George Michelsen Foy

Run the Storm by George Michelsen Foy is an account of the sinking of the merchant marine vessel, SS El Faro. A lack of proper understanding of the storm that would become Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 storm was the initial tumbling block in a series of bad knowledge, bad ship policies by the parent company, bad ship conditions, and bad decision making by the captain lead to the deaths of 33. Depressing in that after the investigation, little was actually done to prevent such events happening in the future, and legislation passed was more lip-service than meaningful requirements...all boiling down to pressure from those with vested financial interests.

Foy explains how things work, things that contributed to the sinking of SS El Faro. I never really understood the making of a hurricane and how it could go from an insignificant low far away to a category 4 shipwrecker. Now I do. Nor did I understand the inner workings of a merchant marine vessel - it's loading and engine functions. Now I do. Nor did I really understand the corporate policies that make delivering a cargo more important than the lives of the crew.

Investigations into sinkings need to have more teeth. They need to be able to force changes rather than simply recommend changes.… (más)

Starting in 2018, several authors published works on the tragic sinking of the SS El Faro, a large container/roll-on/roll off (CON-RO) ship that sank near the eye of Hurrican Joaquin on 1 October 2015. The passage of time between books and event in this case was due to the appearance of the long-awaited investigations by the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board on the ship's loss. These investigations were greatly aided by the discovery and recovery of El Faro's voyage data recorder (VDR), whose digital memory included the last 29 hours of crew conversations on the ship's bridge. Once the transcript of that recording became available, it was easy to see that here was the backbone of a riveting and horrific tale.

In "Run the Storm", author George Foy provides his ake on the El Faro story. Foy is a writer with seagoing experience on sailing yachts, fishing boats, and coastal merchant ships in his native Great Britain. Foy puts that experience to good use in preparing this work.

Published by Scribner in 2018, "Run the Storm" contains 251 pages arranged in seven parts. Foy wastes no time in showing what his book's focus would be--he begins with photographs of the 28 American mariners (including two women) and five Polish contractors who perished in the disaster. The book's parts are laid out roughly in chronological order, although Foy sometimes leaps ahead or jumps sideways in his explanations of various topics. The tempo of the book changes as the story m oves along. This is partly a function of the nature of a story of which the reader already knows the ending, but it is also a function of the reader thirsting to know how these men and women react to an ever-worsening situation.

Foy is able to flesh out only those watchstanders on the bridge thanks to the VDR transcript. Other crew are given voice only by the speculation provided by the one-sided telephone conversations in the transcript or by interviews with families and friends. El Faro's owners and operators provided the author with no additional information beyond that of corporate news releases and data provided to the two investigative bodies. The author naturally spends much time on El Faro's skipper--Michael Davidson--as it is his actions and inactions that ultimately lead to the ship's loss. However, Davidson's widow declined to speak with Foy, thus leaving only her testimony from the investigations to give her voice about her husband.

What makes Foy's telling of this tale is the additional information he provides to supplemtn the core facts of the story. The author does this through short explanations (usually a paragraph or two) of how things work, such as the development of a hurricane, the operation of a marine steam turbine, or even how a person drowns in hurricane-force seas. All of these explanations ultimately place the reader on board the El Faro around 0730 on 1 October 2015, alongside a crew meeting once of the worst fates possible for a sailor.

From a writing perspective, "Run the Storm" has its problems. Foy footnotes nothing, although he provides a page-long explanation of his sources. Where a topic needs further explanation, Foy provides a brief footnot. And, of course, with an event such as El Faro's sinking, there is room for much speculation. Compared to Rachel Slade's contemporary "Into the Raging Sea", Foy's work is a shallower dive that relies more on the author's Britsh coastal shipping background than Slade's more thorough research into American maritime policy and corporate culture. So the theory Foy points his reader at--precious lives lost due to a negligent and greedy shipping company, a ship's captain obsessed with a career coming to a possible premature end, and a storm that defied accurate forecasting --lacks the punch of Slade's more detailed work.

"Run the Storm" is nonetheless a stirring read, one worthy of an audience interested in human nature and the maritime industry.… (más)

Entertaining and mellow reflection on navigation, the human faculty of finding our way around in our world. The heart of the story, is seeking to explain the death of an ancestor whose ship went down off the coast of Norway – the author not only visits the place, but re-enacts a similar voyage, attempting to use the same methods of navigation as were used in the past. I received a copy in the Goodreads Giveaways program.

He also models a different kind of exploration, by seeking knowledge not in a library or the Internet, but by seeking out people who possess the knowledge. His search for information takes him places like Haiti, to meet some sailors who (at least reputedly) use more traditional means of navigation; Colorado to look at the GPS control center; London, to talk with a cab driver who not only possesses, but teaches “The Knowledge” of London streets. He doesn’t look on the web for how to use a sextant, but finds someone that can give him lessons. He interviews neuroscientists that study how our brains help us find our way around, and early theories of how off-loading that work to GPS may alter how we think.

This is an enjoyable read and would be especially good read around the campfire, preferably after getting slightly lost in the woods and finding your way out again.… (más)