Customer Reviews

Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do

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I'm almost done with a recently released book I was given for Christmas, "Ten Hours Until Dawn." I began reading it but two days ago and don't want to put it down! A great read for the winter house-bound mariners up here, or for the most uninitiated landlubber. It's one of, if not the, best sea tales I've ever read.

It's the true story of the disasterous "Great Blizzard of '78" here at Ground Zero on the North Shore of Massachusetts, the grounding of the oil tanker Global Hope about two or three miles from us, and the rescue attempt turned disaster in the worst winter storm in over 100 years.

Between the herculean and selfless efforts of our local Coast Guard out of Gloucester and pilot boat captain Frank Quirk and his volunteer crew of his Can Do, the nail-biting descriptions of the almost unbelievable conditions out there in my sailing grounds, histories of similar marine crises, and the detailed but easily comprehensible explanations, it's one of those books that keeps you awake after midnight to read "just one more chapter."

This story holds a special significance for me not only because I'm so familiar with the locale and sail it every weekend during the season. During that historic storm I was living-aboard an old wooden 46' power boat tied up to our slip on D dock at Beverly Harbor Marina. Conditions got so bad by early evening that a group of us live-aboards got together with all the lines we had among us and we could get our hands on, tied off our dock to pilings and telephone poles and buildings in the parking lot above us. Above us, until the high-tide surge, when our floating dock rose above the hinged ramp, above the stationary wharf thereby stranding us on our boats, above even the sea wall and parking lot. We watched helplessly from our "island" as the rollers swept across the parking lot to our snow-buried cars! Two of the nearby boat-laden docks broke lose! The snow was so deep that if you didn't walk carefully down the very center of the rolling dock in the howling wind, it'd tip and dump you off.

Word had passed around in our marina that an oil tanker was aground just outside Beverly Harbor and that a rescue effort was underway. We saw the Coast Guard's 41-footer make it in to the Jubilee Yacht Club just next door. But we didn't learn about the tragedy just a few miles out until a day or two later; we were too busy ourselves that night to think to turn on the VHF radio. This is the first time I've learned the details -- and they were incredible, horrific!

I probably knew a few of the Coast Guardsmen quoted throughout who were out there facing death. During the summer of 1977 the Coast Guard used to love "boarding" us. Our boat had become a magnet for some of the ladies of an all-women's college just up the coast, and we four young live-aboards usually had a contingent of them aboard. When off-duty, a few of the Coasties would sometimes come down to the boat for a visit and a few brewskies, hoping we had company aboard.

Reading the details of what happened that night is chilling even almost thirty years later. I clearly recall how bad things were that night, but had no idea how much worse they were just a couple miles out in Salem Sound, or the life-and-death drama that was taking place. That *anyone* survived out there is a miracle -- that anyone *went* out there is unimaginable.

This story of the 'Can Do' must have come up during Mr. Tougias' research into his previous book, 'The Blizzard of '78,' (which is still available). The previous book takes place on land, a lot of people stranded on the freeways. This one takes the reader to sea aboard the 'Can Do.'

'Can Do' is the motto of the Navy Seabees, and the captain/owner was a retired Seabee. He must have felt that he 'could do' what the Coast Guard in their 44 footer couldn't do. Although the 'Can Do' was a 49 foot steel hulled ex-pilot boat, it just wasn't up to 40 foot waves and 100 mph winds. When the engine was killed, the boat and its crew were doomed. The 'Can Do' was a strong boat, but the Coast Guard 44's are damn strong. Further the Coast Guard boats are designed for this kind of storm. I'd have been pretty scared to take anything but a submarine out in that kind of weather.

This book is based on the recorded radio messages received from the 'Can Do.' The radio kept working up until the very end, providing an in depth look at a disaster that is rarely seen.

Although there are tremendous similarities to the Sebastian Junger's Perfect Storm masterpiece (the geographical area in which the story takes place), this is not the Perfect Storm. It's a great book which I absolutely could not put down! I live in Beverly, MA which is near where some of the big events in the book take place and it so happened that as I was reading the book, my wife had me drop by a yard sale at the Coast Guard housing in Beverly. What a wonderful book and one which transmits to the reader quickly and artfully the tremendous power of the sea!

for a ship attempting to stay afloat off the New England coast, the weather conditions were even more severe.

A few hours after the horrendous storm began, an oil tanker named GLOBAL HOPE radioed Gloucester's Coast Guard station with a report of a broken hull and water in the engine room. Several search-and-rescue crews were dispatched to aid the tanker. But when the driving snow, high winds, and turbulent waves combined to threaten those boats as well, many turned back to seek harbor safety. The CAN DO, a private pilot boat captained by Frank Quirk, Jr., volunteered its services. Quirk had a history of helping ships in need, and he and four friends set out on the CAN DO to find the tanker. The blizzard proved to be more than their boat could handle, as the storm took out the navigation equipment, engines, and part of the windshield. Frank and his crew eventually joined the scores of mariners throughout history whose lives have been claimed by the sea. In an ironic twist of fate, the GLOBAL HOPE and its sailors survived the gales intact, and all were rescued when the skies cleared.

As the CAN DO's story is unveiled, it is interjected with the telling of other sea-faring tales and men who faced similar obstacles. While this technique serves to build the plot to its climax, it can also frustrate the reader who has to constantly see-saw through time, learning about historical incidents before returning to the book's main characters, over and over again. The reading rocks back and forth as if it too is moving with the sea. Perhaps that's the way it should be, for ultimate effect.

