Dark Noon: The Final Voyage of the Fishing Boat Pelican (Hardcover)

by Tom Clavin (Author)
Key Phrases: overturned hull, charter captains, town dock, Coast Guard, New York, Lake Montauk (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Saturday, Labor Day weekend, 1951, dawned mild and cloudless over Montauk. Hundreds of passengers tumbled from the Long Island Rail Road’s weekend express train, the Fisherman’s Special, when it pulled in from New York City. The weather only confirmed the postwar optimism of the blue-collar workers who had thronged to this fishing village for a holiday of deep-sea angling.

In America, in 1951, it was easy to believe that anyone could make money and enjoy the good life, and no place suited that mood better than a fishing town. The Montauk fishing business was booming. The dock the arriving anglers swarmed over had been named, without a trace of self-consciousness, Fishangri-la, and the waiting fishing boat captains could see no obstacle to a record weekend.

Maybe it was naive optimism that propelled Captain Eddie Carroll away from the dock that morning with sixty-two passengers aboard his fishing boat Pelican, some thirty more than safe capacity. He was everyone’s favorite skipper, a handsome World War II veteran with an easy manner, an endless supply of fish and war stories, a sturdy forty-two-foot boat, newly rebuilt engines, and an uncanny ability to find good fishing. In his pocket that day he carried the ring that he would soon slip on the finger of his Swedish bride-to-be.

But Eddie’s luck was about to run out. Even as the Pelican cut its outgoing swath through the sun-spangled Atlantic, a jet-stream trough of Arctic air high overhead, undetected by forecasters, was pressing down on the pool of warm air beneath it like water building behind a dam. The Pelican and forty-five people aboard, including Captain Carroll himself, would never return to shore.

Dark Noon is a suspenseful and ultimately heartbreaking sea story. It’s also a journey back to the America of the early 1950s, when a laborer could buy a round-trip train ticket from Queens to Montauk and fish all day with Captain Eddie for $8.00. The Pelican's passengers, like postwar America itself, were blinded by hope. They baited their hooks and waited, wondering what they would find in the deep and shining waters of the Atlantic, unaware of the dark storm gathering overhead.

Tom Clavin was editor of the East Hampton Independent and the Southampton Independent, two of the country’s most award-winning weeklies, for ten years. In addition to fifteen years writing for the New York Times, he has authored numerous articles appearing in such periodicals as Reader's Digest, Golf Magazine, Parade, and Family Circle. Mr. Clavin has written and edited hundreds of pieces on fishing and boating.

From the Back Cover

Saturday, Labor Day weekend, 1951, dawned mild and cloudless over Montauk. Hundreds of passengers tumbled from the Long Island Rail Road’s weekend express train, the Fisherman’s Special, when it pulled in from New York City. The weather only confirmed the postwar optimism of the blue-collar workers who had thronged to this fishing village for a holiday of deep-sea angling.

In America, in 1951, it was easy to believe that anyone could make money and enjoy the good life, and no place suited that mood better than a fishing town. The Montauk fishing business was booming. The dock the arriving anglers swarmed over had been named, without a trace of self-consciousness, Fishangri-la, and the waiting fishing boat captains could see no obstacle to a record weekend.

Maybe it was naive optimism that propelled Captain Eddie Carroll away from the dock that morning with sixty-two passengers aboard his fishing boat Pelican, some thirty more than safe capacity. He was everyone’s favorite skipper, a handsome World War II veteran with an easy manner, an endless supply of fish and war stories, a sturdy forty-two-foot boat, newly rebuilt engines, and an uncanny ability to find good fishing. In his pocket that day he carried the ring that he would soon slip on the finger of his Swedish bride-to-be.

But Eddie’s luck was about to run out. Even as the Pelican cut its outgoing swath through the sun-spangled Atlantic, a jet-stream trough of Arctic air high overhead, undetected by forecasters, was pressing down on the pool of warm air beneath it like water building behind a dam. The Pelican and forty-five people aboard, including Captain Carroll himself, would never return to shore.

Dark Noon is a suspenseful and ultimately heartbreaking sea story. It’s also a journey back to the America of the early 1950s, when a laborer could buy a round-trip train ticket from Queens to Montauk and fish all day with Captain Eddie for $8.00. The Pelican's passengers, like postwar America itself, were blinded by hope. They baited their hooks and waited, wondering what they would find in the deep and shining waters of the Atlantic, unaware of the dark storm gathering overhead.

Tom Clavin was editor of the East Hampton Independent and the Southampton Independent, two of the country’s most award-winning weeklies, for ten years. In addition to fifteen years writing for the New York Times, he has authored numerous articles appearing in such periodicals as Reader's Digest, Golf Magazine, Parade, and Family Circle. Mr. Clavin has written and edited hundreds of pieces on fishing and boating.

“The Pelican was being pushed once more onto its port side, and Eddie knew with sad certainty that this time it was not stopping . . .”

When Captain Eddie Carroll put to sea on Labor Day weekend 1951, he didn’t know how many passengers were aboard his overloaded boat. He didn’t know that an unpredicted storm would descend from a cloudless sky before the morning was over. He didn’t know how swiftly, then, his faith in his boat and his own abilities would be overturned.

