The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Mission of a N.A. Salvage Tug [Paperback]

Farley Mowat (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2001

The hair-raising rescue missions of a deep-sea salvage tug that saved hundreds of lives during two decades of service in the North Atlantic.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Released in 1958 and 1961, respectively, these books are Mowat's paean to tugboats of the North Atlantic. Though often overlooked, these vessels have rescued thousands of stranded ships from watery graves. Mowat proves that being a member of a deep-water tug crew is one of the most dangerous jobs a sailor can have during peacetime.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Here is a good book, and it merits the attention of those who love and respect the sea."--The New York Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press; 1st edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585742406
• ISBN-13: 978-1585742400
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #93 in Books > History > Military > Canada

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The unsinkable Foundation Franklin, December 22, 2001

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Mission of a N.A. Salvage Tug (Paperback)

The ocean-going salvage tug, Foundation Franklin was more than a match for the worst the North Atlantic could throw at her, including Force 10 gales and Nazi U-Boats. Perfect Storm, eat your heart out! Here is the real book about the great-hearted men and their staunch little ships that survived blow after blow from the Atlantic and bobbed up for more.

If the author, Farley Mowat is sometimes guilty of over-the-top prose---well, he lived and worked on the Franklin, and he loved her sturdy lines, her jaunty roll, and every rivet that held her together while she rescued ships that were Goliaths to her chubby, little Baby Huey. No work could have been more dangerous; none required a higher degree of seamanship and courage than dropping a line on a berserk, lunging, steel-hulled freighter, and then towing her through the maw of a mid-December gale, or the shoals and sunkers of the Newfoundland coast---something the Franklin did so many times that her crew lost memory of all but their most freakish or man-killing expeditions.

Grey Seas Under will give you an interesting perspective on the true maritime heroes of World War II. Farley Mowat doesnt pull any punches when he describes the tension that existed between the expert seamen on the ocean-going salvage and rescue tugs, and their relatively amateur counterparts on Canadian and American naval warships. Some of the funniest scenes in the book involve convoys of merchant ships under the protection of corvettes and destroyers. Once a U-Boat had been sighted and the merchants steamed for cover, it was up to the Franklin to rescue the ones that ran into each other or shoaled themselves. Usually, the tug had to perform her duties without any cover from the warships.

The days the salvors (tugboat seamen) spent tethered to fat and crippled merchantmen, crawling along on a straight course at a speed of two or three knots like mechanical targets in a shooting gallery, were the kind of days that would drain the courage from the most heroic man aliveThe Germans knew, that for every rescue vessel sunk there would be a score of crippled merchantmen who would never make safe port.

This is a great book about men against the sea, even though the language gets very nautical at times. Read it and you will learn all about Lloyds Open Form, and the tricks that wrecked merchant masters play to cheat tugs out of their salvage fees. Youll learn to tell the difference between Monkey Island and the poop deck---and the difference between brass monkeys and true seamen. Youll thrill to the dangers of sunkers, beam seas, and Arctic white-outs. Youll bite through your pipe-stem, just like the Franklins captain did during those tows when his sturdy little tug steamed back into port with barely enough coal in her bunkers to cook a pot of beans.

Someone ought to make a movie out of Grey Seas Under. Its got everything---romance (between man and ship, at least); life-and-death adventures; heroism; humor; and the treacherous ice, wind, and sea of what the author respectfully refers to as the Great Western Ocean.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tale well told, August 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Mission of a N.A. Salvage Tug (Paperback)

I've just finished this work and give it five stars because it is a tale well told, with skill and fire. The book first provides a sound and interesting introduction to salvage law and operations -- I had thought the title alluded to lifesaving missions as the primary mission of the salvage tug. Instead, saving sailors was strictly secondary to saving cargo and vessels, although the little tug actually saved more lives than government vessels whose primary mission was lifesaving. Mr Mowat then describes how a small rescue tug and its crew made dozens of successful and intensely difficult rescues of vessels in distress. These rescues were carried out using determination and cunning, and a synergy between a well-designed boat and its crew, rather than computers and satellite navigation, and they demanded an intense courage and fortitude which may seem unimaginable in our softer and more pleasant technological age. We are the richer for Mr Mowat's story, because it gives us an insight into another era, before technology had improved our abilities but lessened our involvement and committment. My only real problem with the book was that Mr Mowat never discussed the important role played by those who maintained this vessel, even though he describes how a lack of maintenance and care almost destroyed the vessel as it passed into obsolescence during its final voyage.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Salt!, December 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Mission of a N.A. Salvage Tug (Paperback)

If you enjoy the Jack Aubrey novels as much as I do, you'll doubless be taken by this more modern sea story.

Mowat is a contemporary writer of fiction and non-fiction about Canada and the north, covering natural science, Eskimos, archeology and autobiography.

He also writes authoritatively about the sea. This book has salt on every page. It is the story of the conversion of a rusty British WWI seagoing tug into the "Foundation Franklin," a seagoing salvage vessel, working out of Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. There was a real Franklin salvage company on which this very realistic novel is based.

Those who have sailed on weather patrol or to Greenland, or to other stormy seas, will relish the salt spray and dangerous hawser-passing and towing. You will experience the bitter along with the triumphs as the crew is frustrated by losing the tow or arriving too late at the job, thus throwing the expense of the attempt into the foam.

A splendid book!

Incidentally, one of Mowat's autobiographical books, "The Dog Who Wouldn't Be," is about the funniest book I have ever read. ISBN 0-553-27928-9.