“John Kretschmer has transformed this story of three men on a collision course with a hurricane into a modern seafaring classic.”—Peter Nielsen, editor of SAIL magazine
“With expert analysis and taut writing, he draws readers into that mad storm. You can’t turn away. You keep reading until it breaks your heart.”—Fred Grimm, columnist for the Miami Herald
“Once begun, his vivid and powerful narrative is impossible to put down.”—Derek Lundy, author of Godforsaken Sea and The Way of a Ship
“I felt I knew Carl Wake, because John Kretschmer found in him an archetype—an aging sailor with an age-old dream.”—Jim Carrier, transatlantic sailor and author of The Ship and the Storm: Hurricane Mitch and the Loss of the Fantome
“A remarkable book, impossible to put down.”—Herb McCormick, sailing journalist
John Kretschmer, a professional sailor and writer, has logged more than 200,000 offshore sailing miles, including fifteen transatlantic and two transpacific passages. He is a longtime contributing editor to Sailing magazine and a sailing/travel columnist for the Miami Herald. John lives aboard a 47-foot cutter in Florida. He and his student Carl Wake, the subject of this book, were close friends.