Whipped Cream Difficulties

I’ve been reading a fair number of books about shipwrecks recently. I owe everyone longer reviews, but The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald gets an unqualified rave from me, while Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death, and Survival in the Merchant Marine gets a slightly qualified endorsement.

I haven’t read this book yet, but when I saw the NYT obit for John Rousmaniere, I felt like I had to mention it. (Share link, may require you to register or put in an email address or something.)

He was an author and a sailing historian.

He wrote “The Annapolis Book of Seamanship,” a practical reference that has been used by the U.S. Naval Academy and many recreational sailors, first published in 1983 and now in its fourth edition. In a more lyrical vein, he wrote “The Golden Pastime: A New History of Yachting” (1986).

But his most famous book is probably Fastnet, Force 10: The Deadliest Storm in the History of Modern Sailing.

He was an experienced offshore sailor when he joined the crew of a 48-foot Swan sloop, one of 300 yachts entered in the Fastnet Race in August 1979, with a planned route of 605 miles from the Isle of Wight to Fastnet Rock off Ireland and back.
A freakish storm slammed the fleet with gale-force winds and 50-foot frothing waves. Mr. Rousmaniere was at the wheel of the vessel when the owner raised his head from monitoring radio traffic and said, “People are dying out here.”
Amid seas that flipped 35-foot yachts “like bathtub toys,” as Mr. Rousmaniere later wrote, 24 crews abandoned their vessels, and 15 sailors died. Helicopter crews and commercial and naval seamen rescued 136 sailors.

…

As Mr. Rousmaniere intended, the book helped spur changes that made yacht racing safer. Boats evolved to become less prone to capsize; harnesses that tether sailors to their boats became stronger; and education about the risks of offshore sailing, and how to survive life-threatening scenarios, became more than an afterthought. Mr. Rousmaniere also helped to create the U.S. Sailing Association’s Safety at Sea course, which some 2,500 sailors take every year.

Margo Howard, columnist. (NYT share link, you know the drill.) I used to read, and enjoy, “Dear Prudence” in Slate before they replaced her, and went off the deep end.