Until the Sea Shall Free Them

By: Robert Frump

Narrated by: Luke Smith

The men on the SS Marine Electric sailed into a storm in February 1983 not knowing that they would make history - at a great cost in lives. Just three men survived the wreck of the Marine Electric off the shores of Virginia and they found that their struggle had just begun once they got back to shore. Blamed for the wreck, they fought back and broke a code of silence that had covered up sloppy ship inspections for decades and revealed the flaws in old World War II rust buckets that were still at sea long past their functional lifetime.

A story of adventure at sea and survival in the court systems, Until the Sea Shall Free Them takes on the issues The Perfect Storm presented.

©2000 Doubleday (P)2013 Robert R. Frump, Author

A great book to read

Unfortunately, the narration is awful.
I loved the book. I read the book twice.
Can't listen to it though.

Read by Batman?

This story was very good. I fully expected when it got into the court proceedings that it would bog down & get boring but it didnt. The guy reading it however, bothered me thru the whole book. It sounded like he was auditioning to be Batman or telling a scary story around a campfire. It got old & annoying fast. If you can deal with that, this is a very good book.

Interesting, but not a great listen

The overall effect is Bob Dylan reading bad Hemingway, i.e. frankly annoying, and the writing, while workmanlike, is illiterate in spots: German U-boats did not create a "Maelstrom" for US merchant shipping, for God's sake!

The narrator has a strange, over-dramatic, cadence and the depressingly usual trouble with the unfamiliar: "Admiralty" comes out "admirality", "Dominic" is, inexplicably, "Dominique" (most Doms I knew wouldn't like that at all) and "Babineau" is "Babinow". He affects a bizzarre, ostensibly Bostonian, accent for the he crew members and their families, which sounds like a speech impediment.

Nevertheless, this book is the result of a fine and important piece of journalism and will be of substantial interest and worth the annoyance to anyone enamored of ships, mariners, and tales of survival at sea. I am in that category and it certainly made the dishes and the gym go faster for a week.

Great writing and applicable today

As a professional maritime worker, I found the book informative and insightful. Highly recommend anyone interested in organizational safety and the history of the modern seafarer. The economic underpinnings of vessel life and how many of the items we use or perhaps take for granted move around the world is informative. Great balance with human emotion of the plight of a crew. Thanks

Hidden gem

I wasn’t sure how there could be enough material for this book. There was. The narrator is different than most but I grew to like his style. This truly is a hidden gem.

Excellent!

If you have never been to sea there's enough explanation to help you understand the technical aspects.

If you have been to sea you won't be overwhelmed by unnecessary description and your mind will complete the picture. The author draws a good balance.

Some of the reviews I read dissed the narrator. But I think it was kind of cool to have the story read by Batman.

There was a song written about the MARINE ELECTRIC disaster called "Take your pay" by Jerry Cronin and sung by Dramtreeo. It, like all of Dramtreeo's work, is a good listen.

Incredible story well packaged.

Never a dull moment, this writer captured and presented an amazing narrative of the Marine Electric and surrounding data. Their story was told.

Great story but reader is awful

I simply couldn’t get past the narrator / reader of this book. Awful. He could put babies to sleep.

Important history well told

overall a very well done narrative about a major event that helped improve maritime safety. That said I almost gave up after a couple hours because the narration was really not enjoyable for me.

Worst narrator I've ever heawd

I've ground my way through a few audiobooks with bad narrators. There are the overactors, There are deadpan readings. There are old men who can be heard nose breathing between sentences. There can even be the unforgivable spit swallowing bookending each sentence.

Then there is Luke Smith. Holy crap this guy is horrible to listen to. First of all, he overacts. Each sentence is the one with emphasis. Secondly, he has a forced gravelly tone to sound more intense than he actually is. Its distracting. Its stupid. This book taught me to ALWAYS listen to the free trial before purchase. I wanted to listen to this book after the Brick Immortar YT channel recommended it.

Lastly, Luke Smith has a horrible speech impediment. Though I can't hold it against somebody for having one- you probably shouldn't become AN AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR if you have very inconsistent mastery of "R" and "L".

It comes and goes with such alarming unpredictability that you stop listening to the story and start paying attention to what his stumbling blocks are so you can anticipate and wince in advance. The "ews" and "awhs" are most frequently heard when he does character lines- where the gravelly tone melts away and he tries to sound like a normal person. At first I was blown away that one of the characters had a speech impediment. I thought- "the guy nailed that. Wow. Crazy how the author wrote the book and included the detail of the character having a speech impediment." Then I found out that EVERYBODY has an impediment.

"Where can I stow my gear?" is read as "Wheah can I stoh my geawh?"

Its horrible. I don't think I can finish the book. I'll do it the old fashioned way and read a hard copy myself.