family and colleagues, and educating himself about the peculiar industry that offers the ultimate high stakes "risk-reward relationship." The result is this account of a lifestyle few readers can reconcile.
"The captain of a clam boat has three major enemies at sea," writes Campbell, "storms, mechanical failure, and his own hunger for success." All come into play for the men and boats he profiles. Campbell promises "a tale at times of riveting terror and at others of human strength and frailty," and, on occasion, he delivers with gale force. He describes life aboard "a factory that is wet, open to the elements, and is moving back and forth," carrying loads totaling a quarter-million pounds with an 18-inch freeboard above notoriously unforgiving seas.
He recounts the final moments of Capt. Ed McLaughlin, respected skipper of the Beth Dee Bob, out of Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. McLaughlin, who kept a copy of The Perfect Storm onboard, radios for help as his red and white clammer begins taking on water. As weather conditions deteriorate rapidly and calls to the Beth Dee Bob go unanswered, a full-scale rescue effort is launched. That in turn jeopardizes the lives of fellow commercial fishermen and U.S. Coast Guard crews, including Richard Gladish, who is dropped from a helicopter into surging, dark seas and 40-knot winds, seeking any survivors from the sunken 84-foot clammer.
Three other boats would be lost over the next two weeks, their crews caught up in freak weather, freak circumstances -- and, troublingly, the willingness of all in the industry to cut corners, take chances and try to beat the overwhelming odds.
The question Campbell never answers -- because he can't -- is why these men pursue this line of work. Commercial fishing ranks as the most dangerous occupation in the United States, he tells us. Physical and economic exigencies have driven many from the small industry, but, as Campbell writes, there always seems to be someone at the docks willing to sign on and head to sea. Included among them was Michael Hager, who missed sailing on the Beth Dee Bob, heading out a short time later on the ill-fated Adriatic, hoping to make one last run before settling ashore to raise his son.
At times, the cast of characters aboard these boats becomes confusing, perhaps because many are quite similar: loners with erratic work and family histories, rough-edged misfits seeking adventure. Drug use among crew members in the industry is quite high, notes Campbell, as is a penchant for ignoring minimal regulations that might have cut the loss of life during that fateful January. (Safety drills on the use of survival equipment were not regular events, and boats are often reconfigured to make them less seaworthy, simply to hold larger cargoes.)
The Sea's Bitter Harvest is a tale of men against the sea, a genre that is captivating simply because Nature is the ultimate referee.
Susan Q. Stranahan's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the National Wildlife Federation Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she reported on environmental issues for many years. Her book, Susquehanna: River of Dreams, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1993.