We had an exciting night at book club meeting we had discussing this book. We were joined by a journalist from our local newspaper who is doing a feature piece on book clubs and after interviewing me over the phone about book clubs at the store, she asked if there was one she could come to and the timing just happened to work out that nonfiction book club was meeting the next day!

She started by taking pictures of the book club displays in the store, and then as members started arriving and talking, she sat down to interview them as well. Thankfully, the group is full of chatters and people who LOVE to share their opinions, which I think makes for a great book club. Hopefully the journalist got some good copy, and I’ll share the link to the article when it’s published!

As for the book, I love a good sea/shipwreck story. Dead Wake has been a favorite book of mine since my old book club read it years ago and is part of the inspiration for my continuing nonfiction kick. Add in the fact that the loss of the mariners and ship was preventable, and we all had a lot to talk about.

It’s next to impossible to believe that, in 2015, ships are allowed to sail without modern GPS systems. When the ship went down, the coast guard had absolutely no way of locking down it’s last known location. The company that owned El Faro couldn’t be bothered to keep the ship in good working order, or even track their own ship. While Rachel focuses on the ship and crew for the bulk of the book, she alluded to so many other issues, from global warming to shipping monopolies, to government corruption and corporate cover ups.

The pacing of the book reads like a long form essay, and I could see a piece on the El Faro in the New Yorker or Atlantic serving as a jumping off point for the many books that have been published since. Alternating between actual conversations had by the crew, history of the shipping industry, the first three quarters of the book focuses on the history of the company and the concerns of the crew regarding their route. The last quarter of the book starts when the ground lost contact with the ship and details the rescue efforts and subsequent hearings.

The book finishes with the final words of the crew as they face their fate. Despite knowing their fate, the tension in the moment, knowing that their final words were captured for the world to read, it gave me goosebumps. Overall, we loved the book as a group, and I personally thought it was a spectacularly written book. ( )

This book makes an interesting comparison with George Foy's "Run the Storm", as author Rachel Slade takes a very different approach to the telling of the SS El Faro tragedy. While Foy is a writer with a maritime background, Slade is a journalist with no grounding in matters of the sea. So a camparison of the styles is most enlightening.

The origins of this book lay in an article Slade wrote for Yankee magazine, a regional publication focusing on the state of Maine. Her article was about the El Faro officers with connections with the state, so to create the book Slade greatly expanded the scope of her writing to encompass the entirety of the El Faro saga: its design and construction, its personnel and their families, the corporate entities that managed the operations of the ship, and the searchers and would be rescuers for the ship and crew. Slade's subsequent book, "Into the Raging Sea" was published in 2018 with 416 pages divided into two parts with a total of 32 fairly short chapters.

The author's treatment of the El Faro story is as a fabric woven with many threads. Slade introduces those threads at different points in the book. For example, the first chapter is about the calls made by the El Faro's master, Captain Michael Davidson, to the offices of TOTE Marine services less than an hour before the ship sank. Then Chapter 2 sees the ship being loaded at Blount Island Terminal in Jacksonville, Florida on the eve of the ship's fatal sailing. Chapter 3 brings in the development of Hurricane Juaquin, and so on. Therre are chapters on the crew members, the captain, on the design and construction of the ship, on the El Faro's service life, on the Puerto Rican economy and the maritime logistics that support it, on the TOTE corporate struction and leadership, the search fo the ship after its loss, the investigations, and the associated hearings, and,finally, the families. Each chapter is brief, which makes for quick reading, even if the story wasn't so compelling.

This book's differences from Foy's "Run the Storm' are significant. Foy writes as a sailor and is clearly comfortable with maritime subject. Slade is not at home with ships and the sea, and she relies on interviews with experienced mariners to fill in the details. Foy takes you through the fatal voyage from beginning to end, departing from the storyline to provide a detail or two on subjects that required a bit more depth. Slade ushers you in and out of the timeline to explain aspects of the tragedy. While there is sadness in Foy's telling, Slade clearly condemns the corporate world that is willing to sacrifice precious human lives as well as a healthy and stable world climate in search of higher profits and happier shareholders.

In my readings of the two books, I give Slade's work the higher marks. Her investigation into the El Faro disaster goes far deeper than Foy's effort, and her reveals about TOTE's corporate ethic are as disturbing as they are unsuprising in 21st century America. One can easily make the comparison between the El Faro's 2015 sinking and the destroyer collisions that plagued the U.S. Navy two years later. The corporate bodies involved (TOTE and the U.S. Navy) initially accepted no fault for these accidents and pushed blame down on the individual ship captains, who were either relieved for cause or perished. Aside from the question of maritime competence, it sure appears that the character of a nation is in decline. ( )

The story of the sinking of El Faro off the coast of the Bahamas. El Faro was a cargo ship that sailed right into Hurricane Joaquin. From reading, I can deduce that the captain received erroneous information but also that when advised of such by crew members he chose to ignore them. All 33 crew members lost their lives. Just surprised this took place in 2015. My only complaint was again, rather rough flashbacks ( )

In October 2015, the container ship El Faro sailed into hurricane Joaquin. Joaquin grew into one of the worst storms in the history of Atlantic weather. 33 lives were gone in instant.

