The Perfect Storm

Six men—Tyne, Pierre, Sullivan, Moran, Murphy, and Shatford—make up the crew of the Andrea Gail, but the key word is crew; once on the ship, they are not individuals. They are linked together by their job, by their proximity, and by their fate. While Junger delves briefly into their backgrounds, he does so not to individualize them, but to provide their reasons for wanting to go to sea. For all but Billy Tyne, it’s money. As captain, Tyne likes the solitude of the sea, but the rest of the crew want only to fish and come home with money in their pockets. They lead hard lives, drinking heavily both before and after leaving for a trip. Bobby Shatford has a black eye from where his girlfriend punched him; he needs money to pay his alimony from his first marriage, and he’s been living above the Crow’s Nest bar, where his mother works. Ethel, his mother, proclaims that swordfishing is a “young man’s game, a single man’s game” (17), and Junger says “By and large, young men from Gloucester find themselves at sea because they’re broke and need money fast” (15). He means that living in Gloucester has introduced them to the dangers of the sea, and only the lure of money entices them to go fishing.