Captain Eddy Haneman and the Hurricanes
Martha Ellen
“You will recall that Hurricane Hazel laid offshore for a long time south of here building with very little forward movement; and when she came, she came very quickly,” Captain Eddy Haneman opened.
“All the charter boat skippers at Wrightsville waited to see how the storm was going to go; and when the skippers decided to evacuate to Wilmington and the quiet waters at some of the safe moorings there, it was too late.”
At the time of Hazel, Eddy owned two charter boats – both forty foot Matthews trolling cruisers – the Martha Ellen and the Martha Ellen, Too. Johnny Willette, having recently worked as mate for several years, was the skipper on the Martha Ellen, Too.
On that mid-October day in 1954 the winds built rapidly to hurricane force and beyond. Wilmington, twelve miles from the coast, had winds that reached ninety-six miles per hour velocity; and the exposed beaches had winds that exceeded one hundred miles. Torrential downpours went hand in hand with the howling wind. When Hazel made her landfall with the North Carolina coast, she came with violence unabated.
“When the winds and rising water got up in some strength, we decided to move the boats from Municipal Dock to a dock behind Harbor Island in the lee of the houses and land to a position about where the present Seapath Marina is located.
Johnny and his mate, Jim, and I and my mate, Graham Larsen, moved the two boats behind the island. As soon as the boats were there, Johnny, Jim, and Graham went ashore to move their cars which were parked at Municipal Dock and take them to high ground on the mainland out of the path of high water,” Eddy said.
“During the time they were gone, the full fury of the hurricane came. When the three men attempted to get back to the boats, a guard at the bridge refused to let them pass to re-enter the beach area; and they were out of it for the duration of the storm.
“The two boats did well and rode out the severe northeast winds for several hours with no difficulty. However, the center of Hazel passed overhead after a long time; and the high winds changed to a southwesterly direction. The new direction brought the high water and seas directly into our mooring area.
“Captain Monroe George, Sr., had his boat tied at the same dock – the three boats abreast. I saw that the three boats were now banging together, and the sea was built up so that it was necessary to change the position or see them destroy themselves,” Eddy explained.
He was alone with his two boats and untied the Martha Ellen, Too and moved her to the channel and put an anchor overboard. He also moved the Martha Ellen away from the dock and into the channel where she could ride out the fury of the big blow. When Eddy looked back at the Too, he saw she was dragging anchor before the force of the running seas and wind and drifting steadily toward the causeway and the houses there.
Captain Eddy’s only choice to avoid losing the Too was to get the Martha Ellen put safely away for the moment. “I saw a day marker and pulled ahead to get a line on it. The force of the wind and the seas was so great that both engines were needed just to hold a position and stand still.
“I made a number of efforts – six or seven times – to pull up near the marker, climb down from the fly bridge, run up on the bow, and get a line on the marker. Each
time the boat would fall off before the wind and current, and the bow would swing away too quickly for me to get the line fastened.”
On the eighth try he made it. He then swam over to the Martha Ellen, Too. The drifting boat had already reached the causeway and was located between two houses.
Captain Eddy determined she was as safe as could be expected and in no immediate danger. The boat was lying against one of the houses. Eddy anchored her securely and chocked the boat to keep her from rolling over sideways when the flood waters abated.
His next concern was that the line holding the Martha Ellen to the day marker would chafe and part, permitting the boat to drift away to her destruction. Eddy got in an upwind position and swam out to the boat, climbed aboard, and rode out the remainder of the storm safely.
Hurricane Hazel was an all day affair before she was finished, and it was late afternoon before the high winds laid down and the high water receded. When the storm was past, the spectacle of eighteen boats adrift on the causeway greeted the eye. Many of the boats still tied to docks were swamped. Eddy lent a hand to the Marie Elaine, which had no power, and towed her back to her slip at Municipal Dock.
The Martha Ellen, Too was soon recovered and refloated when personnel at Wrightsville Marina made a “low boy” and set her in a trailer after raising her with jacks. They put her overboard at a launch site. Her only damage was broken glass and damaged guard rails.
Captain Eddy had survived Hurricane Hazel, and so had the beloved boats come through.
That storm, spawned in the warm seas of the tropical Atlantic and maturing in the Caribbean, and marking her landfall in the immediate Cape Fear area, has since come to be for old salts down at the dock the standard against which all other tough ladies are measured.
If it ain’t another Hazel, it’s merely a mullet blow.
Captain Eddy and his mate Dennis Ellison were aboard W. H. Leckie’s boat, the Anjean III, out of Wrightsville the week of Hurricane Doria’s visit. Leckie and two of his children, Drew and Jan, were also aboard; and the party was spending the week fishing the Outer Banks at Hatteras.
Fishing the Stream, Drew had a strike and a very strong initial run from a fish that later turned out to be a twenty-pound tuna. The fish ran two or three minutes and was turned around and being reeled to the boat where Dennis was waiting in the stem with the gaff. However, there was to be a slight detour for the tuna first.
Captain Eddy put it this way: “The tuna was still down deep when something very heavy grabbed him. It turned out to be a fine blue marlin that appeared to run about twelve feet long and might have gone four hundred and fifty pounds. The marlin burst out of the water in a giant leap with the tuna held crossways in his mouth. The marlin jumped another four or five times still holding the tuna and disappeared. Drew reeled the tuna alongside, and Dennis put him away.”
Eager examination of the tuna by the still excited fishing party revealed imprints on the flanks of the fish, marks made by the upper and lower jaws of the marlin.
“When we returned to the dock and got cleaned up,” Captain Eddy said, “we took the tuna to the Hatteras Blue Marlin Club, boiled it in salt water, and had tuna fish salad and sandwiches next day trolling in the Stream.
“Next day – Thursday before Doria on Friday – it was raining very hard when we were out there,” Eddy continued. “We caught wahoo and tuna and began the last circle of the trolling area before heading the boat home to the dock. A blue marlin came up and took the outrigger bait, and we had him on for the next three and a half hours. Meanwhile the seas were building, and the wind was pretty well up along with the rain.
“Finally we talked the situation over. The marlin was still too green to try to bring aboard and was too wild to gaff. Mr. Leckie had passed the rod to his son. We decided to put more pressure on the fish to quicken the outcome. Soon, with the marlin still going strong, the leader snapped; and it was all over. Mr. Leckie was consoled, and it had been a good fight. Had we taken the fish, Mr. Leckie would have released him.”
With the marlin question settled for the day, Captain Eddy headed her home for the friendly sanctuary of the dock. And Doria had the sea all to herself.