[a:Rachel Slade|17181847|Rachel Slade|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], an investigative journalist, took on a story that should have held me captive. I love non-fiction, and this type of book is one of my favorite genres. Instead, I found myself finishing it only out of respect for the families who lost their love ones in this disaster.
here's why:

Instead of sticking to the meat of the story, Slade wander's off into the history of, not just container shipping, but all ships. She meanders in weather and wind, where in IMO, she did not have the knowledge to go and so had some weather geek help her. I am not a science person, and frankly neither she is. It is too bad, because this book could have been, should have been at least 4 stars from me. Had she only done what she does best, and tell the story of the men and women aboard that ship.

The author has not totally alienated me. Should she write another book, I would give her another chance. If you are a science person, you may like this more than I. ( )

I remember the 2015 sinking of the container ship El Faro when it got caught in Hurricane Joaquin in the Caribbean, and wondered how and why a U.S. ship with modern navigation devices and availability of accurate weather forecasts would have been in the area. I recently came across two audio books dealing with that maritime disaster. Both are based on the recovered ship voice recordings, the Coast Guard inquest hearings, as well as numerous interviews of family members, rescue team members, and corporate employees familiar with the incident.

The first of the books I found was "Into the Storm: Two Ships, a Deadly Hurricane, and an Epic Battle for Survival", by Tristram Korten. The second was titled "Into the Raging Sea", by ​R​achel Slade.

Both describe in graphic detail how a huge American container ship found its way into the eye of a hurricane and was sunk with all hands in October, 2015. The ship tracked the storm for several days, and should have easily managed to sail around the worst of the hurricane, yet it did the opposite. The books detail how the hurricanes path was difficult to predict, how it didn't follow the predicted path as expected, and how the ship's captain failed to understand that the shipboard storm data he was receiving was not as current as he believed. He also appeared to be overconfident in the ability of the ship to ride out the storm, expecting to be on the edges of the hurricane heading FROM the storm instead of INTO it, and quite probably was feeling pressure from the home office to deliver his cargo on-time as promised and without wasting valuable fuel and time by steering an alternate path.

Like black boxes on commercial aircraft, the SS El Faro ​voice recording system ​on the ship's bridge record​ed the conversations of the Captain and deck officers as the storm developed and worsened. The recordings continued ​from just prior to the ​development of the ​storm, right up until the time the captain order​ed​ "abandon ship" as the ship was going down. The recordings give a sense of building tension as the storm worsened, and as some of the ship's officers tried to talk the Captain into navigating a longer but safer path. The books also identify problems with the ship beyond the misunderstandings associated with the hurricane path and speed. Cargo shifted during the storm, faulty deck coverings allowed water to flood certain compartments, a poor design resulted in loss of the ships propulsion engines due to loss of suction on main oil pumps ​caused by the ship's port side list, the lifeboats were outdated, the ships anemometer, or wind gauge, had been broken for years, etc., etc., etc.

I would not hesitate to recommend either of these books for readers interested in maritime stories. Tristram Korten's book, "Into the Storm", also includes a gripping description of how the Coast Guard responded to the sinking of ​the SS El Faro as well as the successful rescue of the crew on another ship caught in the effects of the hurricane, the MV Minouche. The heroism of the Coast Guard rescue helicopter team and especially the elite Coast Guard swimmers is must reading.

Rachel Slade's book "Into the Raging Sea", might use ​a ​more ​​dramatic writing​ style​. It contains less information about the Coast Guard rescue teams sent into the storm to try to​ find and​ rescue survivors, ​but goes into more detail about the ​search and ​recovery of the audio recording ​"black box" ​from the El Faro. She's also a little more critical of the ship's Master, Captain Davidson, and the decisions he made as the storm sailed into the hurricane. She also pays ​a more complete ​tribute to each member of the crew by including each crewman' name, place of residence, and position.

I also came across a third related book, which I haven't read, which is titled "Run the Storm: A Savage Hurricane, a Brave Crew, and the Wreck of the SS El Faro, by George Michelsen Foy. I can't comment on Foy's book, but assume its basic content will be similar to the first two I mentioned.
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