Tougias, Mike

"On the night of February 18, 1952, during one of the worst winter storms that New England has ever seen, two oil tankers just off the shore of Cape Cod were torn in half by the force of the storm. This middle-grade adaptation of an adult nonfiction book tells the story of a harrowing Coast Guard rescue when four men in a tiny lifeboat overcame insurmountable odds and saved more than 30 stranded sailors. This is a fast-paced, uplifting story that puts young readers in the middle of the action. It's a gripping story of heroism and survival with the same intensity as the bestselling book and movie The Perfect Storm. A Christy Ottaviano Book"--.

"On the night of February 18, 1952, during one of the worst winter storms that New England has ever seen, two oil tankers just off the shore of Cape Cod were torn in half by the force of the storm. This middle-grade adaptation of an adult nonfiction book tells the story of a harrowing Coast Guard rescue when four men in a tiny lifeboat overcame insurmountable odds and saved more than 30 stranded sailors. This is a fast-paced, uplifting story that puts young readers in the middle of the action. It's a gripping story of heroism and survival with the same intensity as the bestselling book and movie The Perfect Storm. A Christy Ottaviano Book"--Provided by publisher.

"When a forty-seven-foot sailboat disappears in the Gulf Stream in the throes of a calamitous storm, it leaves behind three weary passengers struggling to stay alive afloat a life raft in violent waves 80 feet tall"--Provided by publisher.

Tells the true story of the heroic rescue at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard off Cape Cod during the winter 1952 when two oil tankers split in two during a storm.

In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor'easter in years, wreaking havoc on land and creating a wind-whipped peril of the freezing Atlantic. In the early hours of Monday, February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Fort Mercer and the Pendleton, broke in two. The Coast Guard raced its cutters to the Fort Mercer to rescue the men huddled in the halves, and when the Pendleton proved to be in danger of capsizing, sent out into the storm two 36-foot wooden lifeboats, each manned by four crewmen, in what every crewman realized could be a suicide mission in the enormous seventy-foot seas.

In the middle of the Blizzard of 1978, an oil tanker was in trouble in the Salem Sound shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard immediately dispatched a patrol boat that was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. The captain of the pilot boat, the Can Do, was monitoring radio transmissions and when the Coast Guard boat reported problems the Can Do responded with her crew of four and became part of a true account of bravery and death at sea.

One November morning in 1980, two small lobster boats set out for Georges Bank, a bountiful but perilous fishing ground 130 miles off the Massachusetts coast. The forecast was for typical fall weather but, unknown to the fishermen, a colossal storm was brewing to the southeast. Soon the boats were battered by sixty-foot waves and hurricane-force winds. The crews struggled heroically, but the storm crippled one boat and overturned the other, trapping its crew inside. One man managed to crawl inside a tiny inflatable life raft and spent more than fifty terrifying hours adrift on the stormy open sea.

In May 2005, Tom Tighe, welcomed three new crewmembers for a five-day voyage from Connecticut to Bermuda. They were sailing on Tom's forty-five-foot long sailboat, the Almeisan. Four days into the voyage an enormous storm struck, sweeping two crew members into the ocean. Those left onboard battled for their lives. The Coast Guard came to their resuce but found itself in as much trouble as the Almeisan's crew and the two in the ocean. The search and rescue was so diffuclt that this case was chosen as the Coast Guard's search and rescue case of the year.