The Perfect Rescue

George Hall

Tuesday, January 01, 2002 at 10:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The *SS Sea Breeze*, a former cruise ship with an inexperienced crew, became a rapidly sinking vessel in a severe December Atlantic gale, issuing a distress call 230 nautical miles off the US coast.
Despite hurricane-force winds, 35-foot waves, and near-zero visibility, US Coast Guard C-130 and HH-60J Jayhawk crews launched a high-risk aerial rescue operation.
One Jayhawk (6031) performed 13 double lifts, evacuating 26 panicked crewmen from the unstable ship while battling extreme turbulence, an intermittently failing automatic flight control system, and operating severely overloaded.
All 34 souls aboard the *Sea Breeze* were successfully rescued in what is recognized as one of the most remarkable Coast Guard aerial rescues, just before the ship sank.

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If, as hoary nautical tradition holds, it’s bad luck to rename a ship, then the poor old SS Sea Breeze was damned and damned again.

The midsize (606 feet) cruise ship began life in 1958 as the Federico C, designed for service out of Genoa for immigrants heading to new lives in Buenos Aires and Sydney. In a later and particularly hideous configuration she was tarted up with bright red hull paint, based in Florida and rechristened the Starship Royale. A Greek company, Dolphin, then acquired the aging ship and came up with the name Sea Breeze. Premiere Cruise Lines bought out Dolphin, took over its vessels and went bankrupt.