The Gathering Wind: Hurricane Sandy, the Sailing Ship Bounty, and a Courageous Rescue at Sea - Hardcover

Freeman, Gregory A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0451465768 ISBN 13: 9780451465764

Publisher: NAL, 2013

Synopsis

In October 2012, a replica of the famous HMS Bounty, an eighteenth-century tall sailing ship, was on a collision course with a storm that would become the largest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic—a clash that would prove dramatic, tragic, perplexing, and ultimately one of the most unforgettable stories of Superstorm Sandy.
 
Crewed by an eclectic team of seafarers, the Bounty was led by Robin Walbridge, their highly respected captain with decades at the helm, whose decisions—sometimes questionable—decided the fate of his ship and crew.
 
Departing from Connecticut as the storm raced north from the Caribbean, Walbridge attempted to outmaneuver Sandy, heading the Bounty southeast. As violent gusts tossed the wooden ship, the crew fought to save their beloved Bounty—and finally to save themselves. When waves, wind, and encroaching water finally overtook the ship in an area known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, the crew was suddenly tossed into the churning sea. The Bounty was gone, but their fate was still to be determined.
 
The men and women of a Coast Guard station in North Carolina summoned the courage to fly into hundred-mile-per-hour winds while the residents of the Eastern Seaboard were fleeing or bracing for the hurricane’s impact. Through hours of white-knuckle flying, with crew members thrown about their aircraft and rescue swimmers jumping into thirty-foot seas, the Coast Guard accomplished one of its most memorable rescues ever.
 
Based on interviews with Bounty survivors and unfettered access to Coast Guard rescue team members, The Gathering Wind offers not only the first but the most complete account of this heartbreaking, thrilling, and inspirational story.

INCLUDES PHOTOS

About this title

About the Author

Gregory A. Freeman is an award-winning writer and a leader in the field of narrative nonfiction. Known for books that make a true story read like a gripping, fast-paced novel, his previous works include The Forgotten 500, Sailors to the End, Troubled Water, and The Last Mission of the Wham Bam Boys. He lives in the Atlanta area.

Reviews

Freeman, author of such books as The Forgotten 500 (2007), about a WWII mission to rescue Allied pilots stranded in Yugoslavia, turns his attention to the recent sinking of the Bounty, the tall ship that sailed into Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, most of its crew saved from certain death through a daring rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard. The author chronicles the events leading up to the disaster, the rescue itself, and the aftermath: the Coast Guard’s investigation into the Bounty’s sinking, during which there was much debate about who was responsible for the tragedy (the captain, who knowingly sailed into the path of a hurricane, or the ship’s owner, who was apparently pushing to keep the boat on a very tight schedule? Freeman is a fine nonfiction writer, with a sharp analytical eye, who always asks the important questions (in this case, What did the captain know, when did he know it, and why didn’t he tell his crew?). An intelligent, even-keeled, and dramatic look at a much-publicized maritime disaster. --David Pitt

Edition details

• Publisher: NAL
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0451465768
• ISBN 13: 9780451465764
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304