Customer Reviews

Pride Of The Sea: Courage, Disaster, and a Fight for Survival

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Pride of the Sea is one of better entries in the crowded "fight for survival" market that kicked off five years ago with "Into Thin Air" and the "Perfect Storm."

Waldron takes a complex subject -- the sinking of a historical replica of the Baltimore clipper, Pride of the Sea -- and artfully plots and presents a great story of man versus the sea.

The book is told objectively -- with no hair pulling or chest beating, finger pointing or assignment of blame -- and what emerges is a sad, yet gripping tale of death on the high seas. From naval architecture to naval history, the story of the Pride of the Sea is more than one of survival, and comes together to present a great debut by a great journalist.

The Baltimore clipper schooners, famous for their speed, pestered the British in the War of 1812. They were slender and fast, low in the water but with two extremely tall, swept-back masts. The city fathers of Baltimore in the 1970s figured the city needed something to be proud of. It had lost its football team, crime was up, and the docks were in decay. To boost civic pride, a replica Baltimore clipper was proposed, and eagerly funded, built, staffed and sailed. _The Pride of Baltimore_ was a gorgeous ship, looking smart in any display of the beloved Tall Ships. In fact, it was first proposed to be a dockside museum, but it eventually became a seagoing craft, spreading the good name of Baltimore (and business interest in it) to Europe. The plan to resurrect the Baltimore clipper was a resounding success. Unfortunately, lots of the clippers had sunk two centuries ago, largely due to their top-heaviness, and _The Pride_ did so, too, in 1986, in an unexpected storm as she was returning to Baltimore from the Virgin Islands. Four of the crew of twelve perished. In _Pride of the Sea: Courage, Disaster, and a Fight for Survival_ (Citadel Press) Tom Waldron has given the story of the ship and the disaster, a story which ought to please true-life adventure fans. He also comes to some sensible conclusions about how the accident happened, beyond the simple explanation "freak storm."

When the proposal for a new Baltimore clipper was made, one of the first naval architects to consider the job wrote, "... an exact replica of an old sailing vessel is unlikely to meet Coast Guard requirements." Indeed, the civic boosters and the architect who got the job made a conscious decision not to have _The Pride_ certified by the Coast Guard. It was risky to sail on her, but it was authentic, and it appealed to those who loved ships with sails. There was a crew of both old salts and rookies, none of whom were over thirty. Six of them were newcomers to the boat. A violent, unexpected squall of sixty knots simply pushed over _The Pride_; there had been a risky maneuver to bring the ship under better control, but the risk had not paid off. The ship rapidly took on water, and with no compartmentalization, sank quickly. The rafts failed to work properly; only one could be inflated, so that the eight survivors had to make do on a raft that would have been crowded with its recommended crew of six. Waldron expertly describes the chaos of the sinking and the hellish five days on the raft afterwards. Time after time, ships passing near enough to see them did not see them, until a Norwegian supertanker picked them up. The only lightness in the raft comes from a couple who had fallen in love on the boat. The young woman said matter-of-factly, "I don't want to go through life without being proposed to." Her boyfriend, taken aback, issued one of the strangest proposals ever: "Sure, Leslie, if we survive, we'll get married." And so they did, after funerals and investigations and recriminations, all recounted here.

_The Pride_ and its four lost crewmen were sacrificed to nostalgia, a dream of the romantic days of sail without recalling the nightmares the sea can bring. Nothing symbolizes this as much as the hand-held radio beacons that would have sent signals to satellites when the ship was in danger. Both beacon devices were available to anyone who could grab one, but they were inaccessible, mounted on the inside of the doomed vessel. The reason? They were too modern to be kept out on deck and detracted from the vessel's historic aspect. Waldron's terrific account of the loss of _The Pride_ recounts many such lapses. _Pride of Baltimore II_ has been built, and to modern standards this time. But as a survivor reminds us, the most modern of boats are going down, too: "When you go out to sea, it's a big place out there and the sea has all the power."

