No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller Harry Markopolos (the alpha prince and his bride full story free .TXT) 📖

or nose. The last thing I did on my last day was take out my rubbing alcohol and carefully swab down my keyboard, mouse, and phone. Then I walked out the door into my new life.

I wasn’t the only member of our team looking for new challenges in 2004. Frank Casey’s job with Parkway Capital had prevented him from sailing, the passion that had been the bond between him and Thierry de la Villehuchet. During the week, he and his wife Judy lived in Freehold, New Jersey, returning to Boston each weekend. So when a close friend, Kevin Leary, invited him to sail from Boston to Bermuda on the 38-foot Sennen, he happily accepted. The third member of the crew was a bulky Russian woman who had responded to Kevin’s Internet ad for a cook/crew member, claiming to be a medical doctor with considerable ocean sailing experience.

The Sennen sailed out of Boston Harbor on July 31. As they left, for the first time in their 24 years together, Frank’s wife Judy cried—and asked where the insurance policies were kept. That seemed odd. Kevin and Frank had responsibly checked all the weather patterns before departing and saw nothing to raise any concern. But as they sailed through calm waters the first few days, Frank began having doubts about the cook, who didn’t seem to know how to correctly set the sails and wasn’t familiar with certain medical terms. It didn’t seem to matter too much, though; for a six-day sail it shouldn’t cause any problems.

On the third day out, a weather fax reported that a tropical storm had formed off the coast of Florida and was moving northeast up the coast. They decided to continue toward Bermuda, sailing across the Gulf Stream and using it as a warm-water shield to shelter them from the storm. But it was vital to get across it before the storm hit. As Frank knew, “Strong winds blowing against this vast current of water produce tremendous waves with flat sides like a barn wall.... Picture a bowling alley with the storm being the ball; you do not want to be the pins. Sailors know they might survive a hurricane in open ocean, but would likely die if caught by one in the Gulf Stream.”

Late in the afternoon of the third day, they learned that the tropical storm had grown into the first hurricane of the season, Hurricane Alex, and was moving northeast much faster than initial estimates. It was moving directly toward their position. To survive, they were going to have to race through the night, away from Bermuda, toward Africa.

By this point it was obvious the Russian cook had little sailing experience. She was told to stay below and secure the cabin to prevent projectiles from flying if they were hit by a wave. Frank and Kevin spent the night in the cockpit, handing off the tiller every 15 minutes, “being beaten to death in a wild mouse ride in storm-tossed seas.... Any slip of concentration could mean disaster.” By the afternoon they had put 200 miles between their position and Hurricane Alex’s track. They were going to be three or four days late to Bermuda, but they had successfully skirted the hurricane. For the first time in two days, they breathed easily.

As the captain’s log reads: “Later that evening, around 9 P.M. Boston, Sennen was knocked over by one enormous rogue wave.... Seawater gushed past the closed but submerged companionway hatch. This seawater immediately ruined much of the boat’s electrical system, including all three radios, navigational computer, electrical monitor and inverter, and the GPS. The rogue wave also crushed the fiberglass dingy and disabled both the monitor and auto-helm steering devices. In addition, the wave forced seawater into the fuel tanks ... making the engine inoperative.”

Frank had been resting in the cabin when the wave hit. Later he estimated it to be 60 feet high or higher. He went flying through the air as water rushed around the gangway hatch boards. My God, he thought, we’re under water. As he eventually told me, “We snapped back as the keel righted the boat, and I flew back across the cabin into the starboard cabinetry. All I could hear was the cook screaming.”

The wave had picked up the boat, then smashed it down vertically through the water like a falling knife. The electronics and engine were dead. The fuel and drinking water had been polluted by sea water. For Frank, the threat was real and immediate. In this life-and-death struggle, Bernie didn’t exist.

The Sennen was still seaworthy, so they set sail and decided to try to reach Bermuda. But they were not going to make it. “I was on watch late in the evening,” Frank recalled. “Suddenly the wind died and I whispered a curse to myself.... I heard a freight train bearing down as I moved to face the onslaught: a white squall? Even in the dark I knew I was hearing a vertical wind-driven wall of rain; it hit, [and] Sennen took off like a spooked horse.”

Again, they survived; somehow the Sennen had remained afloat. But a day later they were hit again, this time by a monster wave. “We slid sideways down this monster’s front,” and again, somehow, the Sennen remained seaworthy. There was little more they could do. They were exhausted, running out of supplies, and having to deal with the hysterical cook, who screamed in fear through the nights. Their options were very limited; with no ability to get weather information, they had to decide whether to risk the long sail to Bermuda on a badly wounded boat or trigger the emergency position-indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs). Although they were reluctant to risk the lives of others, they decided they had no other options. They turned on the emergency beacon, reaching into the night for help.

It was about 10 hours later that the Coast Guard C130 cargo plane found them. The pilot dropped a radio, and arrangements were made for