Download Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea AudioBook Free
“HEAVEN HELP THE SAILOR OVER A NIGHT LIKE THIS.”
–old folk prayer
In late December 1951, loaded with passengers and almost forty metric a great deal of cargo, the freighter S.S. Flying Enterprise steamed westward from Europe toward America. A couple of days in to the voyage, she hit the eye of any ferocious storm. Force 12 winds tossed men about like playthings and turned drops of freezing Atlantic foam into icy missiles. When, in the area of twenty-eight hours, the ship was slammed by two rogue waves–solid walls of water more than sixty feet high–the impacts cracked the decks and hull almost right down to the waterline, threw the vessel over on her behalf side, and thrust all up to speed into terror.
Flying Enterprise’s captain, Kurt Carlsen, a seaman of rare ability and valor, mustered all hands to patch the cracks and then make an effort to right the ship. When these efforts came to naught, he helped transfer, across waves forty feet high, the passengers and the entire crew to lifeboats sent from nearby ships. Then, for reasons both professional and intensely personal, and to the amazement of the world, Carlsen defied all requests and entreaties to abandon ship. Instead, for another fourteen days, he fought to bring Flying Enterprise and her cargo to port. His heroic endeavor became the world’s biggest news.
In a narrative as dramatic as the ocean’s fury, acclaimed bestselling author Frank Delaney tells, for the first time, the entire story of this unmatched bravery and endurance at sea. We meet the devoted family whose well-being and safety impelled Carlsen to remain with his ship. And we read of Flying Enterprise’s buccaneering owner, the fearless and unorthodox Hans Isbrandtsen, who played a crucial role in Kurt Carlsen’s fate.
Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen’s family, Delaney opens a window in to the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection–and respect–for the elements and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a “biblical tempest” of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the thirty-seven-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew. That is a gripping, absorbing narrative that highlights one man’s outstanding fortitude and heroic sense of duty.
“One of the great sea stories of the twentieth century… [a] surefire nautical crowd-pleaser.”
--Booklist é (starred review)
“Frank Delaney has written a totally absorbing, thrilling and inspirational account of a tragedy at sea that occasioned heroism of the first order. Within the hands of any gifted storyteller,
the ‘simple courage’ of the ship’s captain and the young radio man who risked their lives to bring a mortally wounded ship to port reveals the essence and power of most true courage–
a stubborn devotion to the items we love.”
–Senator John McCain
