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

I'm almost done with a recently released book I was given for Christmas, "Ten Hours Until Dawn." I began reading it but two days ago and don't want to put it down! A great read for the winter house-bound mariners up here, or for the most uninitiated landlubber. It's one of, if not the, best sea tales I've ever read.It's the true story of the disasterous "Great Blizzard of '78" here at Ground Zero on the North Shore of Massachusetts, the grounding of the oil tanker Global Hope about two or three miles from us, and the rescue attempt turned disaster in the worst winter storm in over 100 years.Between the herculean and selfless efforts of our local Coast Guard out of Gloucester and pilot boat captain Frank Quirk and his volunteer crew of his Can Do, the nail-biting descriptions of the almost unbelievable conditions out there in my sailing grounds, histories of similar marine crises, and the detailed but easily comprehensible explanations, it's one of those books that keeps you awake after midnight to read "just one more chapter."This story holds a special significance for me not only because I'm so familiar with the locale and sail it every weekend during the season. During that historic storm I was living-aboard an old wooden 46' power boat tied up to our slip on D dock at Beverly Harbor Marina. Conditions got so bad by early evening that a group of us live-aboards got together with all the lines we had among us and we could get our hands on, tied off our dock to pilings and telephone poles and buildings in the parking lot above us. Above us, until the high-tide surge, when our floating dock rose above the hinged ramp, above the stationary wharf thereby stranding us on our boats, above even the sea wall and parking lot. We watched helplessly from our "island" as the rollers swept across the parking lot to our snow-buried cars! Two of the nearby boat-laden docks broke lose! The snow was so deep that if you didn't walk carefully down the very center of the rolling dock in the howling wind, it'd tip and dump you off.Word had passed around in our marina that an oil tanker was aground just outside Beverly Harbor and that a rescue effort was underway. We saw the Coast Guard's 41-footer make it in to the Jubilee Yacht Club just next door. But we didn't learn about the tragedy just a few miles out until a day or two later; we were too busy ourselves that night to think to turn on the VHF radio. This is the first time I've learned the details -- and they were incredible, horrific!I probably knew a few of the Coast Guardsmen quoted throughout who were out there facing death. During the summer of 1977 the Coast Guard used to love "boarding" us. Our boat had become a magnet for some of the ladies of an all-women's college just up the coast, and we four young live-aboards usually had a contingent of them aboard. When off-duty, a few of the Coasties would sometimes come down to the boat for a visit and a few brewskies, hoping we had company aboard.Reading the details of what happened that night is chilling even almost thirty years later. I clearly recall how bad things were that night, but had no idea how much worse they were just a couple miles out in Salem Sound, or the life-and-death drama that was taking place. That *anyone* survived out there is a miracle -- that anyone *went* out there is unimaginable.

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 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.

I was hopeful this story would catch my imagination and hold my interest but it didn’t.The writing is sophomoric; sentences incomplete, descriptions of nautical terms not offered. The emotions of the men were often just blunt and dull. It read like an old story poorly told. When I read a nonfiction book I want to learn about everything pertinent to the story and this author did not offer that.I understand others have enjoyed it. Sadly, it didn’t hold my attention.He’s no Sabastian Junger.

Whether or not you read nautical non-fiction, this book is a must. It's the true story of the "Can Do" pilot boat. They left Gloucester,Mass. harbor the night of the "Blizzard of '78" to rescue sailors off a tanker in trouble. The story is written based on interviews and audiotapes from the people involved. In 1980 I was taking a boating class and was fortunate to hear some of the tapes of the communications of that night. It gave me chills to hear the voices; knowing what the outcome would be. I got those same chills reading this book. The weather channel often compares storms, especially ones up north during the winter. The "Blizzard of 1978" set new records that luckily haven't been broken.

Book was well written. Reminds me of the way Farley Mowatt wrote.

This is the first time I have heard of the Global Hope and the Can Do. I wish they had more information about freighter disasters because these men deserve to be remembered

I enjoy non-fiction books and this is a good read about human endurance in heavy seas.

Bought as a gift

This book held my attention to the end. I highly recommend it to anyone who knows and loves the sea, respects her power and the courage of those who sail her.