   | Fatal forecast : an incredible true story of courage in a savage storm (True Survival Series) Author: Tougias, Michael J. | |
| Price: $23.78 | ||
Summary:
This true story of catastrophe and survival at sea is a vivid moment-by-moment account of seventy-two hours in the lives of eight men. Most amazing is the story of Ernie Hazard, who spent more than fifty terrifying hours in--and out of--a tiny life raft, careening in the monstrous waves.
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (-) (09/01/24)
School Library Journal (00/08/24)
Booklist (+) (09/01/24)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 08/01/2024 Gr 5 Up—On a Friday in November 1980, two commercial fishing boats were working around Georges Bank, a rich shoal about 100 miles off Cape Cod. In part due to two damaged weather buoys, none of the fishermen expected the wild storm that whipped up overnight, with 70-foot waves and winds gusting over 80 miles per hour. One wave caused the Fair Wind, a 50-foot lobster boat, to pitchpole, trapping crewman Eddie Hazard inside the flooded pilot house. Hazard was able to swim clear of the doomed boat and get into a covered raft, only to spend the next 50 hours battling the storm alone while facing frostbite and hypothermia. In this young reader edition of his 2007 book, Tougias moves the perspective around several of the surviving captains and crew, including a Coast Guard search-and-rescue team out of Boston with their 210-foot cutter. The author has made a cottage industry of modern shipwreck and rescue tales and is superb at framing tense drama and building suspense with mounting nautical details. For some readers, it will be a thrill ride, others may find it too much. There is no source list, but Tougias includes a lengthy author's note, detailing how he came to contact crew members of the various crafts and spent several days interviewing Hazard. In addition, many details are drawn from a lawsuit against the weather service. VERDICT Middle and early high school readers who love a gripping adventure or survival story will tear through this one. Highly recommended.—Bob Hassett - Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Booklist - 09/01/2024 *Starred Review* Adding a second title to the True Survival series (following Abandon Ship!, 2023), Tougias adapts another of his adult books for middle-schoolers. This salty tale describes the harrowing three-day ordeal of two crews of lobster fishermen caught in a dangerous storm off the coast of Cape Cod in November 1980—a situation that occurred because the weather forecasting buoys weren’t working properly. Tougias sets the scene and introduces readers to the crews from the Fair Wind and Sea Fever (a helpful list of characters and their vessels prefaces the main text) before describing their fate in riveting detail after the storm struck. Much of the story focuses on Fair Wind mariner Ernie Hazard, 33, who rode out huge waves in a raft for over 48 hours after a nearly 100-foot-tall wall of water capsized his boat. Tougias plunges readers into the action, rendering Hazard’s experiences and the valiant rescue efforts of the Coast Guard and two other boat crews with pulse-pounding panache. While most survived, an appendix notes how several families of the deceased men briefly won a lawsuit against the National Weather Service until the judgment was reversed on appeal. Readers will be rooting for all these courageous men in this thrilling, edge-of-your-seat survival tale. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.
