Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #511915 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
In February 1983, two crabbing vessels set out from port in Alaskan waters at the peak of crabbing season. Filled to the brim with crab pots, both ships, the Americus and the Altair, were considered state-of-the-art for the industry: each only a few years old, equipped with thousands of dollars' worth of lifesaving equipment. Neither ship returned to port, and none of their 14 crew members was ever seen again. It was the worst commercial fishing accident in America's history.

In Lost at Sea, Patrick Dillon examines how the Americus/Altair disaster is indicative of the problems with American fishing, an industry that annually tops the list of "Most Dangerous Occupations," and what has been done in the tragedy's aftermath. During his research, including a season as a crew member aboard a fishing boat, Dillon encountered a murky sea full of men fiercely opposed to government regulations, an industry that always expects to do business the same way--its own way--and, conversely, an American government that prodded its fishing industry into possibly unsafe practices in order to compete with foreign fishing powers. Dillon interviews dozens of friends, coworkers, and family members of the lost fishermen, and the scenes that describe the small Washington town of Anacortes, which hosted the lost fleet and is almost completely reliant on fishing for livelihood, are touching. In the end, despite years of hearings and probes into the fishing industry, not much has changed, Dillon reports. Every year a certain number of men go out into rough seas, and every year a smaller number of them return home, as the industry remains largely free of regulation. --Tjames Madison

From Publishers Weekly
The Wall Street Journal recently noted that last year "commercial fishing lost its place as the most dangerous occupation." If so, part of the reason must be traced back 15 years to February 14, 1983, when 14 men from the town of Anacortes, Wash., were lost in the Bering Sea. Sailing on the Americus and Altair, two of the most high-tech crabbing vessels of the time, and confident of fairly calm waters, they disappeared without even an SOS. Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and columnist Dillon brings his perceptive journalism skills to reconstructing the lives of the fishermen and their families and motivations?from the need to strike out for more dangerous fishing grounds, because those closer to home were depleted, to simple greed. The residents of Anacortes clearly knew the dangers?an obelisk in the harbor is inscribed with 96 names of fishermen lost over the last 50 years, more than three times the number listed on the memorial to casualties of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Dillon spent time with the families and followed both the subsequent investigation and the efforts to enact and enforce regulations. His prose is more poetic than incisive: At a basketball game at the high school, "the news came in like a draft under the door. When it reached the bleachers, each row stirred in succession, people bent like grass.... They stood, stunned, their faces frozen...trying to conceal their terror." This is a story of individuals, but it is also the story of an old, traditional industry pushed farther and farther offshore by heavy demand from top restaurants paying high prices. Author tour to the Northwest and Alaska.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In this chronicle of the worst commercial fishing disaster in American history, Dillon (former San Jose Mercury News editor and columnist) takes the reader to the Bering Sea and the hazardous waters off Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where men dare the elements in the yearly three-month harvest of Alaskan king crab. On February 14, 1983, the Americus and the Altair, two modern, well-equipped boats led by expert captains, disappeared without a radio call for help. How this tragedy happened and the subsequent two-year investigation form the core of the book. Dillon describes the rise of the rich and dangerous king crab industry in the 1960s, the unregulated working conditions, and the dangers of the Bering Sea that combined to maim and kill crew members every year. He carefully fills in the backgrounds of the two captains and the construction of their vessels; the investigation of the disaster forms the book's last third. Comparable to William W. Warner's Distant Water: The Fate of the North Atlantic Fisherman (1984, o.p.), this is recommended for public libraries.
-?Harold N. Boyer, Florence Cty. Lib., SC
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

How tragedy shapes public policy
This book is inevitably bound to be missed in all the hoopla attending the release of the film version of Sebastian Junger's "The Perfect Storm." That's a true shame, because Dillon's account of the dangers of commercial fishing in the Bering Sea is not only poignant, but an incisive look into how the loss of human life can bring about public policy changes that will save other lives in the future.

If you read the Junger book, you'll like this one, too. Dillon doesn't quite have the flair for characterization or drama that Junger wields, but he does manager to convey the horrors of a sudden capsizing in the frigid sea, a common event which few fishermen survive. The story focuses on the trawlers Americus and Altair, which disappeared in February, 1983, less than 25 miles off the coast of Unalaska Island in a heavily-traveled sea lane. The ships disappeared in relatively calm water. The capsized hull of Americus was spotted a few days later, but sank in 4,200 feet of water before divers could enter the hull and search for survivors or bodies. Altair was never found, save for some small bits of debris. Fourteen men, most of them under the age of 25, died in the sinkings.

Dillon covers the disaster's awful impact on the dead men's survivors, then moves on to a careful account of the Coast Guard investigation into the disaster. He fairly gives us hints in the narrative leading up to the sinkings that should tip even the most non-mechanically inclined reader to what probably caused the ships' losses. When it becomes clear later on what that cause was, Dillon's little trick allows us to feel the same sense of dawning horror that the ships' owner, a conscientious and decent man, and architect must have felt when they realized what had happened and that it had been preventable.

Finally, Dillon covers the political fall-out of the sinkings, which helped spur Congress to pass the first federal legislation mandating safety precautions on commercial fishing vessels. He tells it straight up -- how the victims' families and the families of other lost fishermen organized to get the law passed, how special interest politics slowed -- and nearly stopped -- its passage and how the persistence of these ordinary citizens and a few legislators finally carried the day.

This is a great book for those who love sea disaster stories. Dillon obviously has a great sympathy for the men who fish the Bering Sea and a keen perception of the brutal environment in which they must work and how dangerous their jobs are. He also does a fine job of documenting how the families left behind in Anacortes, Washington, (the home port of the two lost trawlers) lived with the inevitability that tragedy would find its way to their own doorsteps and dealt with the overwhelming sorrow and loss once it did.

But this book's real value lies in the account it gives of the political machinations required to pass even the simplest safety legislation. Public policy instructors would be well-advised to read this book and consider it for use in their own courses. It's "sausage making" at its most gut-wrenching worst.

Fishing the last frontier job.
After reading the Perfect Storm by S. Junger, I was casting about in the sailing/adventure section and found this gem. I remembered vague readings from the newspapers about the sinking of these ships and that it seemed a really dangerous business, crabbing in the North Bering Sea. Mr. Dillion explains it better than any other article I've read. He puts a human face on those missing fisherman. The book isn't quite as much as a thriller as "Perfect Storm" is but I was hooked and stayed up most of the night to read the first half.

The second half of the book is the formation of public policy and the making of the laws regarding safety at sea. Its a bit dryer but since I voted for some of these politicans I'm glad that they did their job. That aspect of the story wasn't reported very well in the local news. It is interesting but not the page turner that the first half of the book is.

Still whenever I buy King Crab legs in the grocery store I say a prayer for the saftey of the fisherman.

Anyway if you liked the "Perfect Storm", or any of the other disaster at sea books, "Fastnet Force 10" etc., you'll like this one.

Glad We Didn't Read This Before....
Both my sister and I read this book. We're glad we didn't have it to read years ago, since we would have been even more apprehensive of our brother's safety these last sixteen years (his first year fishing north was the year the Americus and Altair capsized). Gratefully, he is alive with all his parts intact, is still is in the comm. fishing business and still goes up to Dutch Harbor each year, but at least safety standards are better now, thanks to the work of the persons Mr. Dillon writes about. While the book may not be technically perfect, it is clearly a window on an industry too many are almost unaware of. I would definitely encourage persons to read the book; it's gripping, combining "true-life" adventure, great human loss, detective work and frustrating politics.