The Story of the Andrea Gail

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If you haven’t seen ‘The Perfect Storm’ we highly suggest you watch it before reading this (spoiler alert). The movie is based off of a true story about a ship that was part of a fleet of sword fishing ships. After a long and brutal several week’s deep sea fishing in the Grand Bank, the fleet was unlikely to have much profit. One ship, ‘The Andrea Gail’, decided they would venture out to the Flemish Cap to continue fishing in hopes of making much more money. They did this despite many warnings of dangerous weather conditions.

The Flemish Cap lies about 350 miles from any land formation and it is a mainly shallow area of water that divides the warm gulf-stream waters from the cold waters of the Labrador Current (current from the arctic ocean). When the crew went out this far, they didn’t realize that they would have to travel back through the warm gulf-stream waters to get back to land. Ships usually prefer to sail in to cold water when there is a storm because the cold water weakens the storm. What happened with the Andrea Gail is they were sailing back from the Flemish Cap and unfortunately got hit directly by the storm.

Considering the ships location and reports from buoys nearby, the Andrea Gail experienced waves of up to 100.7 feet high. The ship itself was only 73 feet long, so the waves were devastating to say the least. The last report to come in from the Andrea Gail was on October 28th, and the captain gave his coordinates (about 160 miles from land) and a description of the weather conditions. The captain’s final recorded words were “She’s comin’ on boys, and she’s comin’ on strong”.

Coast guard and other services conducted a search of over 186,000 square miles starting October 30th, but had no luck. On November 6th the ships emergency position-indicating system washed ashore and on November 9th, the search was called off. It is likely that the emergency position-indicating system was turned off or malfunctioning when the ship went down. Aside from the positioning system, several other pieces of debris washed ashore that belonged to the Andrea Gail. The crew was presumed dead and the ship most likely at the bottom of the sea near the continental shelf.
tampa fl private fishing charters 

Strangely enough, this story has many ties to Florida. The Andrea Gail was built in Panama City, Florida. Two of the six crew members were originally from Bradenton Beach, Florida as well. This story is proof of why you should never get aboard a ship that isn’t Coast Guard inspected. When you are planning a deep sea fishing trip you should only go with a Tampa FL private fishing charter that has a certified captain, USCG inspected ships, and extensive knowledge of the waters. At Hubbard’s Marina, this is exactly what we offer. Learn more by visiting us at hubbardsmarina.com
Location: 170 Boardwalk Pl E, Madeira Beach, FL 33708, USA

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