Book dossier

Fatal Forecast

by Michael J. Tougias

A true story of catastrophe and survival at sea. One November morning in 1980, two small lobster boats set out for Georges Bank, a bountiful but perilous fishing ground 130 miles off the Massachusetts coast. The forecast was for typical fall weather--but a colossal storm was brewing to the southeast, a maelstrom the National Weather Service did not accurately locate until the boats were already in its grip. Battered by sixty-foot waves and hurricane-force winds, the crews struggled heroically, but the storm soon crippled one boat and overturned the other, trapping its crew inside. One man managed to crawl inside a tiny inflatable life raft and spent more than fifty terrifying hours adrift on the stormy open sea. That day, brave men and women from the Coast Guard and the crew of a nearby fishing boat imperiled their own lives in order to save the lives of others.--From publisher description.