New book brings together the pieces of the Can Do puzzle
Gloucester Daily Times
September 6, 2005
By Janelle Randazza
Times Correspondent
In the Blizzard of '78, skipper Frank Quirk and a crew of four friends, Don Wilkinson, Charlie Bucko, Norman David Curley and Kenny Fuller, boarded the Gloucester pilot boat the Can Do, heading toward Salem to assist the crews of both a stranded oil tanker and its Coast Guard rescuers.
As the storm wrapped its claws around the coast, Quirk and his crew battled 30-to-40-foot seas, winds gusting above 75 knots and frigid temperatures. Throughout the night, Quirk radioed back to the Coast Guard station; his last transmission arrived faintly at 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 7, 1978. The oil tanker and Coast Guard rescue boat survived but the Can Do and all five of its crewmen were lost.
Over the decades, the story of what led the Can Do crew into the heart of such a vicious storm was twisted by speculation. The truth lay in desperate journal entries, broken hearts and somber memories. It took 25 years and Massachusetts author Michael Tougias to bring the scattered pieces of the puzzle together.
Tougias' new book, "Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do," chronicles the vessel's fated rescue mission and looks into the lives of those left behind by the tragedy.
Tougias stumbled upon the story of the Can Do while collecting material for his 2002 book, "The Blizzard of 78." The small newspaper article included astounding excerpts of recorded exchanges between the Coast Guard and the Can Do during its final hours.
"When I read the story and saw how they quoted the captain from his radio messages it hit me that there might be more recordings somewhere," he said. Intrigued, Tougias contacted Quirk's son, Frank Quirk III.
Just two days earlier, Frank Quirk III and his daughter had begun researching authors in the hope they could convince one to write their father's story. When the call came from Tougias, the 47-year-old Peabody resident was astonished.
"I had been waiting for that call for 25 years," Quirk said. "It was like my dad said, 'OK, it's time to tell the story'. There were so many different versions about what happened that day and why they went out; we really just wanted to set the record straight and we really wanted people to know the kind of guy my father was."
Quirk and his sister, Maureen Oullette, 49, knew the minute they met Tougias that the right author for their father's story had found them.
"Mike was just so interested in knowing every detail. We knew if anyone was going to get the whole story out there it would be him," said Oullette.
They sent Tougias off from their first meeting with a recording of the transmission between their father and the Coast Guard, which the author listened to on his drive home.
"When I listened to the tape I just got goosebumps," Tougias said. "I was in the car on Route 128 and had to pull over. I just thought, 'This is the book I've been searching for'. How often do we get to find out what it was like on a boat where all hands were lost? Without that tape the book wouldn't be the same. The heart of the book is that we know exactly what happened."
For two years Tougias, a 50-year-old Franklin resident, abandoned all other projects and immersed himself in every angle of the Can Do's story, listening to hours of tapes and interviewing more than 200 people. Over the two years it took Tougias to write the book, he found himself not just transported into the storm but absorbed into the minds of the loved ones the crew left behind.
Sharon (Watts) Fish, fiancée of Charlie Bucko, recalls people retreating into their grief after the Can Do crew was lost, each coping with the loss of the men alone. Fish looked at the writing of the book as a way to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.
"Everyone was dealing with their own grief and no one really knew what everyone else was going through," she said. "For whatever reason we didn't reach out to each other, but we needed to."
Fish offered Tougias the journal she kept after Bucko's death.
"Sharon was a key person in the book," Tougias said. "She was the best way to get inside the head of someone who is going through this, knowing that your loved one is out there and knowing that something is terribly wrong but not knowing what to do."
On that day in 1978, Louis Linquata and Gard Estes were having lunch with Quirk and some of his crew at the Cape Ann Marina when they first heard the 682-foot Greek tanker Global Hope was having problems and dragging its anchor.
Estes was leaving with the rest of the Can Do crew when Linquata asked him to stay behind to help him ready the Cape Ann Marina for the storm. Twenty-seven years later Estes, now 63 and still living in Gloucester, is still wrought with emotions as he recounts that evening.
