Ten Hours Until Dawn

The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do

By: Michael J. Tougias

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

During the height of the blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat, but was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. Then pilot boat captain Frank Quirk, hearing of the Coast Guard's troubles on his radio, decided to act. He gathered his crew of four, readied his 49-foot steel boat, the Can Do, and entered the maelstrom of the blizzard that was to become known as the "Storm of the Century".

Encountering one of the most monstrous seas ever recorded, Quirk struggled through the night to keep his boat from being driven to the depths of the sea, maintaining contact with a local ham-radio operator through his hand-held battery-powered radio. We know that the Can Do stayed afloat past three a.m. Then there was silence.

AudioFile Earphones Award Winner

©2005 Michael J. Tougias (P)2006 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

• AudioFile Earphones Award Winner

"Tougias balances human and technical detail to create the best book of its kind since Sebastian Jungier's The Perfect Storm." (Booklist)
"Tougias delivers a well researched, vividly written tale of brave men overwhelmed by the awesome forces of nature. An absorbing account." (Publishers Weekly)

A riveting story

Those of us who grew up during, and remember well, the winter of 1977-78 in the Midwest and Northeast, were amazed by the snow that kept on falling the last week of January and first week of February 1978. No doubt, we were all tuned to our radios and TVs waiting for the school closure announcements. This true story brings to life one of the unfortunate side effects that came with the snowfront.

The author did extensive research and interviews with many of the people who were on board the USCG ships, as well as the radio men, and the loved ones of the Can Do's crew. Much like a Ken Burns film, you hope history will turn out differently than it did.

This recording has three gems:

1) Great narration that gives character to the people portrayed;
2) The author's notes about the book's evolution; and
3) Actual recordings of some the radio transmissions of the boats and radio operators that are at the core of the story.

Highly recommended!

It's a documentary

This book obviously will be compared to "The Perfect Storm". Whereas that book tell a more dramatized story, this book is more like a documentary. It efficiently steps through the events of that day, offers background info on all the main characters and tells the story of the storm. It even includes the actual audio tapes of the radio transmissions - a nice touch for an audio book.

The book provides detailed information on how the events take place and you get a good idea of what actually happened.

As for the uncritical admiration for the main characters - I just could not buy it. Throughout their lives they have dedicated themselves to helping others, which is indeed admirable. But it seemed to me they were foolish to do what they did on the day of the storm.

Good story but long winded

This book is well researched but not well edited. The story is gripping but too much detail on other stories. Very difficult to follow with all the side stories.

Gripping true story

Enjoyed every minute of it. I grew up during this storm so it hit home hard.

Great Story

How could the performance have been better?

The phony New England accent ruined the audiobook. People don't talk like that in New England. When people try to duplicate the authentic NE accent they overdo it and ruin it. He's terrible.

Good but maybe not great

I have listened to a lot of maritime disaster stories. I thought this was a good one, but maybe not a great one. I kept wondering why the author chose this story to tell, though the author does attempt to explain his interest at the end of the book. A relatively small boat with a small crew goes out in a storm at night and never returns. Seems pretty unremarkable on the face of it. The captain of the vessel has been lauded as a hero, but for me the book raises a lot of questions about that. Like what business did the captain really have being out in a storm at night? True, he was trying to help the crew of a tanker, but in reality he was unlikely to be much help to them given the weather conditions.

The story is focused on the Can Do, There are also other rescue ships that get some attention. Meanwhile, the tanker in distress that started events in motion gets too little attention here. The crew of the tanker had a story to tell, too. Maybe they did not want to tell it. In any case, the tanker and its crew is mostly ignored.

The story is brought to life largely thanks to radio transmissions. However, the radio transmissions fade out as the Can Do nears its harrowing end, so there is a certain amount of speculation necessary here to piece together what really happened. I should also mention that while the radio transmissions are recited by the narrator as the story unfolds, the actual radio transmission recordings are not replayed until the very end of the book.

I felt the story was a bit thin. There are a lot of side stories about other shipwrecks interspersed throughout. Some of these stories go back to the 1700s. The stories are interesting, and sometimes illuminating, but also seemed to distract from the main story. And of course every character has to have a back story, so there is a fair amount of biographical information about the crew, would-be rescuers, etc. It often felt like a lot of filler to me.

Perhaps where the book has the most to offer is as a record of the northeast blizzard of 1978, mostly from the angle of those who had to be out at sea during the storm.

80% has nothing to do with story-line

I listened through this, but I'll not get anything else by this author. Although about 20% has bearing on the story, the rest is peripherally related to the sea, and is dry hearsay with some history thrown in.

I lived it.

As a resident of Scituate during the blizzard of '78, I loved Tougias' book. I knew both victims from Scituate, Mr. Hart, and little Amy. I met Amy's mother when she first moved to town. The book was accurate, and described the ocean during that storm about as well as could be. One would have to witness such sights and sounds for oneself to ever really know what it was like. Sadly, I am sorry I bought the audiobook. Narrators and actors who have to force a Bostonian accent would better serve their audience by forgoing the attempt. I tried to listen despite the annoyance of the narrators horrible and exagerated accent, but I had to shut the ipod off after hearing his mangling of the pronounciation of Scituate. As a south shore Bostonian, the massachusetts accent was like nails on a chalkboard. His pronounciation of Scituate was a downright insult. To the narrator I can only say, "for shame sir, for shame. The tale itself would have held the reader spellbound. Your use of this tale as a practice session for broadening your acting skills was a dismal failure."
If you're from the midwest, you might be able to listen to this for the story and not be annoyed. If you can read the book for yourself, I enthusiastically recommend it. Personally I believe that Mr. Barrett has ruined Mr. Tougias' meticulous research and fine story telling skills.

Not to happy

Boring, lousy pacing, poor story telling!

Yawn...! Again.

The Good -
The story at the high point of the storm is interesting, but beyond that there's not much.

The Not So Good -
Most of the rest of the book. Perhaps it is just the writing of Tougias? Granted, this is the first book I've listened to/read by him, but if the rest are like this I'd have to assume someone told him he was really good at writing books about this subject matter so he does it even though the story is not that interesting? Or, perhaps he is unable to make what should be an interesting story, interesting?

The Bad -
Too much filler put in. I held out all the way through to the end. I hoped it would get better and while it wasn't really "bad" it just wasn't that good. I'd never finish a "bad" book. Life's too short for that.

The Narration -
The performance was alright for this book. Barrett seemed to have the right voice and cadence for the subject matter, but he is not a narrator that I would search out. His voice is a little gravely and seemed to detract from the story at times, but that could be because the subject matter was detailed so poorly by the writing?

The Overall -
Probably going to kill this one from the library. I have no interest in listening again because nothing jumped out at me and made me say "tell me again". You want a really good book in a somewhat related topic get Trapped Under the Sea!