December 1, 1925
Tale of The Rescued Thrilling in Extreme--
Burned $355 in Bills to Keep from Freezing.
With one of her crew lying delirious on top of
a small iron stove in the cabin, and the other two alternately hoping for delivery from
what was apparently a slow but certain death, the 30 foot open motor boat Mary
Scola, registered under the numbers 662D, was picked up about three and one
half miles form the edge of Georges banks on Sunday, after having been adrift and at the
mercy of a raging, pounding, wind-swept ocean for nearly a week.
That the men,Vito Lochuco, Frank
Ventimiglia and George Martin, are alive today is due to the
fact that they were taking a rum laden schooner 20 miles off shore, the fixings for a
Thanksgiving dinner, and, the ship failing to show up, the food was all that remained
between them and starvation. Although only half cooked, it served to keep life in the
bodies of two of them, while the third, badly frostbitten and nearly given up for dead,
was kept alive by the forcible feeding of boiled salt water by his two fellow members of
the trip.
A week ago yesterday, the Scola
put out of the harbor for a point 40 miles off shore. The men admit they were going for a
load of liquor, and had the vessel been there to deliver the stuff and the little boat
loaded, perhaps this story would never have been written, for the craft would either have
some back safely or sunk off of Eastern Point when she sprang a leak.
With the fixings of a Thanksgiving dinner on
board and an extra piece of fresh beef thrown in the men left here about 9 o'clock and
motored to where the ship was to be met. Failing to find her there they cruised around and
then started for home. For six hours they beat back in a northwesterly direction, and then
their troubles started. Pounding, the boat evidently strained, began to open up and take
in water.
Martin by this time, unused
to rough going, had succumbed to the dread of all travelers --seasickness-- and was stowed
away aft in the space called the cabin, but in reality nothing more than a hole in her
deck, housed over. For an hour, the two members of the crew, one with a five-gallon
alcohol can with the top torn off and the other with a hand pump, tried to stop the water
from filling the craft. In an hour's time the men were exhausted and they were forced to
give up their efforts.
All that afternoon and night and the next
morning, the little craft swept along ahead of a fresh breeze which stiffened as the day
grew, and when daylight came, they were about 20 miles southeast from Highland light......
With the engine crippled by salt water and useless, the men could do nothing but make the
best of it.....They ripped the bunks for fuel and over the open flames singed the turkey.
For three days they subsisted on turkey and a piece of fresh beef. They had no water, yet
by taking sea water and distilling it on the stove, they managed to quench their thirst a
little.
.... Matches gave out, and their paper was
gone, so in order to light what remained of the bunks, Martin took his $3500 in bills,
dipped them one at a time and on different occasions, into gasolene, and with the bills
soaked in this fluid, the men be sparking the battery, lit them and started fire in the
stove. This act was repeated until nearly all of the $3500 was gone and then the men gave
up...
Wednesday morning the men were pretty well
exhausted, and all day they drifted seaward until dusk, when they sighted a three-masted
schooner heading down upon them...Taking off their overcoats, the men saturated them with
gasolene and set them on fire to attract attention....(but the schooner) steered away.
That night it was extremely cold, and with no
overcoat for covering. ...During the night their boat began to creak and groan and started
to split in twain. Seizing a heavy piece of three-inch line, Lochuco and Ventimiglia
managed to sink it over the side and pull one end over the rail, and by putting a heavy
twist to a piece of wood, they tightened the line and kept the boat from breaking apart.
Thursday they sighted a knockabout schooner
bound in to market, and although they shouted and blew their whistle, the craft which was
only a quarter of a mile away did not see the helpless boat, tossing on the bosom of the
raging sea, for she kept on her course.
Saturday, the men sighted a beam trawler about
two miles away, but their drifting boat was like a mere speck on the water and this
steamer, too, passed by without seeing them
Sunday broke fair and calm and the crew of the
beam trawler Ripple were making ready to set for a sweep of the
bottom. The position was 123 miles from Highland light..........The pilot house had
sighted the boat, and rescue, delivery from six days of torture and Hell was at hand.
Ventimiglia and Lochuco
rushed to the cabin and cried to Martin, "We're saved!", but Martin,
eyes open and glassy, lay motionless. His companions thought he was dead, but a heavy kick
form the boot of Ventimiglia soon aroused him enough to get him on his
feet. They had to hoist on board of the Ripple, for he was
unable to climb the ladder lowered over the side.
Once aboard the Ripple
the men were given warm food and put to bed, where they sank into a slumber, sound and
solid, and the first they had had in nearly a week. The boat, its cracked and twisted
bull, lashed together by the heavy rope, was cut loose. By wireless, the seam trawler Spray,
sister ship of the Ripple, was communicated with Monday and the
men transferred to her, on which they were carried to Boston, reaching there early this
morning and coming here in an automobile of friends.
[From other articles about the missing men, I
gather that cousin Frank's nickname at that time was "Twenty Mile Frank", in
reference to his quick trips to "Rum Row".] |