"It was supposed to be me that night," he said. "David Curley took my spot. When I think 'Why wasn't it me?' I get chills."
Quirk and his crew left Gloucester Harbor in the early evening when they learned that not only was the Global Hope in trouble, but so was a Coast Guard patrol boat that had been dispatched to assist the tanker.
When the CB transmission reported the Can Do's radar and antenna had been swept overboard and the boat was sailing blind in the storm, Linquata and Estes jumped into their Jeep and frantically combed the coast. They never knew, until Tougias brought them together, that fellow Gloucester resident Doug Parsons, Bucko's best friend, was only minutes behind them in the same search effort.
"It's unbelievable. We were all together that night and we didn't even know it," Estes said.
They all feel like Tougias and the book finally brought together the pieces of the puzzle and helped bring closure to the different parts they played in the 47-foot pilot boat's tragic story.
"We are all best friends now," said Quirk. "Sharon, Doug, Gard, Mike — we call each other all the time. Mike just did such an incredible job. We can finally put the pieces together and talk about what's been weighing on us all this time. We've all become such good friends now. I enjoy Gloucester again: the people, the Boulevard, the boats. It's my second home again."
Quirk hopes that the crew's legacy is one of compassion and selflessness.
"I just want it to be known that there are people that will go out of their way to help anyone for no other reason than they needed help," he said. "Maybe this book will bring to light that the people of Gloucester will go out of their way to help their neighbors. There is a special kind of camaraderie in this harbor and I don't think it was lost with the Can Do. It was my father's legacy and all their legacy but I think it's Gloucester's legacy, too."
The next four months are busy ones for Tougias. He will be touring the region with presentations about the Can Do, including a slide presentation with maps of the Can Do's course, the site where it was found and photos of the Can Do when it was a working vessel. Quirk will be accompanying Tougias for many area presentations.
A Gloucester stop on this tour is expected but an official date has yet to be confirmed.
September 6, 2005
By Janelle Randazza
Times Correspondent
In the Blizzard of '78, skipper Frank Quirk and a crew of four friends, Don Wilkinson, Charlie Bucko, Norman David Curley and Kenny Fuller, boarded the Gloucester pilot boat the Can Do, heading toward Salem to assist the crews of both a stranded oil tanker and its Coast Guard rescuers.
As the storm wrapped its claws around the coast, Quirk and his crew battled 30-to-40-foot seas, winds gusting above 75 knots and frigid temperatures. Throughout the night, Quirk radioed back to the Coast Guard station; his last transmission arrived faintly at 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 7, 1978. The oil tanker and Coast Guard rescue boat survived but the Can Do and all five of its crewmen were lost.
Over the decades, the story of what led the Can Do crew into the heart of such a vicious storm was twisted by speculation. The truth lay in desperate journal entries, broken hearts and somber memories. It took 25 years and Massachusetts author Michael Tougias to bring the scattered pieces of the puzzle together.
Tougias' new book, "Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do," chronicles the vessel's fated rescue mission and looks into the lives of those left behind by the tragedy.
Tougias stumbled upon the story of the Can Do while collecting material for his 2002 book, "The Blizzard of 78." The small newspaper article included astounding excerpts of recorded exchanges between the Coast Guard and the Can Do during its final hours.
"When I read the story and saw how they quoted the captain from his radio messages it hit me that there might be more recordings somewhere," he said. Intrigued, Tougias contacted Quirk's son, Frank Quirk III.
Just two days earlier, Frank Quirk III and his daughter had begun researching authors in the hope they could convince one to write their father's story. When the call came from Tougias, the 47-year-old Peabody resident was astonished.
"I had been waiting for that call for 25 years," Quirk said. "It was like my dad said, 'OK, it's time to tell the story'. There were so many different versions about what happened that day and why they went out; we really just wanted to set the record straight and we really wanted people to know the kind of guy my father was."
