The Ship that Saved Seven

The USS Zuni was a United States Navy Cherokee-class fleet tugboat, formerly known as the Navajo class. It was named for the Zuni, the popular name given to a tribe of Pueblo Indians indigenous to the area around the Zuni River in central New Mexico near the Arizona state line.

Launched on July 31, 1943, she was deployed as a Navy tug to the war-torn Pacific. Hopping from island to island, she towed torpedoed warships to safety and performed routine missions, assisting broached landing craft and laying submerged fuel pipes as the U.S. drove Japanese forces back east.

In 1945, she arrived off Iwo Jima three days after the initial assault. For 31 days, she performed yeoman service for the warships in the area. She pulled a transport off a sandbar and deliberately ran herself aground alongside a disabled LST to help that ship land ammunition. She also towed two heavily damaged cruisers, the USS Houston and USS Reno, hundreds of miles to safety.

Two crewmen died when a tow cable snapped and struck them. They were the only casualties during a two-year span in which the Zuni participated in four invasions and traveled thousands of miles in seas patrolled by Japanese warships and skies swarming with fighter squadrons. Zuni earned four battle stars for her World War II service.

Of the dozens of men who served on the ship, the last known surviving member of the original crew was Lt. Herb Ruben of Westchester County, N.Y., who died at 94. “He always said it was a ship that could take anything,” said a family member. “He was very proud of being in the Navy and being on the Zuni.”

A year after the war ended, the Zuni was transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard and renamed Tamaroa. It spent almost five decades rescuing ships in distress, intercepting drug smugglers, and enforcing fishery laws. In 1956, it was one of the first ships to reach the sinking luxury liner Andrea Doria off Nantucket, where it helped rescue more than 1,600 passengers and crew.

A half-century later, on Oct. 30, 1991, it made history when three storm systems slammed together off the New England coast with gusts of 70 mph and waves as high as a four-story building. The Tamaroa overcame gale-force winds and 40-foot waves to help save seven people, a rescue effort immortalized in the book and film The Perfect Storm.

Seventy-five miles south of Nantucket Island, the Tamaroa’s rigid hull inflatable rescue boat was sent to help the sailboat Satori, which had three people on board and needed assistance after being caught in the storm that came to be known as The Perfect Storm. The Tamaroa attempted to rescue the Satori’s crew via a smaller inflatable boat it had launched. The crew managed to toss survival suits to the men on Satori, but the waves were too strong. The Satori’s stern crashed down on the smaller boat. Both crews were later hoisted up by helicopter and flown to safety.

The Tamaroa’s work was far from done. It was then sent to rescue the crew of an Air National Guard helicopter, Jolly 110, which had run out of fuel during a rescue mission in the storm and had to be ditched in the ocean. After bobbing in the sea for two hours, the Tamaroa successfully hoisted four of the five crew members aboard.

“Capt. Kristopher Furtney deployed a cargo net along the side of his ship, then laid her side-to the immense waves produced by the storm. The ship took 52-degree rolls in 40-foot seas and was buffeted by 80-knot winds. Fortunately, the maneuver was a success, and the crew of the helicopter was able to grab the cargo net and be pulled to safety by the Tamaroa’s crew.” The ship then spent the next 48 hours searching for the National Guard’s rescue swimmer, Sgt. Rick Smith, but sadly without success.

The storm made national news but quietly faded from attention. “For years, it was called the ‘No-Name Storm’ until the Tamaroa’s exploits were documented in Sebastian Junger’s 1997 book, The Perfect Storm, and later in the 2000 film starring George Clooney.”

“Capt. Brudnicki said newer Coast Guard cutters would not have been able to make the rescue in The Perfect Storm. The Tamaroa was 700 tons heavier and sat 6 feet deeper than more modern ships. That allowed it to endure the hill-sized waves.

‘We would not have been able to sustain the waves we took if we were in a more modern ship,’” said Brudnicki, who retired in 2002. “Back then, they built ships to last.”

But the Tamaroa could not conquer time. Only three years after the storm, the ship was decommissioned. It changed ownership several times and was moored on the Hudson River and later in Baltimore. A group of Navy and Coast Guard veterans formed the Zuni/Tamaroa Maritime Foundation, aiming to restore the ship.

Unfortunately, after almost a decade of work and tens of thousands of dollars spent moving the ship to Norfolk, Virginia, the vessel sprung a substantial leak in 2012, and saltwater flooded key parts of the ship. Repairs were estimated to cost as much as $2 million.

With few options, the foundation members resigned themselves to sinking their beloved ship. The Tamaroa, which had made so much history, was sunk off the southern coast of New Jersey to help expand an artificial reef that attracts scuba divers and anglers.

“Having the Tamaroa sit on the ocean floor isn’t how many who served on the ship envisioned its fate. There is an emotional attachment to the ship far more powerful than mere nostalgia. The Tamaroa was home to generations of crew members who routinely risked their lives in some of the most brutal conditions to save others.”

The man who commanded the ship during The Perfect Storm said, “sinking the Tamaroa is a better outcome than being demolished for scrap metal, a common ending for old service ships.”

“It’s always sad when you sink a ship, but some good will come of it,” retired Coast Guard Capt. Larry Brudnicki said. “It’s being repurposed. It’s being used. If it’s cut up, who’s going to know that their razor blade came from the Tamaroa?”

The original plan was to sink the Tamaroa around Oct. 30, the 25th anniversary of The Perfect Storm. However, this was delayed by rough seas and other issues. She was finally scuttled at 13:00 on May 10, 2017, in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 33 nautical miles from Cape May, New Jersey, at a depth of 120 feet, to form an artificial reef.

A positive note for New Jersey divers: “It’s like anything else, it’s name recognition,” said Brian Nunes-Vais, a trustee with the Ann E. Clark Foundation, which helps fund New Jersey’s artificial reef program. “Would you want to dive on Bob’s boat or the Tamaroa?”

“I’d rather see her be a permanent undersea memorial than be scrapped,” said Bill Doherty of Rockland County, N.Y., who served on the Tamaroa in the late 1960s, when it was based in New York Harbor. “She has too much history for that.”

Not every piece of the Tamaroa will rest on the ocean floor. Lt. Col. Dave Ruvola, the pilot of the Jolly 110, whose crew was rescued by the Tamaroa during The Perfect Storm, heard the ship was in danger of being scrapped and wanted a memento. The foundation gave him a porthole.

Today, that porthole hangs at the headquarters of the 106th Rescue Wing in eastern Long Island in honor of Rick Smith, the pararescueman who died when the helicopter went down.

“It was the ship that saved my life,” Ruvola said. “So I thought it was fitting that we use a piece of the Tamaroa to pay respects to Rick. He was a guy who gave his life trying to save others.”