Windswept_ The Story of Wind and Weather - Marq de Villiers [77]
In 1992, Herb was talking to a couple of "his" boats in the general vicinity of the annual Newport to Bermuda yacht race. He warned them a gale was coming, though nothing adverse had been forecast. What he didn't know is that the U.S. Navy Training Squadron had a couple of boats in the race, and they took note of the fact that Herb, alone among forecasters, had got it right—and had undoubtedly prevented a few near disasters. After the race, the navy called and asked him to lunch. After that the NOAA people would download Herb's forecast daily—and Herb got access to sensitive satellite data he's still coy about explaining fully. It's no surprise, then, that hanging in his basement studio is a plaque from the Navy Training Squadron that says, "To Herb Hilgenberg, for Best Analysis of North Atlantic Weather and Sea Conditions."
That's where the "Herb Show" came from. In 1994 the Bermuda economy went sour and Herb found himself at age fifty-seven without a work permit or a job. The offers flowed in—come to Florida, to Norfolk, to Annapolis, to the Bahamas, Tortola . . . Give us your weather service, we'll look after you.
But Herb returned to his suburban Burlington bungalow, and within a few months was back on the air. Four hours prep time now, and three on air.
"It's even better here," he says. "The propagation is actually better. I can talk to boats all the way from the Cape of Good Hope, to Greenland, and over in the Pacific to Hawaii. I get e-mails, phone calls, from England, Europe. It's so big. At any time there are fifty, sixty boats out there, needing me."
For none of this does Herb charge money—that would spoil the special relationship he has with his clients, that of a kindly but, when necessary, scolding uncle. He does get voluntary contributions from grateful customers, enough to almost cover his $10,000 to $12,000 annual expenses, but he won't take money from people who expect a service in return. Those checks he sends back. Nor did he accept a contract from an astonished Lloyds insurance company, whose investigators had noticed that Herb's listeners tended to make fewer damage claims.
Here are a few excerpts from the Arcadia's log:
Dec. 22. Afternoon. We turned for Bermuda as soon as we heard Herb's warning. We have learned not to ignore his forecasts. We arrived safely in Bermuda this morning and tied up inside Ordnance Island. A few hours later we were hit by the winds of one of the most intense lows the North Atlantic has seen for years.
Dec. 26. Afternoon. Steve and Mary arrived at noon. They left Buzzard's Bay two days ago. Their weather service hadn't warned them. Their boat was damaged and they were exhausted, safe only due to years of experience.
Dec. 27. Noon. At 3 am this morning the dockmaster awakened me to help dock a 65-foot sailing vessel. Its French crew looked haggard, exhausted, grim-faced. The main sail was shreds hanging in their rigging, the ship very battered. One of their crew was taken off by ambulance with a fractured neck. Hanging over the stem rail was the empty safety harness of a companion who had been lost overboard in a knockdown.
[Dennis, the skipper, added this unnecessary but heartfelt notation:] This [man overboard] is the nightmare of every ship's captain. Once again I avoided it. Thanks to Herb. The French told me they'd taken their advice from a paid meteorological service in the States. They'd been told it was safe to sail.
But even Herb can't win 'em all. One of his boats, the SV Sparrow, got caught in a hurricane. "We talked every twelve hours for fifteen days, it was exhausting. Finally the boat made it through.