The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger is a real page-turner story about a Gloucester-based fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, that disappeared in a historic storm in late October in 1991. There were no survivors. There was no wreckage except a few fuel drums found on the sea long after the Andrea Gail disappeared.
Junger tells the story of the disaster from the recollections of the crew members of ships that survived the storm, from viewpoint the survivors of an ill-fated rescue attempt of another boat in the same storm, and from the perspective of the families of the survivors.
The book opens introducing the members of the crew of the Andrea Gail and their families and friends. Junger shows us the life of a fisherman. Swordfish boats like the Andrea Gail could make a lot of money for their crews and money was the reason most of the men took the risk of fishing.
We learn how dangerous fishing for swordfish can be. The line used to catch the fish goes out with thousands of hooks, baited just before they enter the water. These hooks can snag and drag a fisherman right off the boat and into the sea when the line run over the side, and is equally dangerous when the line is pulled back on board--with or without many big, angry swordfish on the line.
Junger explains the physics of flipping and sinking a boat in a storm. He also explains how differences in the placement of pilot house and other factors could affect the way the ship weathers storms. In addition to the physics of boats, we learn about the formation of waves and the storms that toss the waves higher and higher.
As the Perfect Storm develops in the area where the Andrea Gail is lost, Junger shows how search and rescue works along the US and Canadian coasts. The US Guard works with Air National Guard and Navy units to rescue crew members of boats in distress. I learned a lot about how the services coordinate their different capabilities depending on the distance and scale of the disaster. The US and Canada coordinate with each other in the disasters that involve the international waters of both countries.
In the aftermath of the storm, the families grieve and struggle with the loss of the crew of the Andrea Gail as well as the Air Force pararescue swimmer lost when a rescue helicopter went down.
Although I've never been out to sea further than a fishing boat near Boston harbor, I am fascinated with sailing ships. I've read all of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels and Ian Toll's histories of the war in the Pacific theater of World War II. The Perfect Storm gave me a new perspective on just how dangerous life on the sea can be, even without the ships involved firing cannons at each other.
For anyone interested in the life of the crews of fishing boats, or of fishing towns like Gloucester, Mass., or the physics of waves, ships and the weather, this book has excellent explanations wrapped in a compelling story.
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In 2012 Victoria Hislop of The Independent (UK) began her review of the book with the same enthusiasm I felt:
I learned two things while I was reading this book. First, that true stories can be more exciting and extraordinary than fictional ones. And second, that the best books are the ones where you are glued to your seat. This is how it was with The Perfect Storm.
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A passage on drowning that made my own terror of death in the water vivid, while explaining precisely how our bodies react as death approaches:
"The instinct not to breathe underwater is so strong that it overcomes the agony of running out of air. No matter how desperate the drowning person is, he doesn't inhale until he's on the verge of losing consciousness. At that point there's so much carbon dioxide in the blood, and so little oxygen, that chemical sensors in the brain trigger an involuntary breath whether he's underwater or not. That is called the "break point"; laboratory experiments have shown the break point to come after eighty-seven seconds. It's a sort of neurological optimism, as if the body were saying, Holding our breath is killing us, and breathing in might not kill us, so we might as well breathe in...Until the break point, a drowning person is said to be undergoing "voluntary apnea," choosing not to breathe. Lack of oxygen to the brain causes a sensation of darkness closing in from all sides, as in a camera aperture stopping down. The panic of a drowning person is mixed with an odd incredulity that this is actually happening. Having never done it before, the body--and the mind--do not know how to die gracefully. The process is filled with desperation and awkwardness. 'So this is drowning,' a drowning person might think. 'So this is how my life finally ends.'"
