Dead Men Tapping

by Kate Yeomans

"Dead Men Tapping opens in a Boston federal courtroom with the Coast Guard defending itself against a charge of negligence for a rescue gone wrong - and the tragic story unfolds as each witness testifies. Just before dawn on a warm September night in 1996, a 45-foot fishing boat was run down by a 272-foot barge under tow by a tugboat ten miles off Cape Ann, Massachusetts. The boat capsized but remained awash in a calm sea. Fishermen in gathered boats could hear a trapped man or men tapping and yelling for help. The Coast Guard was called." "Kate Yeomans weaves trial testimony around the haunting recollections of witnesses - fishermen, the tug crew, Coast Guardsmen, and others - to re-create the accident, the rescue operation, and the aftermath. Each scene and shifting viewpoint alters and illuminates what has gone before, as piece by piece the mosaic of a tragedy emerges. Who or what caused the collision? Why did the Coast Guard take so long to get rescue divers to the scene? Did the C