You're Tying up Boats on the Shore When You Should Be out in the Storm

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Something inside of me came alive the first time I read Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. In my opinion, it’s a must-read for every Christian man (and every Christian woman struggling to understand the men in their life). Reading it felt as if every word jumped right off the page and punched me in the face. (In the best possible way!) I felt challenged, convicted, motivated, inspired, impassioned, and ready to take on whatever came my way. I didn’t know that something could inspire me the way that book did, and I was sure that nothing would ever again. That is, until I saw Disney’s The Finest Hours.

Anyone who has read “Wild at Heart” will tell you that one of the most compelling statements made by John Eldredge is that every man’s heart is comprised of three fundamental desires: an adventure to live, a battle to fight, and a beauty to rescue. While I’ll admit that these desires take on different shapes and forms in the heart of every man, I’ve yet to meet one who would disagree with those three statements. The courageous men whose story is told in The Finest Hours are no exception, and I believe every man (and woman) can find inspiration and encouragement by hearing their story.

Setting the Stage

The year is 1952 in Chatham, Massachusetts. A huge winter storm is raging off the coast of Cape Cod and has claimed a large tanker ship named Fort Mercer, splitting it in two and threatening to drag its crew to the bottom of the sea. The local Coast Guard station sends out a team to rescue the men on the sinking ship but the situation quickly goes from bad to worse. Turns out the S.S. Pendleton has also fallen captive to the raging sea and a team is needed to rescue their crew as well.

It is in the middle of this incredible adversity that we meet our story’s heroes: Coast Guardsman Bernie Webber and Ray Sybert, engineer of the S.S. Pendleton. But these men aren’t exactly the kind of heroes you might expect to find in a Disney film. In fact, Bernie and Sybert are living the lives of defeated men. They’re timid and uncertain, haunted by their pasts, and they have lost the respect of the men around them. But it’s exactly these circumstances that call them out into the greatest adventure either of them have ever known.

An Adventure to Live

Bernie Webber is a shell of a man when we first meet him. In fact, in the very first scene we see that he needs his long-time friend Gus to give him a pep-talk just to convince him to go on a double date with a woman he has only had a phone relationship with. Later, we see that Bernie is overlooked for the brave task of rescuing the crew of the Fort Mercer and is instead tasked with tying up fishing boats by the pier. As the story progresses, we find out that Bernie took on the storm once, and failed. Men died that day and Bernie, like so many men after a significant defeat, lost his soul.

Aboard the S.S. Pendleton, hidden deep within the metallic bowels of the tanker ship, Ray Sybert tries in vain to convince his captain to slow the ship down. The Pendleton has a newly repaired fracture in the ship’s hull and won’t survive another hit from the massive storm. Suddenly, the inevitable happens. The ship takes a devastating blow, the fracture is reopened, and the ship quickly takes on water. The gigantic tanker is actually split into two pieces, and the remaining crew on the Pendleton are divided on how to safely survive the storm. With the captain gone, Ray Sybert is the senior officer of the ship, but because he knows he has lost the respect of the men around him, he instead decides to send his father, a fellow crewman, to defuse the mounting tension between the other men. Meanwhile, the ship is quickly sinking and something must be done if they are going to make it home alive.

The deck has been stacked firmly against Bernie Webber and Ray Sybert, and they know it. They face impossible odds and a seemingly unreachable goal. But Bernie and Sybert are called out to the sea by the opportunity to save lives, reclaim their hearts, and walk firmly in their calling as fiercely dangerous men. Deep in their hearts, they know they were created for this moment. No man is called to tie up fishing boats while a storm is raging. No man is called to hide at the bottom of a ship while the men around him need a leader. A man was created for the adventure of a lifetime, but that adventure won’t come without a few fights.

A Battle to Fight

Both Bernie and Sybert need to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges in order to save the lives of their men, and time is not on their side. The storm is getting worse and the Pendleton can only take on a few more feet of water before the ship loses power completely. As if this weren't enough, Bernie and Sybert are constantly bombarded by the fiery darts of doubt coming from their fellow crewmen and the ominous shadow being cast by their looming pasts.

Bernie is called upon as a last resort to take a small motorboat and rescue the remaining crew on the Pendleton. Everyone around him, including his fiancé, think that it’s a suicide mission and try to talk him out of it. One of the greatest lines of the film comes in this moment. Bernie says, “Well … in the Coast Guard they say ‘you gotta go out.' But they don't say you gotta come back in. That's regulation, you know.” So Bernie leaves the menial task of tying up fishing boats behind and embraces his duty as a Coast Guardsman yet again. Bernie's bravery in this moment inspires other men to remember their Coast Guard training and vows. “Somebody’s gotta go out and save those guys, right?" says another crewman, "That’s why I signed up. Now’s my chance.” There’s a battle raging in the storm for the lives of those men, and the only motivation Bernie and his crew need is: somebody has got to go out.

