“I need a boat.”

This chapter highlights the experiences of mariners during the waterborne evacuation after the 9/11 attacks. On the morning of September 11, mariners brought specialized capacities to all manner of diverse tasks. The on-the-fly, solution-oriented approach — along with the steadfast willingness to help — proved invaluable on that grim and forbidding day. By late morning, an armada of different vessels, from dinner yachts to tour boats to tugs, had responded to the disaster unfolding in Lower Manhattan. Hearing the pronouncement that a full-scale evacuation was now under way eliminated any doubts Spirit Cruises Operations Director Greg Hanchrow might have had about filling the Spirit Cruises dinner boats with passengers. In some respects these vessels, designed to load and offload large numbers of people quickly and efficiently, could not have been more perfect for the mission. Wondering where he could disembark so many people, Hanchrow called the general manager of the Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club in New Jersey, Gerard Rokosz, whom he had known for years, and learned that the New York Circle Line Sightseeing Yachts had already begun ferrying passengers to that location.