The Portland Gale

If Joshua James took time to reminisce when he arose the morning of Saturday, November 26, 1898, he would have realized that that day marked the tenth anniversary of his finest moment, the Great Storm of 1888, in which he and the volunteer Massachusetts Humane Society lifesavers of Hull, Massachusetts, rescued 29 men from six vessels within the span of about 36 hours. The crews that day committed the surfboat Nantasket to its first test,  and she performed admirably enough to silence the experts who said she would never succeed as a lifesaving craft.