This story is all centered around the DLB-269, an oil pipe laying barge, that was caught up in Hurricane Roxanne in 1995. It's a harrowing story of survival among one of the fiercest storms Mother Nature can create.
It all begins when DLB-269 is about 60 miles off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The barge is a mini-community with 245 workers on board. Everything from welders, to seamen, carpenters, to cooks are employed to make the vessel as independent as possible. As the officers and executives in charge learn a new storm is headed their way, they make the choice to ride it out at sea.
The underwater divers (who do the pipe laying on the surface floor) were put under accelerated decompression so they could escape before the storm hit. These early sections are intense, but the 269 and her two tug boats make it through Roxanne with minor trouble and a decent scare.
But get this...just two days after passing them up initially, Roxanne turned a loop and headed back toward the barge. As the Category 1 system pounded down on them, the men soon found themselves facing 90-mile-an-hour winds and seas between thirty and forty feet high. The tugboats tried to save the barge, but the barge soon listed and all the crew ended up in the water.
Pieces of the boat explode, men go overboard, electricity shorts out, oil leaks, and massive waves break the barge to pieces. The descriptions are riveting. As the crew take its chance in the sea, the two tugboats and another ship responding to their May Day, heroically pulled more than 200 to their safety. These captains and their crew did this remarkable task over a series of more than 12 hours, almost ending up in the Gulf themselves.
(sources: Michael Krieger's All the Men in the Sea, Courtland Jindra, and The New York Times)
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