Dark Noon is a taut and suspenseful re-creation of a fateful day at sea. It is also a story of the postwar American dream as experienced in the fishing village of Montauk, Long Island, where fish were money and where optimism and success went hand in hand. And it's a story of the end of an era, when one terrible disaster changed the fishing culture of a prosperous port forever. Every dream has an end. In Dark Noon the end comes in a violent storm. Montauk would never be the same.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 1 edition (July 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071423001
• ISBN-13: 978-0071423007
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #795,143 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragic and Harrowing, December 2, 2005

By	Allen F. Richardson (Old Greenwich, CT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this season of great storms, and with the first anniversary of the Asian tsunami approaching, we have repeatedly been reminded of both our mortality and vulnerability in the face of nature's sometimes unpredictable, and certainly uncontrollable, wrath. In that vein, noted journalist and author Tom Clavin has written a book that looks back over 50 years to what can only be described as a "small" storm, though it had devastating consequences for scores of people, their families and friends, and in particular, one community that relied on the benevolence and bounty of the sea for its livelihood, and future well being.

Dark Noon is about a freak storm, a squall really, that hardly registered beyond the confines of the far East End of Long Island on a Labor Day weekend in 1951, six years after the end of World War II, and one year into the now almost forgotten "police action" that would take thousands of lives in Korea. But as Clavin's book makes poignantly clear, even a footnote to history can have profound consequences to those involved, and in this case, provide riveting drama to a new generation of readers.

Clavin paints a vivid picture of the sometimes hard-luck fishing village of Montauk (about 100 miles east of New York city) at the mid-point of the past century. We are reminded of how different America, and this now "glamorous" outpost of the Hamptons, once was, while at the same time, we inevitably see the parallels with today. As already noted, one war had just ended, and one was commencing. Americans who had survived the Great Depression, and secured the major regions of their planet with blood and sacrifice were looking forward to a peaceful and prosperous tomorrow. But at the same time, the world around them had changed, and not necessarily for the better. With another war brewing far away, and the specter of the atomic bomb always present, they so much wanted to simply relax and have some fun on that fateful Labor Day weekend so long ago.

The particular diversion that Dark Noon examines is the once booming recreational fishing business in Montauk. Every weekend, thousands of (mostly blue-collar New York city) anglers would board a Long Island Railroad train called the "Fisherman's Special" in the early hours of the morning, then stream out of the station at the end of the line. There they would crowd onto a series of "open boats" that took them out into the Atlantic for some "deep-sea" fishing. One of those boats, the Pelican, is the primary subject of this book. Captained by a handsome and charismatic World War II veteran named Eddie Carroll-who in the now grainy newspaper prints of the time somewhat resembles a Cary Grant with his captain's hat cocked just so to the side-the Pelican became a magnet for the fishing crowd.

Carroll, who was carrying an engagement ring in his pocket that he hoped to slip on his lovely, Swedish girlfriend's finger, was the most popular of a host of captains who worked out of a dockyard once know (without a trace of irony) as "Fishangri-la." But perhaps the lovely weather that morning, the luck of past voyages where Carroll's customers were rewarded with big catches, or the knowledge that the season was coming to an end-and his new life about to start-lured Carroll into a false sense of security. The Pelican put out to sea with over 60 passengers, making it far too heavy to handle in the event of a sudden change in fortune. And, of course, that is precisely what happened to the Pelican, as the reader well knows before even starting the book.

But knowing the ending does not distract from the steadily building drama, and terrible foreboding, as Clavin introduces us, one by one, to the passengers, the crew of the Pelican, the surrounding cast of captains and mates on other boats, and those who wait back onshore. Among those captains, by the way, is the legendary Frank Mundus, who later became the world's most famous shark hunter and the model for Quint in Jaws. He is also an important, and fascinating figure in this book.

To say more about how it all ends would rob the reader of the story's harrowing, and yes, heart-breaking climax, as the storm builds and events overtake the Pelican. But suffice it to say, you are likely to shed a few tears as the characters who inhabit this story begin to plunge into the sea, and then fight for survival. Of course, there is heroism and horror aplenty, plus stupidity and amazing resourcefulness. In that regard, this book reminds us of the last moments in that super-hit film of the Titanic disaster, but thankfully, spares us all the ludicrous melodrama. Truth is always far more compelling, and Clavin is masterful at delivering the real deal.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Author Michael Tougias, October 14, 2005

By	Michael Tougias "author" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

Tom Clavin has done a fine job with a riveting narrative of the events before, during and after the accident with the Pelican. It must have been incredibly difficult to research this tragedy which took place in 1951, but the author brings it to life in a very readable and informative style.

When I was writing Ten Hours Until Dawn it was challenging enough because the sea rescue and tragedy I was writing about was 28 years old, so to think Tom Clavin made an event 54 years old read like it happened yesterday is really amazing.
Dark Noon is a must read for anyone who likes adventure, history, and maritime lore.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Old tragedy brought to life in new book, September 3, 2005

By	Bruce V. Backlund (Sag Harbor, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I liked the book, because the author was able to incorporate local color into an era that dates back over 50 years. Local and New York city news archives along with in depth interviews no doubt helps bring the reader into the 1950's time period. There were however some inaccurate historical facts included. This is why I rated it 4 stars. Anyone interested in maritime stories should pickup a copy.