Word: agrounder
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...Moby Dick (a monstrous albino sperm whale) but a finback measuring 44 ft. 2 in. and weighing an estimated 50 tons. It was no Moby Dick by temperament either: far from eluding pursuit, it seemed to seek out Dr. White. No fewer than five times it ran itself aground at Provincetown, virtually on Dr. White's Boston doorstep (though he was in Washington). Four times the U.S. Coast Guard hitched a 3-in. hawser to it and towed it out to sea, only to have it snap the line and return with a derisive spout. Fifth time, an observer...
...with shotguns and carrying provisions, two men stole aboard the 400-ft. hulk of the Liberian tanker African Queen as she lay stranded and shoal-torn ten miles off Ocean City, Md. It was March, and the sea pounded against the rusting hull of the ship, which had run aground three months before. With 200 ft. of her bow ripped away, the 13,800-ton African Queen had been officially abandoned by her owners; now watermen from Ocean City poked about the hulk, prying at loose fittings, taking everything movable that seemed salable. The two newcomers watched patiently until...
...whole lot of them could be blown up. Along with the danger come few compensations. For the Negroes, there is an occasional cockfight and beers on a nearby island; for the commander, who is sure that his dreary assignment is punishment for once having run a destroyer aground, there is endless compulsive reading, mixed with lone drinking bouts. Commander Hake is an Annapolis man, in many ways a first-rate officer, but an enigma and a terror to his men, who call him "Admiral God." He is frightening at inspections, when he wears an ancient Navy cutlass. His sole link...
Despite this worthy education, the harried U.S. Coast Guard rescue squadrons have more trouble than they can handle, and it gets worse every year. Says one Coast Guard commander wearily: "They run aground, they run into buoys, they run into each other. They overload small boats and they go too fast. If they have enough gas to go eight miles, they'll go eight miles straight out and then have to be brought in." Last year a Coast Guard boat chugged out to rescue a man whose brand-new, 36-ft. cruiser had broken down. The rescuers tossed...
...must have been a large part of his navy to watch for the rebel ships. When Castro finally appeared, he was in a single motor boat, towing a barge, and flying a Mexican flag. A government coast guard cutter closed in, and the rebels, trying to escape, promptly ran aground on the shore. At this point a government fighter plane appeared and strafed the barge, so that Castro's men, numbering somewhere from fifty to a hundred, dived into the forest and dispersed. The Times happily labeled its article "Cuban Rebels Take to the Hills...