Although Mobile, Alabama's Bender Shipyard built shrimp boats and oil rig supply vessels for the Gulf of Mexico, until they finished the Scottie in December 1969, they had never constructed a vessel destined for the rigors of winter crabbing in the Bering Sea.

Two college students with summer commercial fishing experience learned the Scottie's owner planned to have a small crew deliver the boat to Seattle via the Panama Canal. Dreaming of a tropical cruise through sun-drenched Caribbean waters, they signed on. With their long Christmas break, they naively expected to be back to the West Coast in time for January classes.

"What could possibly go wrong?" they reasoned. The answer: "Everything!" With an inept, hard-partying captain and faulty mechanics, Scottie sailed into a massive Caribbean storm. They barely escaped the nightmare with their lives--and one outrageous, thrilling sea story.