Having lived in Maryland until just a couple of years ago, I clearly remember the Pride and when she sank. I was at Martin's Airport with a friend the day the survivors returned, and it was a moving experience. I cried seeing these people, whom I had never met, yet knowing what they'd been through and seeing the sadness on their faces. It's one of those moments in time that you know you'll always remember, but life goes on and it fades into the background. But seeing this book at our local book store brought it all back to me in vivid color. I shared the experience with my husband, told him about this beautiful beloved ship that we were all so proud of and the pain every Marylander felt when we heard the news that she was lost, and that some of its crew were lost with her. This book is a moving, loving tribute to our beloved Pride and her crew and I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates the sea.

This book is a page turner. Very well written, with both historical information regarding this type of ship, and this ship in particular. Those parts of the book discussing the sailing characteristics of the Pride were highly interesting from a technical standpoint, and when applied to the storm situations described, made pretty exciting reading.
I found the backround information on the ship's crew, the story of how the ship was built, and the aftermath of the sinking, added greatly to the books interest. The story of the crews stuggle to survive after the Pride sank rates with any survival-at-sea saga that I have ever read. The details provided are just amazing, and make you feel like you were right in the raft.
This book is as good a read as you will find in current literature.

Having grown up on the Atlantic Ocean, this story was captivating to me. It is almost unbelieveable how dangerous the ocean can become in a matter of minutes; the author, Tom Waldron, did a great job of describing the fury of the ocean at it's most violent.

Waldron put the story together in a logical, readable format. He included a lot of interesting information about how the ship was built, the history of sailing ships, especially clipper ships, and even included numerous pictures, so one is able to attach faces with names in the narrative.

Interesting to me was the description of the life on board the Pride -- lack of space below, lack of showers, etc. A very primitive existance. The vivid descriptions of the storms were captivating -- made the book hard to put down.

Finally, the section about the aftermath was most compelling. Waldron described in detail the suffering and emotional roller coaster the survivors went through until their rescue. I recommend this book highly.

This is an amazing book. I absolutely loved it. I loved it because it really made me feel like I was there. It made me cry when the ship went down, made me elated when they were saved.

Getting the background of the Pride was another good element of this book. Knowing the background allows the reader to make her own decisions about who is at fault for the sinking of the Pride, if anyone.

I strongly recommend this book. It's just, well, great. (And not just because Joe McGeady is my uncle.)

This book had a big meening for me because I knew the crew of the Pride very well.I was on the tall ship Te Vega with Jennifer who was my watch officer. Our crew spent alot of time getting to know the Pride crew.It hit our crew very hard when we heard the Bad news.This book is a must read.

The sinking of the Pride of Baltimore has always been a distinctive mark in my memory. My husband and I were only a blip on the sea when this sad incident happened, but I recall the news with a jolt. We were anchored at Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, when a very unusual storm surge rolled in from the wrong direction. It was a small part of the same storm that took the Pride some 250 miles north. This book is the well-told story of each of the crew's background and how they came together to sail on this coveted journey. I appreciated the book's true facts up to and surrounding this event, instead of merely speculating about what really happened. A great book with unfortunate circumstances, but with the construction of the Pride of Baltimore II to carry on the tradition, it is a salute to all who were affected.

This book is a very good technical read, with strong research, interviews with survivors and those directly involved with the accident to back up the historical account of the PRIDE's loss. It is adventageous to have had a reporter from Baltimore write this story, yet not have had direct involvement with Pride Inc. or the tall ship community, thus a plus. There are however conclusions drawn by the author that lead the reader to believe that tall ship projects which replicate historical vessel's are not worth the risk or potential loss of life. Many with in the tall ship industry disagree. Mr. Waldron was tugged at the readers need, especially in today's society, of "always looking for someone to blame" in any accident. Where were the quote's of the majority, of how great the vessel was? Sadly, there is a constant tone laid out in the book from interviews and quote's from documents that people doubted or simply did not have a handle on Pride's stability and that the vessel was not safe. The author, by viture of his need to make sure the book would sell to the masses at large, leaves you with the impression that the adventure of such projects is not worth the risk, someone is to blame. The USCG and NTSB investigations of the accident found NO negligence or fault on behalf of the organization, crew, vessel or the design under the range of the vessel's operations AND her mission. Acts of Nature happen and often loss of life with those violent acts of nature. The fact that PRIDE II exists, brought to life by the citizens of Maryland, with the same if not stronger mission, proves it is worth it.