The Lost Boys of Montauk: The True Story of the Wind Blown, Four Men Who Vanished at Sea, and the Survivors They Left Behind
An immersive account of a tragedy at sea whose repercussions haunt its survivors to this day, lauded by New York Times best-selling author Ron Suskind as "an honest and touching book, and a hell of a story." In March of 1984, the commercial fishing boat Wind Blown left Montauk Harbor on what should have been a routine offshore voyage. Its captain, a married father of three young boys, was the boat's owner and leader of the four-man crew, which included two locals and the blue-blooded son of a well-to-do summer family. After a week at sea, the weather suddenly turned, and the foursome collided with a nor'easter. They soon found themselves in the fight of their lives. Tragically, it was a fight they lost. Neither the boat nor the bodies of the men were ever recovered.
The fate of the Wind Blown - the second-worst nautical disaster suffered by a Montauk-based fishing vessel in over a hundred years - has become interwoven with the local folklore of the East End's year-round population. Back then, on the easternmost tip of Long Island, before Wall Street and hedge fund money stormed into town, commercial fishing was the area's economic lifeblood.