“Written from the voice of experience . . . give this informative survival guide a try if you have any plans to go sailing” (Listverse,“Top 10 Bizarre Books”).
Based on interviews with the crew and captain of a torpedoed tanker who survived nineteen days in a lifeboat in heavy seas and scorching tropical sun, How to Abandon Ship was written to save the lives of seamen during World War II. By providing a commonsense, organized, no-panic approach to getting off torpedoed ships safely and, perhaps more importantly, surviving later, it can still be used to save lives today. Former schooner captain and author Twain Braden updates this solid and useful advice with a foreword addressing today’s technology. Braden used How to Abandon Ship to teach crewmembers fifty years after it was written while sailing the rugged and dangerous Maine coast.
The writing in How to Abandon Ship is so clear it has been used in college English composition classes. You will find vivid and pertinent information on everything from medical emergencies, thirst, and hunger to weather and morale. It pulls no punches, and its advice is blunt but useful. In the words of the authors: “This manual is concerned solely with human lives. Its purpose is to aid you to get off a sinking ship and to eventual safety in the best condition possible.”
“This slim, thin beauty of a book gives concise advice on how to survive a shipwreck, most likely a ship being torpedoed.” —Full Fathom Five