Meanwhile, Ray Sybert has failed in his attempt to unite the remaining crew of the Pendleton. Sybert and his men are hard at work making a tiller to steer the ship manually and run it aground on a nearby shoal. Doing so will slow the flow of water coming into the ship and hopefully help make the possibility of rescue a reality. But some of the other men are convinced that the only way to survive is to try their luck on the crashing waves in a paltry lifeboat. Finally, Sybert finds his passion (and his spine) and heads up to the deck of the ship, wielding an axe. There he finds his men STILL bickering about whether or not to take the lifeboats, and with one fell strike Sybert cuts the ropes holding the lifeboat to the ship and sends it hurdling into the jaws of the sea below. While the gravity of what Sybert has just done settles on the men, he barks his orders with a new found confidence, “Now every fella here wants to live and the only way that happens is if we run her aground!” Sybert then gives each man their marching orders. The man who earlier had his father address the men for him because he couldn’t do it himself, has now found his voice and is ready to lead these men to safety.

Now, the battles that Bernie and Sybert have to fight while struggling to survive the storm are plenty. In fact, with every twist and turn it seems like there is no way any of these men will make it out alive. I'll let you find out more on your own, because it’s awe-inspiring to see a group of men tackle impossible odds simply because that’s what men were created to do.

A Beauty to Rescue

An adventure to live can call a man out to the uncertainty of the sea, a battle to fight can inspire him to take on the storm, but there’s something about a beauty to rescue that can light a fire in the heart of a man like nothing else. This is true in the life of Bernie Webber whose fiancé Miriam Pentinen is not-so-patiently waiting for him to return from his daredevil mission.

Now, don’t let the 1950’s charm of this film throw you, Miriam is definitely not your ordinary dame. In fact, she’s one of the best female characters I’ve ever seen in a film. She’s strong, confident, feisty, loyal, intelligent, and a fighter. She's shy at first, but as the film progresses we get a glimpse at how strong of woman she actually is.

Bernie and Miriam’s relationship comes to a head when, while Bernie is teaching her to dance, Miriam asks him to marry her. You read that correctly: Miriam asked Bernie. In a moment of weakness, Bernie says no to Miriam's proposal, but Miriam demands an explanation. As the old adage says, "A weak man can't love a strong woman. He won't know what to do with her." After fumbling through his words, Bernie finally decides to man up and tell Miriam that the storm coming in is going to be fierce and he's afraid he may not make it back if he's called out into the sea. He realizes that the only way to rescue her from that pain is to survive. But in his line of work, survival is never guaranteed. Later, while Bernie is out on the Pendleton rescue mission, Miriam heads down to the Coast Guard station herself and insists on listening in to radio chatter detailing the progress of the mission.

Miriam: Did Bernie go out, Gus?

Gus: Miriam, what are you doing here?

M: Did he?

G: Yeah, Cluff sent him.

M:…I want to talk to him.

G: Who?

M: Cluff. Your commanding officer, where is he? I wanna find out where Bernie is. I’m worried about him. (smiles) We’re supposed to get married.

G: Miriam, this isn’t what any of the other girls do. Or wives. They don’t come in here, and they don’t do this.

M: So?

G:…If you want, I guess you can wait in here. Listen to what’s going on.

Miriam continues to get stronger and stronger as the film progresses. She shows forgiveness in the face of resentment, believes when no one else does, and is unapologetic when others tell her she shouldn’t be who she is. Women like Miriam are captivating, inspiring, and inviting. They inspire their men to keep fighting in the midst of adversity. While fighting wars, soldiers and fighter pilots alike kept pictures of their wives with them at all times. Those men used the hope of returning to the women they loved as motivation to conquer the horrors of war. The pain of losing the woman he loves, even in death, is strong enough to motivate a man to keep on living. A strong woman will settle for nothing less than a strong man to come alongside and live the adventure of life with.

Final Thoughts

To this day, the true story of the Pendleton rescue is considered one of the greatest in Coast Guard history. Bernie Weber, Ray Sybert, and their crew fought and conquered the storm that day. These brave men provide a perfect picture for 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 which says, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” Act like men. Live the adventure, fight the good fight, and win the girl. This message is ingrained in the heart of every man.

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