Nathaniel Sheppard helped to save fishermen Nicholas, 60, and Thomas Keefe, 62, from drowning, Tilting, Newfoundland, June 28, 1912. The Keefes, brothers, who were in an open fishing boat running before a gale on the Atlantic Ocean, struck a submerged block of ice at a point about three miles from land. Their boat began to sink. Sheppard, 60, fisherman, and his son were in their fishing boat about a half-mile to windward of the Keefe boat and were also running before the storm in order to reach shelter. They changed their course and sailed toward the Keefes. When they were 30 feet from the Keefe boat, Sheppard’s son let the jib fly in the wind, stood on the bow with his arm around the foremast, and caught the disabled boat with a boat hook. Sheppard handled the tiller and mainsail. The Keefe boat had sunk so far that the Keefes were in water to their chests. Waves about seven feet high broke over the boat. Sheppard’s son pulled the bow of his boat over the submerged stern of the Keefe boat. A wave lifted his boat and let it fall violently on the corner of the stern of the other boat, and a piece of plank a foot long and five inches wide was knocked in at a point a foot above the water line. Nicholas scrambled into the Sheppard boat. Thomas fell into the water between the boats while trying to get on board. Sheppard dropped his boat hook and pulled Thomas into the boat, then he used the boat hook to work the bow of his boat to the lee of the Keefe boat. He mended the hole in the side, and he and the others sailed three miles before the wind to port in safety. 10207-1109
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10207-1109