Surviving the Storms: Extraordinary Stories of Courage and Compassion at Sea PDF Download

Author: The RNLI
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0008390134
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
‘There’s water in the engine,’ he said. ‘The engine has stopped.’ This changed everything...

Author: Nikki Girvan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Lifeboat crew members
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
'There's water in the engine,' he said. 'The engine has stopped.' This changed everything... Surviving the Storms brings together incredible first-hand accounts of rescues carried out by the remarkable RNLI lifesavers. In this collection of heart-wrenching and life-affirming missions, we hear blow-by-blow descriptions of some of the most dramatic rescues from the last twenty years. We experience these through the eyes of the lifesavers as they must make life-or-death decisions, face fierce conditions and tackle difficult and dangerous situations. But we also see the optimism, passion and courage that is crucial to a successful rescue, and experience the genuine joy felt by the volunteer crews and lifeguards in being a part of something so important. Each remarkable story is one of bravery, jeopardy and an unrelenting commitment to battling the forces of nature and saving every life. Volunteers are the lifeblood of the RNLI - men, women, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, all forming one big crew determined to protect perfect strangers. They are ordinary people doing the truly extraordinary.

Author: Lorna Siggins
Publisher: Merrion Press
ISBN: 1785373587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
On 13 March 2017, the Rescue 116 crew of Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick, Capt. Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby and Ciarán Smith took off from Dublin airport just after 2300 hours for a medical evacuation off the west coast. The first indication of disaster came when the crew failed to answer a radio call at 12.46 a.m. At 02.16 hours, sister helicopter Rescue 118 spotted a casualty and debris in the water. There would be no survivors from R116, and extensive searches failed to locate the bodies of two of the four crew. The crash occurred just six months after the loss of another experienced volunteer, Caitriona Lucas from Doolin Coast Guard in Co Clare; and 18 years after the loss of four Air Corps crew who were returning from a night rescue in thick fog off the south-east coast. In Search and Rescue, Lorna Siggins exposes the shocking systemic flaws that led to these tragic deaths, but also looks at successful rescues where, despite all the odds, the courage and dedication of members of the Irish Coast Guard and the volunteers who work with them have saved countless lives, including the dramatic rescue of paddleboarders Sara Feeney and Ellen Glynn off the coast of Clare in 2020.

Author: Peter Geye
Publisher: Unbridled Books
ISBN: 1609530578
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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"Against the dramatic Northern Minnesota lakeshore, a son and his father reconnect thirty-five years after the father has survived the tragic wreck of a Great Lakes ore boat."--Back cover.

Author: Scott O'Dell
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0395069629
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Far off the coast of California looms a harsh rock known as the island of San Nicholas. Dolphins flash in the blue waters around it, sea otter play in the vast kep beds, and sea elephants loll on the stony beaches. Here, in the early 1800s, according to history, an Indian girl spent eighteen years alone, and this beautifully written novel is her story. It is a romantic adventure filled with drama and heartache, for not only was mere subsistence on so desolate a spot a near miracle, but Karana had to contend with the ferocious pack of wild dogs that had killed her younger brother, constantly guard against the Aleutian sea otter hunters, and maintain a precarious food supply. More than this, it is an adventure of the spirit that will haunt the reader long after the book has been put down. Karana's quiet courage, her Indian self-reliance and acceptance of fate, transform what to many would have been a devastating ordeal into an uplifting experience. From loneliness and terror come strength and serenity in this Newbery Medal-winning classic.

Author: Tori Murden McClure
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061718866
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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"In the end," writes Tori McClure, "I know I rowed across the Atlantic to find my heart, but in the beginning, I wasn't aware that it was missing." During June 1998, Tori McClure set out to row across the Atlantic Ocean by herself in a twenty-three-foot plywood boat with no motor or sail. Within days she lost all communication with shore, but nevertheless she decided to keep going. Not only did she lose the sound of a friendly voice, she lost updates on the location of the Gulf Stream and on the weather. Unfortunately for Tori, 1998 is still on record as the worst hurricane season in the North Atlantic. In deep solitude and perilous conditions, she was nonetheless determined to prove what one person with a mission can do. When she was finally brought to her knees by a series of violent storms that nearly killed her, she had to signal for help and go home in what felt like complete disgrace. Back in Kentucky, however, Tori's life began to change in unexpected ways. She fell in love. At the age of thirty-five, she embarked on a serious relationship for the first time, making her feel even more vulnerable than sitting alone in a tiny boat in the middle of the Atlantic. She went to work for Muhammad Ali, who told her that she did not want to be known as the woman who "almost" rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. And she knew that he was right. In this thrilling story of high adventure and romantic quest, Tori McClure discovers through her favorite way—the hard way—that the most important thing in life is not to prove you are superhuman but to fully to embrace your own humanity. With a wry sense of humor and a strong voice, she gives us a true memoir of an explorer who maps her world with rare emotional honesty.

Author: Dean King
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0759509697
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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b.A masterpiece of historical adventure, ISkeletons on the Zahara The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub -- and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate battle for survival in the face of human hostility, starvation, dehydration, death and despair. Captured, robbed and enslaved, the sailors were dragged and driven through the desert by their new owners, who neither spoke their language nor cared for their plight. Reduced to drinking urine, flayed by the sun, crippled by walking miles across burning stones and sand and losing over half of their body weights, the sailors struggled to hold onto both their humanity and their sanity. To reach safety, they would have to overcome not only the desert but also the greed and anger of those who would keep them in captivity. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes and a gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.

Author: Deborah Heiligman
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)
ISBN: 1250187559
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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From award-winning author Deborah Heiligman comes Torpedoed, a true account of the attack and sinking of the passenger ship SS City of Benares, which was evacuating children from England during WWII. Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set sail for Canada with one hundred children on board. When the war ships escorting the Benares departed, a German submarine torpedoed what became known as the Children's Ship. Out of tragedy, ordinary people became heroes. This is their story. This title has Common Core connections.

Author: Alan Gratz
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545880874
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling novel from Alan Gratz tells the timely--and timeless--story of three different kids seeking refuge. A New York Times bestseller! JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world... ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America... MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe... All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers -- from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories together in the end. As powerful and poignant as it is action-packed and page-turning, this highly acclaimed novel has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years and continues to change readers' lives with its meaningful takes on survival, courage, and the quest for home.

Author: John Rousmaniere
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 9780071377959
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
An exploration of loss and survival by one of America's finest nautical writers After the Storm is John Rousmaniere's most ambitious work ever, the unique expression of a master storyteller and authority on seamanship who has survived storms at sea. Each of the book's stories of seafaring disaster­­many little known, all exciting and of deep human interest­­presents a broad human drama. Rousmaniere tells of the hopes and choices that put these sailors in harm's way. He takes readers into the gales themselves with authoritative knowledge of horrific weather and the split-second decisions that seamen must make. Finally, he explores the consequences of these disasters for survivors, rescuers, families, communities, and in some cases nations. The pursuit of these elusive strands leads the reader deep into our ambivalent relationship with the sea as both "destroyer and preserver."