Pop quiz: What’s the scariest of the four elements? Fire might be the obvious choice, but when you really consider the ocean—from its unknowable vastness to its terrifying power and the diversity of creatures who call it home—water is a sneakily strong contender. Perhaps that’s why there’s nothing like a rip-roaring survival yarn from the high seas, a subgenre so popular that a canon has surfaced from the roiling depths. Whether penned by masterful historians and authors or relayed via the firsthand accounts of passengers, crew, and other survivors, these are 12 of the most perilous sea tales ever told.
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the 19th century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the 20th. In 1819 the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with 20 crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific, the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than 90 days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, and disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival.
More than 100 years ago, the mightiest "unsinkable" ship began her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. An engineering feat 11 stories high, the Titanic contained a list of passengers collectively worth $250 million when she left port on April 10, 1912, but she would never reach her destination. The Titanic collided with an iceberg on the night of April 14, and 1,500 people died in the freezing waters as the ship met her watery grave. Spectacular in many ways, it's a story that has spurred legends and still sends shivers down the spine more than a century later. This minute-by-minute account of the sinking is based on over 20 years of research and offers amazing detail of that fateful night.
On May 1, 1915, with World War I entering its 10th month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He was wrong.
Simon Prebble narrates the thrilling account of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded. In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world. Author Alfred Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains.
A crew of 47 aboard an Alaskan fishing boat ominously nicknamed “The Danger Ranger” had been counting on a final run deep into the Bering Sea as a last-ditch effort to save a mediocre fishing season. Before ever arriving, they had to abandon ship in 32-degree water amid 20-foot swells and driving snow. Their last hope? A cook making the key calls, a helicopter running out of fuel, and a rookie rescue swimmer who had never saved anyone in open water. On one level, this is the true-life story of the Alaska Ranger sinking and of the rescue that followed—the most daring in the history of the Bering. Below the surface, however, lies a story that is about guilt and bravery, pain and pride, and both the worst and, most important, the best of who we are.
It takes a narrator like George Newbern to tell a tale as extraordinary as that of the longest survival at sea on record. Salvador Alvarenga’s story is full of near-unbelievable details, from shark attacks to harrowing storms with many things in between, and an emotionally heavy-handed performance would overwhelm the narrative. Instead, Newbern tells Alvarenga’s account with expert simplicity, allowing the astounding events to speak for themselves. Hardcore survivalists can revel in the opportunity to consider how they would survive over a year at sea while following along with Alvarenga’s makeshift solutions, like fishing with boat motor parts and sewing with fishbone needles, to some truly inconceivable survival challenges.
Journalist Sebastian Junger's whale of a bestseller, The Perfect Storm, examines the 1991 incident when a commercial fishing vessel called the Andrea Gail sailed directly into a "perfect storm" of 100+ mile-an-hour winds and waves more than 110 feet high. Combining an intimate portrait of the Gail's small fishing crew with fascinating scientific data about boats and weather systems, Junger gives the account an unpausable immediacy, while narrator Richard M. Davidson imbues the tale with suspense and authenticity.
Masterfully narrated by Simon Vance, winner of 14 Audie Awards and 61 Earphone Awards, comes the heartbreaking true story of a natural disaster and the resilience of Japan. From journalist and People Who Eat Darkness author Richard Lloyd Parry comes a unique and meticulously researched account of the aftermath of Japan's deadly 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.
On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda Triangle and swallowed the container ship El Faro whole, resulting in the worst American shipping disaster in 35 years. No one could fathom how a vessel equipped with satellite communications, a sophisticated navigation system, and cutting-edge weather forecasting could suddenly vanish. Relying on hundreds of exclusive interviews with family members and maritime experts, as well as the words of the crew members captured by the ship’s data recorder, journalist Rachel Slade unravels the mystery of the sinking of El Faro and casts new light on the men and women who paid the ultimate price in the name of profit.
If your knowledge of the USS Indianapolis disaster is mostly confined to the most haunting scene in Jaws, know that the full story of the incident is every bit as terrifying as Robert Shaw's Quint makes it out to be. In this acclaimed audiobook, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic take a long look at the ship, which sank in World War II after carrying the components for the atom bomb, and its lasting impact on American history. The authors look beyond her actions in the war to her captain, who was court-martialed following the events, and the 60-year fight for truth and justice. John Bedford Lloyd's narration is riveting.
A relentless tale of shipwreck, survival, treachery, and the darker depths of human nature, The Wager is a triumph of narrative nonfiction. When a crew of marooned sailors thought lost after a shipwreck build a slipshod craft and sail to shore, they receive a hero's welcome. But six months later, three other survivors emerged from the sea, claiming their crewmates were far from innocent. As engrossing as you expect from David Grann, this gripping audiobook is heightened by the commanding performance of audio veteran Dion Graham.
Less outright disaster and more perplexing riddle, The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel explores the disappearance of a celebrated inventor who vanished into thin air on the eve of World War I. Rudolf Diesel, whose internal combustion engine was on the verge of revolutionizing the industry, was aboard the steamship Dresden between Belgium and England when he disappeared, leaving many to wonder whether it was an accident, suicide, or perhaps murder; Diesel's powerful enemies included Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller. In this thrilling, Scott Brick-narrated history, Douglas Brunt reopens a 100-year-old cold case and suggests a startling new solution.
