But just as he has kept us hooked so far, despite our knowing from the start that the Andrea Gail and her crew are doomed, so he manages with considerable reporting skill to conjure up their last hours. He has evidence from other boats that survive. He has the tale of those on board the yacht Satori, who come to grief in the Great South Channel off Cape Cod. He has the experience of a Canadian fishery observer, Judith Reeves, on board a battered, flooded and drifting Japanese long-liner, the Eishin Maru. He follows the efforts of the Coast Guard to rescue a man and two women on the Satori and the travails of the Air National Guard hoping to pick up a Japanese yachtsman in trouble farther south.
Conditions make a pickup impossible.
Although the yachtsman is later taken off by a cargo ship, the Air National Guard helicopter is unable to refuel in the air, in zero visibility, on the way back to base on Long Island, and has to ditch. Even if you have never been to sea, Junger's account will put the frighteners on you. Not all of Junger's information is vital to his task. His analysis of increases in wave energy is strong in math but may distract from the violent wind-backed weight of water he is trying to convey. It may be, as one skipper says, that you're too busy at such moments to think about drowning.