May 12, 1935
Stray Fishermen Return Home
Lendley McComiskey and Joseph Rose
Adrift Three Days and Nights Without Food or Water
Lendley McComiskey and Joseph
Rose, tow members of sch. Grand Marshal, who strayed
from their vessel and rowed into Clark's Harbor, N. S., last Sunday have arrived
home. The men were lost at sea for 72 hours and had a long, hard struggle for
existence in a battle against mountainous seas in their dory.
The men arrived Monday evening from Clark's
Harbor, where they landed on Sunday morning after a most harrowing experience of three
days and nights in an open boat. The men were brought to Yarmouth by M. A.
Nickerson, Esq., who with Mrs. Nickerson took them into their home on Sunday,
provided dry, warm clothing, carefully attending to their wants. Mr. Nickerson, on
arrival at once took them before United States Consul, McCunn, who for
the night and next day put them up at the Commercial Hotel.
Met at the Commercial Hotel, the men gave a
reporter the first real story of their experiences. They said the Grand
Marshal, skippered by Capt. Simon Theriault, formerly of
the Yarmouth sch. W. G. Robertson, left Provincetown, Mass., the
week before on Tuesday morning on the southwest edge of Brown's Bank, the weather was a
little hazy, but the dories were put over and McComiskey and Rose
went far to the windward.
About 10 o'clock they started to haul their
traps and return to their vessel, but the haze had turned to thick vapor and the men were
unable to locate the schooner. For an hour they sailed or rowed with the hope of
locating the Grand Marshal, but were unable to do so, although
on one occasion they are now positive of hearing the vessel's horn. At the time,
however, they took it for the horn of the Flora L. Oliver, Capt.
Ansel Snow. After cruising for an hour, the men let go their
anchor and laid for another hour with the hope that their vessel would find them. On
Thursday afternoon, they again put up their sail and stood off in an easterly
direction. About 4 o'clock they made a vessel's sail far to the eastward and the
craft appeared to be jogging. They watched it sharply and in a few minutes saw the
schooner was sailing away from them and it soon disappeared.
Toward night the wind increased to a fresh
gale and they were obliged to take in their sail. The men decided for the night to
lay to on their oars and just at dark a big sea broke over their frail craft, almost
swamping it. The dory filled to gunwales, but by desperate bailing the two men
succeeded in freeing the craft and saving it from sinking under them. The sea washed
away one pair of oars, the compass, and Rose narrowly escaped going
overboard. McComiskey, when the sea struck the dory, was standing
up in the bow, and he was hurled over his mate, into the stern. Following that, the
sea, for a hew minutes, flattened some and the men succeeded in getting the lost oars and
compass. After they had bailed the water from the dory and it was practically free, McComiskey
and Rose took their two trawl buoys and solidly lashed them to the
"risings" of their craft. By that means, although the dory on Thursday
night was filled on two other occasions and on Friday night three times, the little craft
remained very buoyant and well above the water.
Later on Thursday night they anchored in order
to get a little rest. At an early hour on Friday morning, another big comber broke
over them, parting the line and they lost an anchor. All of Friday the weather was
most severe. In the morning a cold northerly gale prevailed, which during the
afternoon somewhat subsided, only to freshen again at dark. The sea, Rose
said, was the worst he had ever encountered in his 21 years of experience as a
fisherman. The gale was accompanied by a cold, driving rain. The position of
the men was made even more appalling from the fact that neither of them could locate just
where they might be, whether they were in track of vessels or making on to some
land. Rose stated that all through the time they were out they
managed to keep their dory on soundings and consequently could at any time come to anchor.
On Friday night the sea was even worse than on
Thursday night and the men say that it was only a miracle or the guidance of a kind
Providence that they are here to tell their story. All of Friday night the men
worked strenuously with bucket and bailer to keep the water out of the craft. Before
daylight on Saturday morning, while they were lying to, a sea boarded them, parted their
anchor line and their second anchor was gone.
At daylight the weather broke fine and the men
removed their oil skins for the purpose of drying out their underclothes which had been
continuously soaked with salt water from the time the big sea of Thursday evening broke
over the dory and almost swamped them. All this while they had had nothing to eat or
drink since about six o'clock on Thursday morning. Their mouths became sorely
parched and their tongues so swollen that McComiskey was unable to talk,
while Rose's speech was very thick. On Saturday their thirst was so
intense that the men lapped with their tongues the dew and moisture from the topsides and
the thwarts of the dory. With that they apparently swallowed some paint, for
shortly after they became deathly sick. All the time the wind was northerly and
ahead consequently they were unable to use their sail. With what strength they had,
however, the men used their oars and kept their little craft headed north with the hope of
making some land.
At sundown on Saturday evening they made Seal
Island light, which they judged was about twelve miles distant. The weather
continued fine and that night a strong flood tide carried the dory into Lobster Bay where
fog again shut down. McComiskey being now somewhat familiar with
his surroundings worked the dory in near John's Island, where they anchored by making
their "girdy" fast to a trawl line. After that the two men laid down in
the bottom of the dory, covered their faces with pieces of board to protect them from t he
cold wet fog, and for the first time they slept.
On awakening it was daylight Sunday
morning. There was a light air moving and McComiskey and Rose,
in their terribly weakened condition, managed to get their sail up and the latter steered
the craft into Clark's Harbor, reaching M. A. Nickerson's wharf about 8
o'clock. They were completely exhausted by their harrowing experience and so
weakened for the want of food and water that both were powerless to help themselves and
practically had to be lifted from the dory and carried to Mr. Nickerson's
home.
Both McComiskey and Rose
said they had about concluded that the fates so far as being picked up by a vessel was
concerned, were against them, for on Friday they sighted two schooners and on Saturday two
more. On the former day they rowed to one of the schooners and were within a quarter
of a mile of where the craft laid when the fog shut down and the vessel was lost to them.
On Saturday they attempted to row to one which
was lying at anchor. They got so close the the craft that they could plainly see
the man at the wheel and McComiskey with an oil jacket lashed to an oar,
stood on a thwart and waved it as high as his strength would permit, but just at that time
they heard the throb of the vessel's motors starting and it steamed away and again their
hopes were gone. To add to McComiskey's discomfort, he lost his
cap during the first night they were adrift and for a head covering Rose
cut the front out of his sweater. That McComiskey put on his head,
then tore the lining from his oil jacket with which he covered the piece of sweater and
then tied it securely with a piece of trawl line.
McComiskey is marred and has
a wife and four children living here. He has been over 30 years fishing, 13 of them
out of Gloucester and Boston. This was, in all those years his first experience in
going astray, but during the war he was in a vessel which fell a victim of a German
submarine operating off this coast. That experience, he said, positively had nothing
on the one through which he had just passed.
Rose is unmarried and resides
with his mother. He has been fishing out of this port and Boston for 21 years and
has had three previous experiences in going adrift, but the longest of those was only for
a day and a night. Several years ago, Rose states, he was for a
few years dory mate with Capt. Theriault.
After arriving at Clark's Harbor it was
learned that Capt. Theriault put into Pubnico on Friday to report the
loss of his men. By telephone he made enquiries all along the coast, but was unable
to get any tidings. Early on Sunday morning the Grand Marshal
left Pubnico and must have passed out of Lobster Bay about the time that McComiskey
and Rose made into Clark's Harbor. The men are loud in their
praises of the people of Clark's Harbor and the hospitality which was given them. On
their arrival doctors were summoned and as McComiskey showed symptoms of
a fever, every care was given him. To Mr. and Mrs. Nickerson, who
so generously took the men into their home, providing clothing and beds, they are deeply
grateful. |
