Full Description
A small sailboat pitchpoles in the violent waters near Cape Horn; the husband-and-wife crew face a weeks-long struggle to stay afloat and survive aboard the damaged craft. A sailor miscalculates the path of a typhoon; hours later, his lover is torn from his grasp by savage seas. Their 46-foot ketch dismasted and nearly swamped by a huge wall of water, three sailors race to bail her out and rerig her before the sea can deliver a death blow. A woman is knocked unconscious in a storm; when she recovers consciousness, her fiance is gone - she is alone on the boat. These are just a few of the tales of adventure, tragedy, and loss that you'll find in "Treacherous Waters".A small boat in distress on a vast ocean is a tiny stage on which the entire human drama plays out during a struggle for survival. In this collection of true stories, some of the most notable nautical writers of the past half-century provide riveting accounts of terrifying, perilous, and challenging experiences at sea.Here are triumph, disaster, love, courage, guilt, rescue, and death as captured by Webb Chiles ("The Open Boat"), Jim Carrier ("The Ship and the Storm"), Gordon Chaplin ("Dark Wind"), Tami Oldham Ashcraft ("Red Sky in Mourning"), and many more. Some are intensely meditative tales, others are pure adventure. Some reveal personal insights, while others focus on the events as they unfold. Still others will make your heart race and your palms sweat, while some, in the end, will leave you weeping.The lessons learned from these harrowing adventures are as diverse as the people who experienced them. They range from a better understanding of rough-weather sailing to a profound appreciation of the will to survive. While many of these sailors discovered deep wells of strength and resourcefulness within themselves, others never recovered from the bitter losses they suffered. "Treacherous Waters" offers compelling reading to avid sailors, devoted nautical readers, and anyone who loves a good story well told.It will transport you to remote polar waters, send you scudding toward jagged tropical reefs, and leave you wondering how you might respond when faced with an overwhelming life-or-death challenge.Even with the most strenuous struggle, the sea sometimes overwhelms. A hurricane can take an entire ship and all its crew. You may come to after a knockdown and find your partner simply vanished from the boat. You may lose hold of your lover in a turmoil of water and never find her again. You may watch your daughter die in the life raft. In the true stories in "Treacherous Waters", all of those and more come to pass...
Contents
IntroductionStormsRichard Maury. The Saga of Cimba"We now sailed a ship that knew of defeat--a ship we had imagined undefeatable. We stood there . . . knowing . . . how much more courage is needed by the once defeated."The Open Boat"The sea is not cruel or angry or kind. The sea is insensate, a blind fragment of the universe, and kills us not in rage, but with indifference . . ."Marlin Bree. Wake of the Green Storm"'This is it, my brain warned. 'We're going over.'"Kim Leighton. A Hard Chance"'I opened my eyes and I could see the deck underneath the water and a few bodies floating around. When I surfaced, the boat seemed like it was a mile away . . .'"Cape HornJohn Guzzwell. Trekka Round the World"I looked up and saw another monster of a sea approaching and I thought, 'What a bloody shame! No one will ever know what happened to us.'"Reanne Hemingway-Douglass. Cape Horn: One Man's Dream, One Woman's Nightmare"We're spiraling to the bottom of the sea. I don't want to die this way."Lisa Clayton. At the Mercy of the Sea"If i get htrough this I shan't care about carring on I shall just be glad to e alive."Dangerous ShoresAnn Davison. Last Voyage"I heard Frank saying, what a shame, what a shame, as the ship rent beneath our feet. Then the tall cliff face was upon us with a tremendous splintering crash."John Caldwell. Desperate Voyage"'What the devil do you do next?'" I thought, and went below."Gordon Chaplin. Dark Wind: A Survivor's Tale of Love and Loss"We were underwater again. I opened my eyes and saw her clearly, as if she were outlined in black fire."Gilbert C. Klingel. Inagua". . . the sea is a savage place, she sends the gale screaming from the four corners of the world to remind men that their proper habitat is the land."Jonathan Hall. Night Sail"I saw my boat filling and breaking up and me trying to maintain a footing on jagged slippery rocks with freezing water breaking around me."Polar WatersDeborah Shapiro and Rolf Bjelke. Time on Ice"Every minute of heavy weather experience is worth its weight in gold, because for every knot of higher managed, there is one less to worry about."Tristan Jones. Ice!"As I turned to go below, I saw the bear. Twelve feet long, padding silently . . . coming straight at the boat!"Tim Severin. The Brendan Voyage"All around us floated chunks and lumps and jagged monsters of ice."TragedyDougal Robertson. Survive the Savage Sea". . . I dropped to my knees and tore up the floorboards to gaze in horror at the blue Pacific through the large splintered hole punched up through the hull . . ."John Rousmaniere. After the Storm"Out of the corner of his eye Robert Ames spies a white wall advancing from astern. He cries out--too late."Tami Oldham Ashcraft (with Susea McGearhart). Red Sky in Mourning". . . I threw cushions, anything that would float, overboard. He's out there somewhere. Maybe he's alive. Oh God, please."Louise Longo. Let Me Survive"The sea is merciless in its revelations. It knows how to punish human error."Jim Carrier. The Ship and the Storm"A lesser sailor might have panicked by now. A Category 4 hurricane was bearing down on him."Appendix 1. BibliographyAppendix 2. SourcesNER(01): WOW
