In Peril: A Daring Decision, a Captain's Resolve, and the Salvage that Made History [Hardcover]

Skip Strong (Author), Twain Braden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003

"Strong and Braden's tale of an imperfect storm, three ships, and a daring rescue comes to vivid life in this gem of a book." -Publishers Weekly

"A marvelous yarn about an incredible rescue." -The Bangor (ME) Daily News

When Skip Strong, a thirty-two-year-old captain of the 688-foot oil tanker Cherry Valley received the call, all he knew was that an oceangoing tug with five men aboard was in distress off Florida's east coast. Caught in an unusually powerful storm, the tug's engines failed, and as the winds gusted to more than sixty miles per hour and the sea whipped into a frenzy, the tug and the barge it was pulling were in danger of being swept ashore.

Captain Strong also knew without a doubt that he would follow the thousandsyear- old tradition of the sea and come to the aid of the crew, the tug, and its cargo, despite the fact that he would have to maneuver his ship, laden with ten million gallons of oil, in extremely hazardous conditions. One mistake and Strong would be responsible for an ecological disaster on Florida's beaches equal to that of the Exxon Valdez.

What Captain Strong didn't know was that the tug was carrying a 150-foot aluminum fuel cell worth upwards of $50 million. And that in the instant he decided to rescue the tug and its crew he was opening the door on a dramatic and tense legal struggle that would pit him against the U.S. government for salvage rights.

IN PERIL is a taut, well-paced, and riveting drama wrapped around a seagoing world few people have the opportunity to glimpse.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Strong and Braden's tale of an imperfect storm, three ships and a daring rescue comes to vivid life in this gem of a book. Strong, captain of an oil tanker carrying 10 million gallons of crude, was trying to outrun tropical storm Gordon when he picked up a distress call off the Florida coast in the early hours of November 15, 1994. An oceangoing tug with a cargo barge tethered behind it had lost engine power and was foundering. Strong decided to attempt a rescue, although doing so put his own crew and cargo, not to mention hundreds of miles of Florida coast, at risk of a catastrophic oil spill. Strong also didn't know that the barge's cargo, a brand-new external fuel tank for a space shuttle, was worth nearly $50 million. The successful rescue of all life and property later resulted in a landmark judgment in court when the company that owned Strong's ship claimed, via long-standing maritime laws, the right to a percentage of the value of the rescued goods. Strong's first-person narration of the immediate story is gripping, while still allowing for discursions into topics such as shipping, admiralty law and meteorology. Strong and co-writer Braden don't rush into the high-seas drama, but the complex details involved in the rescue itself are sharp and clear. The court case is anticlimactic, but the authors don't linger on it unnecessarily. This is a great story, well told. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"an intriguing, carefully spun true account of the ironic and the improbably¿Meticulously researched and engagingly written"-- Professional Mariner

"In Peril offering illuminating details about merchant marine practices..."--The Chicago Tribune

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592281052
• ISBN-13: 978-1592281053
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,350,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A riveting chronical !, November 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: In Peril: A Daring Decision, a Captain's Resolve, and the Salvage that Made History (Hardcover)

In Peril is as difficult to put down as any book that I have read for some time! The story, which began as a routine delivery of a ship's cargo - 10,000,000 gallons of oil - to a Florida power plant, became supercharged when the ship was hit by Tropical Storm Gordon - twice - while accepting the challenge of answering a Mayday call from ship in distress. It's a factual chronical of a modern day high seas adventure and salvage operation, followed by a courtroom battle over salvage rights, which will keep any reader who enjoys maritime stories thoroughly engaged. A quick read, it is very exciting and reminded me often of Farley Mowatt's great maritime writing The Grey Seas Under.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The review sums up my thoughts better than I can, March 13, 2004

By 

Dick Homer (Great Guana Cay, Abaco, BAHAMAS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Peril: A Daring Decision, a Captain's Resolve, and the Salvage that Made History (Hardcover)

>Ron Berthel, Books Editor, AP Weekly Features
>50 Rockefeller Plaza
>New York, NY 10020

In their book, "In Peril," Skip Strong and Twain Braden present a dramatic narrative of events that occurred only 10 years ago but are rooted in ancient seafaring traditions and practices.
The book's subtitle _ "A Daring Decision, a Captain's Resolve, and the Salvage That Made History" _ pretty much sums it up.
On Nov. 15, 1994, the tanker Cherry Valley was transporting 10 million gallons of fuel oil from New Orleans, La., to Jacksonville, Fla.
Prentice "Skip" Strong III, then 32, was making his second trip as captain of the 688-foot vessel.
Also sailing from New Orleans was the 114-foot tugboat J.A. Orgeron, en route to NASA at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and towing a barge loaded with a 150-foot aluminum space-shuttle fuel cell. The value of the fairly lightweight but bulky cargo was more than
$50 million.
Both the Cherry Valley and the J.A. Orgeron had left the Gulf of Mexico and were navigating north in the Atlantic Ocean about 10 miles off Florida's east coast when they ran into Hurricane Gordon.
In the midst of torrential, blinding rain and wind gusts of 40-60 knots, one of the tugboat's engines failed. The sea and wind pummeled the helpless tug and its valuable tow and pushed them toward the potentially deadly Bethel Shoal, off Fort Pierce.
The tug's skipper broadcast a distress call, requesting assistance from any nearby ship.
Only the Cherry Valley was close, but it was not a good candidate for offering aid. Being a tanker made the Cherry Valley unsuited for any type of salvage work. Also, it lacked the
cables and winches needed for towing another vessel in a storm, and its crew of 25 had no training in rescue procedures.
What's more, the Cherry Valley was a single-hull tanker built before the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 made double-hull construction mandatory. Therefore, to try a rescue operation with such a large and fairly unwieldy ship during a hurricane and near a lee shore was a risk its captain could easily have avoided.
But Strong was not that sort of captain. Answering the centuries-old unwritten law demanding that sailors help each other in times of danger, he immediately set his course for the distressed tug and barge. The Cherry Valley was eventually able to take them in tow and move them from the shallow waters that endangered all three vessels.
As a result of their action, Strong and his crew were awarded the American Merchant Marine Seamanship Trophy.

In keeping with long-established practices, Keystone Shipping Co., owner of the Cherry Valley, applied for the salvage award. A dispute led to legal action, resutling in a judgment against NASA for almost $5 million_ the most in U.S. maritime history.

"In Peril" offers illuminating details about merchant marine practices in the waters off theSoutheast, life aboard merchant ships and the highly specialized field of maritime law.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Worthy Addition Your Nautical Library, November 12, 2003

By 

Bob "seabgb" (Midcoast Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Peril: A Daring Decision, a Captain's Resolve, and the Salvage that Made History (Hardcover)

I first heard this story from the horse's mouth while on the homeward leg of a pilot run in Maine's Penobscot Bay. It astounded me then and astounds me even more now that I've had a chance to mull over the details in the author's new book, "In Peril." Great story. Well told by people who've been there and know a thing or two about the briny depths and the ships that sail them. Other books claim to be great maritime narratives but are told by writers who couldn't tell a monkey fist from a monkey wrench. I highly recommend this book to professional mariners, maritime students, yachtsmen, airmchair seafarers, and anyone who wants to know about the movement of oil on the high seas, marine salvage, admiralty law, and what it's like to take a 668' tanker into the jaws of danger and the annals of nautical history.