Quirk and his sister, Maureen Oullette, 49, knew the minute they met Tougias that the right author for their father's story had found them.
"Mike was just so interested in knowing every detail. We knew if anyone was going to get the whole story out there it would be him," said Oullette.
They sent Tougias off from their first meeting with a recording of the transmission between their father and the Coast Guard, which the author listened to on his drive home.
"When I listened to the tape I just got goosebumps," Tougias said. "I was in the car on Route 128 and had to pull over. I just thought, 'This is the book I've been searching for'. How often do we get to find out what it was like on a boat where all hands were lost? Without that tape the book wouldn't be the same. The heart of the book is that we know exactly what happened."
For two years Tougias, a 50-year-old Franklin resident, abandoned all other projects and immersed himself in every angle of the Can Do's story, listening to hours of tapes and interviewing more than 200 people. Over the two years it took Tougias to write the book, he found himself not just transported into the storm but absorbed into the minds of the loved ones the crew left behind.
Sharon (Watts) Fish, fiancée of Charlie Bucko, recalls people retreating into their grief after the Can Do crew was lost, each coping with the loss of the men alone. Fish looked at the writing of the book as a way to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.
"Everyone was dealing with their own grief and no one really knew what everyone else was going through," she said. "For whatever reason we didn't reach out to each other, but we needed to."
Fish offered Tougias the journal she kept after Bucko's death.
"Sharon was a key person in the book," Tougias said. "She was the best way to get inside the head of someone who is going through this, knowing that your loved one is out there and knowing that something is terribly wrong but not knowing what to do."
On that day in 1978, Louis Linquata and Gard Estes were having lunch with Quirk and some of his crew at the Cape Ann Marina when they first heard the 682-foot Greek tanker Global Hope was having problems and dragging its anchor.
Estes was leaving with the rest of the Can Do crew when Linquata asked him to stay behind to help him ready the Cape Ann Marina for the storm. Twenty-seven years later Estes, now 63 and still living in Gloucester, is still wrought with emotions as he recounts that evening.
"It was supposed to be me that night," he said. "David Curley took my spot. When I think 'Why wasn't it me?' I get chills."
Quirk and his crew left Gloucester Harbor in the early evening when they learned that not only was the Global Hope in trouble, but so was a Coast Guard patrol boat that had been dispatched to assist the tanker.
When the CB transmission reported the Can Do's radar and antenna had been swept overboard and the boat was sailing blind in the storm, Linquata and Estes jumped into their Jeep and frantically combed the coast. They never knew, until Tougias brought them together, that fellow Gloucester resident Doug Parsons, Bucko's best friend, was only minutes behind them in the same search effort.
"It's unbelievable. We were all together that night and we didn't even know it," Estes said.
They all feel like Tougias and the book finally brought together the pieces of the puzzle and helped bring closure to the different parts they played in the 47-foot pilot boat's tragic story.
"We are all best friends now," said Quirk. "Sharon, Doug, Gard, Mike — we call each other all the time. Mike just did such an incredible job. We can finally put the pieces together and talk about what's been weighing on us all this time. We've all become such good friends now. I enjoy Gloucester again: the people, the Boulevard, the boats. It's my second home again."
Quirk hopes that the crew's legacy is one of compassion and selflessness.
"I just want it to be known that there are people that will go out of their way to help anyone for no other reason than they needed help," he said. "Maybe this book will bring to light that the people of Gloucester will go out of their way to help their neighbors. There is a special kind of camaraderie in this harbor and I don't think it was lost with the Can Do. It was my father's legacy and all their legacy but I think it's Gloucester's legacy, too."
The next four months are busy ones for Tougias. He will be touring the region with presentations about the Can Do, including a slide presentation with maps of the Can Do's course, the site where it was found and photos of the Can Do when it was a working vessel. Quirk will be accompanying Tougias for many area presentations.
A Gloucester stop on this tour is expected but an official date has yet to be confirmed.
posted by Janelle at 2:33 PM
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