Another challenge for the reader is the lack of maps. This real-life storyline is based on geographics, and we need to be able to imagine the relationships between points on the charts. Here the only map is printed between the table of contents and the prologue, and it's difficult to refer back to it. Maps on the end papers -- or even scaled-down versions at the beginning of each section -- would have made the CAN DO's predicament easier to understand, especially for us inlanders who aren't intimate with the northeastern Bay State coastline.

Nevertheless, Michael Tougias has brought to light an event worthy of more publicity than it has ever previously gotten. The CAN DO and its men can join the ANDREA GAIL ("The Perfect Storm") and the EDMUND FITZGERALD in that regard.

Mesmerizing true tale of men and the sea during the great blizzard of February 1978. If you have ever gone to sea in stormy weather you will be awestruck by this story of the bravery and desperation of seamen engaged in a monumental rescue attempt. Surpasses "The Perfect Storm" in my opinion. A definite candidate for the big screen.

Michael J. Tougias, Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do (St. Martin's, 2005) ***

After the runaway success of The Perfect Storm and In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, I rather expected there to be a flood, pardon the pun, of nonfictional tales of derring-do on the high seas. It never happened; Sebastian Junger turned his attention landward, Nathaniel Philbrick has only released a single book since, and the rest of the literary world seems to have met this possible developing trend with a thundering silence. Until, that is, Mike Tougias released Ten Hours Until Dawn, set in the same basic space of The Perfect Storm, but a number of years in the past, during the Blizzard of 1978, a storm that will long be remembered by anyone who happened to be living in the northeast at the time.

Ten Hours Until Dawn was written by a journalist, which is not normally a bad thing. The downside to it is that journalism makes for great half-pagers, but across two hundred-odd pages, it can get a little dry. Tougias has a very worthwhile story here, and tells it competently; however, it could have been told a bit better.

It's the story of Frank Quirk and his pilot boat Can Do, based out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. When the Global Hope, an oil taker, runs aground a few miles south of Gloucester, the harbor patrol sends a couple of boats out after it, and those two boats get caught in the Blizzard of '78, which roars out of nowhere. One gets lost, and the Can Do goes out after it. Eight hours later, the Can Do, also lost, makes its final radio transmission. From the radio transcripts and the aftermath of the storm, Tougias weaves the tale of what may have happened aboard the Can Do that night, as well as the tales of what happened to those two Coast Guard ships (both of which made it back to port) and the Global Hope. There are a number of times during this narrative where Tougias' journalist style serves it well; the simple just-the-facts-ma'am delivery adds a depth to the action. It stumbles, however, when the subject is the humans themselves; even when Tougias is relating the worlds of the survivors, the prose seems oddly wooden in spots, as if the goal is to check in, get a quote, and get back to the action.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, and an incident that certainly deserved to be enshrined in the national consciousness. Pick it up, give it a go. ***

I recently heard Mr. Tougias speak about this book and he was really interesting. I for one did not realize the sea tragedy of the hurricane of "78 and Mr. Tougias brought it to me all too vividly. This is an excellent read of courage and determination, and shows what one man will do for his fellow man. To me it rates right up there with the "Perfect Storm".

Having lived in the Boston area during the Blizzard of 1978 I was very intrigued with this topic. I was not disappointed. I have read other books and articles by Tougias and am always taken by his writing. Tougias traces the day and evening of the blizzard, comparing the storm to other sea disasters and the amazing swell of activity in Gloucester harbor and sea. The characters Tougias describes in the book brought every aspect of the events out in a very personal, human way. I received this as a Christmas gift and could not put it down until I reached the end. It is a most engaging read!

When I opened the package that contained this book as a Christmas present, I looked at the giver, my wife, and said, "You know about this?" She replied that it was recommended to her by a friend and that inasmuch as we have a boat on the ocean that she thought I would like it.

I did. However, this is a tough book to read whether you have ever slipped from a safe anchorage and ventured out into the ocean or not.

Frank Quirk, the owner and captain of the "Can Do" (he was a SeaBee and that is their motto) is a person we would all want to have known. Brave, humble, already a hero, a family man and to all who knew him a caring friend, he left his home port of Gloucester, Massachusetts as a winter storm approached to go to the aid of a tanker that had called for help from Salem. Quirk's boat was a pilot boat, but being steel built and having done this before and believing he could help sent him into a storm that no one could have imagined.

The Blizzard of '78 is a legend in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The rest of New England was spared its awesome wrath and for that reason, being from Maine I have no particular memory of this storm which caused such devestation to the south of us.

I somewhat understand what motivates people to leave a safe haven and venture into a malestrom in order to assist others in peril. The Coast Guard has a saying: "You have to go out, but you dont (necessarily) have to come back."

Frank Quirk was not on a CG vessel, nevertheless he launched because he thought he could be helpful as he had in the past.

Little did he realize what he was steaming into.

Michael Tougias has crafted a haunting book about the Blizzard of '78'.It is not an easy read, but it is very worthwhile to learn of lives well led, of family devotion, of uncommon bravery and in the end how this storm continues to claim it's victims.

It is a well done chronicle of bravery and loyalty which we all should reflect on.

Interesting and sad story of the members of a pilot boat Can Do, who go out to help a stranded tanker that did not need help. This tragedy is part of the larger recounting of rescue and loss during the Blizzard of '78 that devastated the Massachusetts and Rhode Island coasts. I was captivated by the transcripts of the actual communications between Coast Guard boats, the Can Do and the Global Hope tanker. There is great detail regarding the Coast Guard as an service and the individuals who were part of the rescue services. As I was listening to the recording, my only minor complaint was the artificial Boston area accent utlized by the reader. Otherwise, no complaints.