CTFishTalk.com: Man Overboard: A Speck In The Sea - Connecticut General Topics ( CT General Topics ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

Soundbounder · Joined: 13 Nov 2011 Posts: 66

Pray this never happens to you.

A good read for a snowy day:

The sun rose on John Aldridge at about 5:30 on the morning of July 24. He was cold, thirsty and tired — he’d been awake for 24 hours — but he was still alive and afloat. Now that it was light, he gave himself a new assignment: find a buoy. To most people, the Atlantic Ocean 40 miles south of Montauk is just a big, undifferentiated expanse of waves, but Aldridge knew roughly where he fell overboard — a few miles south of the 40-fathom curve. And he knew that several lobster fishermen had trawls nearby — he knew them by name, in fact. Each lobster trawl is a string of 30 to 50 traps, spaced 150 feet apart at the bottom of the ocean, and at the end of each string, a rope extends up from the last trap to the surface, where it is tied to a big round vinyl buoy. If Aldridge could make his way to a buoy, he figured, he would be more visible to the searchers, and it would be easier to stay afloat.

John Aldridge fell overboard in the middle of the night, 40 miles from shore, and the Coast Guard was looking in the wrong place. How did he survive?

New York Times Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/magazine/a-speck-in-the-sea.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp&

Redneckangler · Joined: 05 May 2012 Posts: 851 Location: Meriden, CT

Great read! I certainly think and try to plan for going overboard, as I do a lot of night fishing. Hope to never face such a situation.
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