pots back at the dock. The Big Valley ’s stability booklet approved the ninety-two-foot ship to carry thirty-one 600-pound crab pots on deck, and 5,000 pounds of bait below. The crabber left Dutch with fifty-five pots, each of them closer to 700 pounds. It was carrying almost11,000 pounds of bait. What an asshole, Charlie thought. What an idiot. Gary sure was a character, though. People would miss him. They’d say he ran into shit luck, and probably that God took him before his time.
T HE MOON WAS ALMOST FULL over the cutter Munro . On the lookout deck, two crewmen scanned the modest waves. They’d grown bigger in recent hours, but it was still relatively calm near the ice edge. It was 2:52 A.M . when a petty officer standing night duty answered the phone in Combat, a cramped compartment in the belly of the ship lit mostly by the green glow of computer screens. It was District Command in Juneau: A large trawler with forty-seven people on board was taking on water approximately 150 miles south of the Munro ’s position.
Less than a minute later, Operations Specialist Erin Lopez was shaken awake in her rack.
“OS1, we have a Mayday case!” the young seaman told her. “You need to come down.” Like Ops Boss Jimmy Terrell, Lopez was from Texas. The twenty-six-year-old was the only person on the Munro who had graduated from the Coast Guard’s Maritime Search and Rescue Planning School. Tonight she’d be the ship’s Air Direction Controller (ADC)—in charge of the radios and communications with the Coast Guard aircraft. In seconds, Lopez was out of her bunk. Without changing out of her pajamas, she slipped into her boat shoes and ran the one level down to Combat.
Lopez’s boss, Chief Luke Cutburth, called her a “SAR dog,” a moniker she accepted as a badge of honor. It was obvious to Cutburth that the younger OS ate, slept, and breathed search and rescue. Lopez loved the strategy of juggling data to form a rescue plan. She thrived under pressure. Cutburth could relate.
In his off time, he competed in pro mountain-bike competitions. Meanwhile, Lopez was training for a half-Ironman. She is tiny, a self-described “five foot nothin’,” with long brown hair that she pulled back in a firm ponytail. She’d secured Coast Guard sponsorship for her upcoming race and impressed some of the less coordinated crew members with her endurance on the Munro ’s single treadmill. The gym was in the very bottom of the ship’s bow. It was easy enough to get vertigo just standing down there, but Lopez managed to balance on the jolting exercise machine for hours at a time. Back in Kodiak, she taught a weekly spinning class at the air station’s gym. She’d spent the previous evening helping to make Easter goody bags for the crew. The effort had been planned far in advance, with a shopping trip to Kodiak’s Wal-Mart before the Munro left port. She’d done it the year before, too, pacing every level of the ship early on that Sunday morning to leave the homemade candy packets next to each pillow. It was a small thing, but she knew it’d make people happy to wake up on Easter morning to that little surprise.
Lopez opened the door to the dark control room. Formally, the space was known as the Combat Information Center (CIC) but most of the crew preferred just “Combat.” The dark, cool cabin is the Munro ’s war room, the brain of the ship. It is where they collect intel on nearby vessels to prepare for boardings, control the helicopter operations, and make decisions on any law enforcement or search and rescue mission. It was Operations Boss Jimmy Terrell’s home—and Erin Lopez’s.
The watchstander was on the radio with an officer from the sinking ship, the Alaska Ranger . Lopez took over. Could he tell anything about the rate of flooding? she asked.
It was in the rudder room. They couldn’t keep up with it—the water was rising too fast. They’d already given up on the pumps and the fishing vessel’s crew
T HE MOON WAS ALMOST FULL over the cutter Munro . On the lookout deck, two crewmen scanned the modest waves. They’d grown bigger in recent hours, but it was still relatively calm near the ice edge. It was 2:52 A.M . when a petty officer standing night duty answered the phone in Combat, a cramped compartment in the belly of the ship lit mostly by the green glow of computer screens. It was District Command in Juneau: A large trawler with forty-seven people on board was taking on water approximately 150 miles south of the Munro ’s position.
Less than a minute later, Operations Specialist Erin Lopez was shaken awake in her rack.
“OS1, we have a Mayday case!” the young seaman told her. “You need to come down.” Like Ops Boss Jimmy Terrell, Lopez was from Texas. The twenty-six-year-old was the only person on the Munro who had graduated from the Coast Guard’s Maritime Search and Rescue Planning School. Tonight she’d be the ship’s Air Direction Controller (ADC)—in charge of the radios and communications with the Coast Guard aircraft. In seconds, Lopez was out of her bunk. Without changing out of her pajamas, she slipped into her boat shoes and ran the one level down to Combat.
Lopez’s boss, Chief Luke Cutburth, called her a “SAR dog,” a moniker she accepted as a badge of honor. It was obvious to Cutburth that the younger OS ate, slept, and breathed search and rescue. Lopez loved the strategy of juggling data to form a rescue plan. She thrived under pressure. Cutburth could relate.
In his off time, he competed in pro mountain-bike competitions. Meanwhile, Lopez was training for a half-Ironman. She is tiny, a self-described “five foot nothin’,” with long brown hair that she pulled back in a firm ponytail. She’d secured Coast Guard sponsorship for her upcoming race and impressed some of the less coordinated crew members with her endurance on the Munro ’s single treadmill. The gym was in the very bottom of the ship’s bow. It was easy enough to get vertigo just standing down there, but Lopez managed to balance on the jolting exercise machine for hours at a time. Back in Kodiak, she taught a weekly spinning class at the air station’s gym. She’d spent the previous evening helping to make Easter goody bags for the crew. The effort had been planned far in advance, with a shopping trip to Kodiak’s Wal-Mart before the Munro left port. She’d done it the year before, too, pacing every level of the ship early on that Sunday morning to leave the homemade candy packets next to each pillow. It was a small thing, but she knew it’d make people happy to wake up on Easter morning to that little surprise.
Lopez opened the door to the dark control room. Formally, the space was known as the Combat Information Center (CIC) but most of the crew preferred just “Combat.” The dark, cool cabin is the Munro ’s war room, the brain of the ship. It is where they collect intel on nearby vessels to prepare for boardings, control the helicopter operations, and make decisions on any law enforcement or search and rescue mission. It was Operations Boss Jimmy Terrell’s home—and Erin Lopez’s.
The watchstander was on the radio with an officer from the sinking ship, the Alaska Ranger . Lopez took over. Could he tell anything about the rate of flooding? she asked.
It was in the rudder room. They couldn’t keep up with it—the water was rising too fast. They’d already given up on the pumps and the fishing vessel’s crew
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