Reviews
Fatal Forecast: An Incredible True Tale of Disaster and Survival at Sea by Michael J. Tougias
scottpm's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book. It was a little shirt and could have used a little more depth.
geve_'s review against another edition
3.0
Really interesting storm and survival story, but didn't really love the writing or formatting of the book itself. There were far too many uninteresting tangents, and I am one who LOVES maritime and weather related minutiae. There was even a short section about sharks present in the north atlantic, and how some of them have been known to bite people who aren't wearing blue, but then there were no actual sharks in the story itself, so that kinda felt like filler. Also don't love that the author chose to continue to repeat a very obvious falsehood of the Essex crew seeing a shark the same size as the whale that took out their boat. yeah, not a lot of sharks the same size as a fucking sperm whale (50+ feet) that is big enough to take out a whole ass whaling ship. Why even put that in here? There are no sharks in this story, nor are there whales, nor is this story about the Essex. Now I'm going on an unrelated shark tangent. Sorry.
Anyways, it was an ok read, not my tops, but honestly, still serviceable book about a survival at sea.
Anyways, it was an ok read, not my tops, but honestly, still serviceable book about a survival at sea.
efabri123's review against another edition
2.0
I found this piece hard to pay attention to. Perhaps I've read too many books on naval disasters. It was nice to have a happy ending; however, I found the book underwhelming.
xxstefaniereadsxx's review against another edition
dark
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This book covers the events that took place on November 21, 1980 in Massachusetts. Off the coast of Massachusetts, there are several well known fishing grounds for various types of fish, but especially lobster. As most of us know, Massachusetts and Maine are quite known for lobster and seafood fishing and eating. There were several ships and small boats at sea on this particular day, all of which had checked the weather reports before putting out. Two of the ships, Sea Fever and Fair Wind, went out on a prolonged fishing trip. They checked the weather and went to work, not realizing that the National Weather Service was neglectful in maintaining their weather instruments and tracking the storm. By the time that the storm and its path were discovered, the ships were battling hurricane force winds and at least sixty feet swells. Those conditions are absolutely devastating for a small lobster fishing boat. I won't ruin the story by saying what happened to any of the crew members or ships, but what they endured was nothing short of remarkable and harrowing. I am, however, pleased to report that the National Weather Service was found liable for some of this mess, as they should have been!!
Whew, I thought I was finally getting caught up on reviews that I was behind on, but I had surgery this week and got even more behind. I found this book on Audible Plus, and it was about a four hour listen. I have finally listened to almost all of the ones that I have bought, so I went through the catalogue to see if there was anything worth borrowing, and there was! I had not heard about these ships and their crew members, so this was certainly worth the time it took for me to listen. Plus, it passed some of my recovery time where I was awake with not a soul to talk to. This author has a few books about sea disasters, and they are always action packed but informative. (One especially neat thing that I learned was that the captain of the Sea Fever was the son of the owner of the Andrea Gail, which is immortalized in the movie Perfect Storm.) I really appreciate the level of research that this author puts into his work, and I really do enjoy learning about the people he writes about. The book and the hardships that were mentioned also gave me a newfound appreciation for the people who catch my crabs and lobsters that I very much enjoy eating. I never really considered how difficult of a job that was, or how dangerous. The only real complaint that I have is that the audio version did not come with pictures. I would have liked to have had a map and pictures of the crew in this book, simply for reference. I had to do some Google searching to figure out what these ships looked like, who the crew was, and where the ships were stricken. (I have to say that I love a picture book, haha.) This book was really quite good, and I plan to add a couple of his other books to my to read list. If you are interested in disasters at sea/sea storms, this is an author that you should really look into.
Whew, I thought I was finally getting caught up on reviews that I was behind on, but I had surgery this week and got even more behind. I found this book on Audible Plus, and it was about a four hour listen. I have finally listened to almost all of the ones that I have bought, so I went through the catalogue to see if there was anything worth borrowing, and there was! I had not heard about these ships and their crew members, so this was certainly worth the time it took for me to listen. Plus, it passed some of my recovery time where I was awake with not a soul to talk to. This author has a few books about sea disasters, and they are always action packed but informative. (One especially neat thing that I learned was that the captain of the Sea Fever was the son of the owner of the Andrea Gail, which is immortalized in the movie Perfect Storm.) I really appreciate the level of research that this author puts into his work, and I really do enjoy learning about the people he writes about. The book and the hardships that were mentioned also gave me a newfound appreciation for the people who catch my crabs and lobsters that I very much enjoy eating. I never really considered how difficult of a job that was, or how dangerous. The only real complaint that I have is that the audio version did not come with pictures. I would have liked to have had a map and pictures of the crew in this book, simply for reference. I had to do some Google searching to figure out what these ships looked like, who the crew was, and where the ships were stricken. (I have to say that I love a picture book, haha.) This book was really quite good, and I plan to add a couple of his other books to my to read list. If you are interested in disasters at sea/sea storms, this is an author that you should really look into.
readwithlauren's review against another edition
3.0
This was just ok for me. I licensurvival stories, but this one had too many people involved and it was kind of hard to keep track of who was who. I did enjoy Ernie's story, however.
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