ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996 TAG: 9611040132
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN SNIDER STAFF WRITER
It wasn't the sinking of the Titanic, but it was close enough.
A party of five from Roanoke and Shawsville boarded the Jawbreaker Saturday morning for a day of tuna fishing off the Outer Banks near Nags Head, N.C.
When a storm whipped up ahead of schedule, the 55-foot pride-of-the-marina chartered boat was caught 30 to 40 miles off shore. The boat didn't make it back to the marina.
"The weather report turned very, very bleak," said 67-year-old Charles Beck of Roanoke, who estimates he has been on nearly 50 deep-sea fishing trips.
The forecast was calling for a bad storm Saturday night, but the storm "didn't read the report," he said, and about 1 p.m. the seas started getting rough, with 4-foot breakers crashing around them a half-hour later.
By 3 p.m., the waves were 8 to 10 feet high, and the captain was rushing back toward Oregon Inlet.
"The storm was coming in quickly, so he was pushing it rather hard," Beck said. As the boat cleared the large waves, people were thrown from their seats.
The mate, who was the captain's son, was sleeping in the cabin and was pitched from his bunk about 3:30 p.m. When his feet hit the floor, they got wet. He bounded up the stairs to the deck.
"We're taking in water! We're sinking!" he told the passengers before rushing to tell his father. There was a foot of water in the cabin.
The captain and passenger Mark Corkery, a former Navy officer who lives in Roanoke, opened the hatch to the engine room. Water was coming in with such force that it was hitting the ceiling, Corkery said. They knew there was no way to stop it.
"Get your life jackets on now!" the captain shouted. "We're losing the boat! We're sinking fast!"
April Peacock of Shawsville, on board with her husband Todd, got busy handing out life jackets. (When the captain gave his orders, he paused to wish her a happy birthday. She turned 29 Sunday.)
After they put on their life jackets, everyone moved to the stern. Out of nowhere, it seemed, three or four other fishing boats appeared. April Peacock relaxed a little.
"I knew we were going to be OK because there was plenty of help."
The first boat to move in close tossed out a life preserver for April. She jumped into the ocean and was rescued. Beck followed her, but by the time he was safely on the other boat, the Jawbreaker was going down.
The six men left - counting a passenger from eastern Virginia - jumped overboard.
"The boat was just going out from under our feet," Corkery said. "I was scared the boat was going to turn over."
In the Navy, he learned that the rigging on fishing boats could drag people under. He did not want to meet that fate.
His friend, Mike Howdyshell, said he wasn't scared while they were on the boat, even though Corkery kept telling him they had to jump.
"It never hit me that I had to get off the boat," he said. "Then I got scared because you're out in the middle of the ocean with the waves going up and down. When you're in the bottom of a wave and you look up, all you see is water."
Once the men jumped, the other boats closed in around them and plucked them from the water.
"They were bobbing around like corks," Beck said.
Getting aboard the other boats wasn't the end of the story, Corkery said. The trip back in was still treacherous.
"The storm doesn't stop so you can have a sinking."
Rescue crews were waiting for the waterlogged bunch, and everyone was checked out at a nearby medical center and found to be OK. They did lose the 100 pounds of fish they had caught, but no one seemed to mind.
"Thank God our lives were spared," Beck said. "Those boats appeared literally out of nowhere."
His fellow survivors shared his appreciation for the fishermen who rescued them.
"If the boats hadn't been there, it would have been a life-threatening situation. No doubt," Corkery said.
Todd Peacock was just happy to be home.
"I'm glad to be back on the ground, and I wouldn't even eat seafood last night," Peacock said. "It will be quite a while before I go back."
His wife, April, has had her fill of shipwrecks.
"It was an adventure I don't care to ever go through again," she said.
Howdyshell, who was eating tuna with Corkery Sunday night, was encouraged by the ordeal.
"I'm ready to buy a boat. That was the adventure of a lifetime."
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB