The “Mayday” call came on graduation day in 2023 for the U.S. Coast Guard’s elite surfer trainees, but it was not a class exercise.

A boat was taking on water just off one of the most dangerous bays in the U.S. and conditions ranged from mild to crazy when the students and instructors on three boats heading out for a final training trip found it.

“At this point we’re facing 25, 30 feet, 35 feet of breaking sea. Fifty knots of wind. It’s raining, hailing,” said Chief Eric Ceallaigh, who was chief instructor at the Coast Guard’s National Motor Lifeboat School.

Ceallaigh trained students at the point where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean, an area with the worst weather and highest sea levels in America. These trainees come here in search of the coveted surfman certification. If they deserve it, they will then pilot lifeboats in the most demanding rescue missions.

“It takes a lot to get there,” Ceallaigh said. “It takes a special type of person who is willing to put themselves in situations where you look up at a 20-foot crashing sea and think, ‘I want to do that. I want to continue my education in this.’ ‘”

Who are the surfers?

Becoming a surfer is sometimes compared to being a Navy SEAL or a member of the Army Special Forces. Of the approximately 40,000 members of the Coast Guard, only about 130 are active surfers, said Tim Crochet, commander of the lifeboat school.

Being certified as a surfer means that the Coast Guard entrusts you to command and pilot a lifeboat during critical missions. At the school’s entrance is a display of every Surfman medallion ever earned – they are called “checks”.

The US Life-Saving Service began rescuing sailors in distress at sea in 1972. In 1915 the force was renamed the “Coast Guard”. Today it operates 20 surf stations across the country and carries out an average of more than 5,000 rescue missions per year.

Crochet’s medallion – his “check” – bears the number 407 on the wall. Ceallaigh has his surfman number 545 tattooed on his hand.

“This is something that is very, very important to me,” Ceallaigh said.

At the opening session of the Motor Lifeboat School, Ceallaigh read aloud the Coast Guard Surfman’s Creed.

“I will never unnecessarily endanger myself, my boat or my crew, but will do so voluntarily to save those in danger,” he said.

Ceallaigh told students they would have to memorize the creed before the end of the four-week course. This year’s class was all men, but there were nearly a dozen female surfers.

Derek Samuelson, Trenton Campbell and Joshua Slaughter were the three trainees on Ceallaigh’s boat throughout the course. Six other trainees in the class were on two other boats with their instructors.

“Most of us will be almost four years old by the time we get certified,” Samuelson said. “Training to operate these boats is almost equivalent to a college degree.”

Cemetery of the Pacific

Most candidates come here first to complete a basic course, then to train in severe weather and finally to the most demanding of all, the surf course, which is deliberately held when the worst weather is expected.

The area is known as the Graveyard of the Pacific because the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean at the Oregon-Washington border.

Up to a million cubic feet of water can flow from the river mouth per second, and get caught directly in waves that travel thousands of kilometers across the Pacific.

Jeff Smith is the curator of the Columbia River Maritime Museum, whose huge map shows how the mouth of the Columbia River acquired this ominous title.

Over the centuries, there have been thousands of shipwrecks in the area, killing at least 700 people. The skeletons of destroyed ships still lie scattered on some beaches in the area.

Training of surfers

On the first day, Ceallaigh and the other teachers took their students out on the water. Students on Ceallaigh’s 47-foot U.S. Coast Guard motor lifeboat watched his every move at the wheel and reported the approaching waves.

“We expose them to a tremendous amount of surfing conditions for four weeks, more than they would experience in their own unit for years,” Ceallaigh said.

As he sailed into increasingly stormy seas that first day of school, it was clear that Ceallaigh would rather be at the helm of his lifeboat than anywhere else. But Ceallaigh was also dead serious about teaching his students to read every wave.

“There’s a great dynamic out here, waves are shooting in all directions,” said Ceallaigh.

When he couldn’t outrun a wave, Ceallaigh performed perhaps the most important maneuver a lifeboatman must master: righting.

Straightening involves straightening the bow of the boat directly into and through a breaking wave – sometimes a really big breaking wave. In such conditions, a boat could potentially become overturned, “which means the boat goes under the water but will right itself in the same direction,” Ceallaigh explained.

For the next four weeks, the students took the helm every day, with Ceallaigh signaling approval when they got something right and correcting when they didn’t. Students drove in all conditions and performed simulated missions, such as pulling a person – in this case a doll – out of the water.

Sometimes a real rescue mission can replace the simulations, such as when the boats made a final training trip on graduation day in 2023.

Graduation day

This day was also the graduation day of the Coast Guard Advanced Rescue Helicopter School. Lifeguard John Walton dropped into the water from a helicopter and paddled wildly toward the boat as it took on water, in what Ceallaigh said was Walton’s first rescue.

“He was able to recover this individual from the Sandpiper just as this 30-foot-long breach caused the boat to roll over multiple times,” Ceallaigh said.

The graduation ceremony for the nine surfers who completed the course in 2024 was far quieter.

They didn’t all get their surfing certifications that day; Most had to wait for their commanding officer to give them a nod upon returning to their home units. But two of the nine – Dorian Casey and Trenton Campbell – were in for a surprise. Their commanding officers were present and ready to immediately confer the honors.

Campbell accepted hugs from his coaches and classmates and then headed back to his base – Station Quillayute River on the Washington coast – ready to do what he had joined the Coast Guard to do.

“We train for the chance to save a life,” Campbell said. “That’s the motivation you need.”