THE GATHERING WIND

An intense account of the last days and moments aboard the sailing ship Bounty.

Due to its use in the film Mutiny on the Bounty and in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, the tall, wooden-hull Bounty was one of the best-known ships in the tall-ship community. She drew large crowds to her decks while in port but only sailed with her crew due to her inability to pass Coast Guard regulations for "safety and seaworthiness." Using exhaustive research and first-person interviews, Freeman (The Last Mission of the Wham Bam Boys: Courage, Tragedy and Justice in World War II, 2011, etc.) places readers aboard the Bounty during her last voyage—straight into the center of Hurricane Sandy. Although the ship was old and full of wood rot, and despite the warnings he received regarding the superstorm, her captain, Robin Walbridge, chose to set sail from Connecticut for Florida, determined that he could outrun the storm and reach their destination safely. Freeman narrates a harrowing account of the next several days aboard the Bounty as the crew wrestled with the bilge pumps, which could not compete against the massive amounts of water entering the hold through cracks in the hull and from the deck due to the storm swells. When the abandon-ship call finally went out, the Coast Guard was quickly on hand, although the airplane and helicopter crews had their own nightmarish rides through turbulence to reach the survivors of the shipwreck. Written almost minute by minute in places, Freeman's rendering of this horrific storm and the courage of the men and women aboard the Bounty and in the Coast Guard will place readers on edge until the last plane lands safely back at base. On a quieter note, the author includes testimony and reports on the ongoing Coast Guard investigation into the last voyage of the Bounty.

An incredible story of courage, endurance and luck.