Books : Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do

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Author name: Michael Tougias

: Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.916345
Format: Bargain Price
Label: St. Martin's Griffin
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: May 30, 2006
Publishing house: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: May 30, 2006
Sale Popularity Level: 252140
Studio: St. Martin's Griffin



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Editor's Notes and Comments:

Product Description:
 
In the midst of the Blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals in Salem Sound off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard heard the Mayday calls and immediately dispatched a patrol boat. Within an hour, the Coast Guard boat was in as much trouble as the tanker, having lost its radar, depth finder, and engine power in horrendous seas. Pilot boat Captain Frank Quirk was monitoring the Coast Guard’s efforts by radio, and when he heard that the patrol boat was in jeopardy, he decided to act. Gathering his crew of four, he readied his forty-nine-foot steel boat, the Can Do, and entered the maelstrom of the blizzard.

Using dozens of interview and audiotapes that recorded every word exchanged between Quirk and the Coast Guard, Tougias has written a devastating, true account of bravery and death at sea.




Customer Reviews
User popularity level: out of 5 stars

Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - You won't want to put it down for ten hours!
" Ten Hours Before Dawn "is an exciting account of the Blizzard of 78 set off the coast of Massachusetts. While most people relate to this event as a record snowfall not many people consider what this megastorm was like on the water. It describes the impossible challenges that the Coast Guard, Air National Guard and ordinary citizens faced in helping sailors, pleasure and commercial boats stranded and damaged during this storm. The author, Michael Tougias, writes in a journalistic style that makes this a fascinating read. I can't recommend it highly enough and found these tales of courage to be very inspiring.


Rated by buyers 2 out of 5 stars - Would be great if it stuck to the story
I think the author really is a good writer and researcher, and enjoy the book where it is telling the story which is promises to tell. The book shows evidence that Tougias didn't want to take the time to rewrite the plot progression as he discovered critical new details after the book was half written. Also, there are not enough "interesting" details of the story to fill a book which can be sold for a standard book price, so the author and editors saw fit to fill it up with digressions, side stories, and over-the-top speculation.

Side stories: No problem with a side story or two with a close association to the primary story, but many of the stories have no relation to the Can Do at all. These stories are interesting in themselves and I'd like to read them in an anthology of nautical disasters. But when story-after-story like this are inserted between chapters of a chronological story, it massacres the suspense and the flow. For those side stories which are justified, instead of setting them up chronologically so you learn to love the characters, they are thrown in where the author happened to be at when writing the book (author says that he had already written the very first two chapters when he found out about... )

Digressions: Lessons about nautical history, emergency survival, survival psychology, and any many other topics would be fine if they were short enough to not stop the flow--- but they are very distracting here because they are very long and very frequent. If I want to learn all about emergency survival for mountain climbing, I would much rather find an "expert" on that topic on the web or in a dedicated book than reading the haphazard and distracting summaries here.

Speculations: A little speculation may be necessary when covering an event with no surviving witnesses, but some of the late chapters are 95% fanciful speculation about what each crew member may have been thinking, and even how they looked at each other. One egregious speculation which totally conflicts with the other speculations, which praise the determination and pertinacity of the principals, is that they may have discussed the cowardly option of killing themselves with Frank's hand gun.

Subjectivity: It's apparent to anybody who reads this book that the author lost all objectivity by the time he wrote the later chapters, probably from the close and emotional relationships he had formed with surviving family members by then. Every single incident discussed attributes the most noble sentiments and impulses to the primary characters, and to the author's friends. It's funny that at the time of the accident, each character with a family had a perfect family life. Frank was the perfect family man, though he slept on his boat instead of at home most of the time. A suicide occurs late in the book, but it somehow happened in spite of the perfect family environment, with no influence of drugs, loneliness, or romances... of course it was the inevitable outcome of a death in the Can Do 4 years earlier.

Childish mysticism: I put this last, because most people in the US do prefer to pretend that guardian angles protect people, that dead people visit and help survivors, that the dead float around in heaven chit-chatting with people who died years earlier, and that ghosts serve as muses for writers. However, it annoys educated people when adult writers start with the assumption that these fictions are true, and apply no skepticism when, for example, an alcoholic reports waking up in the middle of the night to a visitation, then goes back to sleep. A responsible adult must at least consider the possibility that in the middle of the night people may dream about what they wish for. Suggestion for Tougias: Grow up.



Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Harowing tale
This is a compelling story about real people doing what most wouldn't think of doing. It's infuriating that the captain of the freighter was so thoughtless. If he had been anything but a complete waste of time, Can Do would still be here. Read this book carefully and learn what is happening out there. The media ignores fishing and the ocean unless something bad happens. Your life is affected by the ocean and you should know how.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Ten Hours Until Dawn
A very well researched and documented story. As a member of the USCG and having been stationed at Gloucester Station and having been born and brought up in the area of the story I found the book extremely interesting. Highly recommend this book to any persons interested in the true story of the men and women of the Coast Guard.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Life of a Coasty
As a former active Coast Guard sailour (Korean War) I found this book reading at it's best. Tells the life Coast Guard people, along with the harbor pilots, fishermen and others that "Go Down To The Sea in Ships" can encounter.

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