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Title details for Simple Courage by Frank Delaney - Available

Simple Courage

The True Story of Peril on the Sea

by Frank Delaney
Frank Delaney
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
“HEAVEN HELP THE SAILOR ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS.”
–old folk prayer
In late December 1951, laden with passengers and nearly forty metric tons of cargo, the freighter S.S. Flying Enterprise steamed westward from Europe toward America. A few days into the voyage, she hit the eye of a ferocious storm. Force 12 winds tossed men about like playthings and turned drops of freezing Atlantic foam into icy missiles. When, in the space of twenty-eight hours, the ship was slammed by two rogue waves–solid walls of water more than sixty feet high–the impacts cracked the decks and hull almost down to the waterline, threw the vessel over on her side, and thrust all on board into terror.
Flying Enterprise’s captain, Kurt Carlsen, a seaman of rare ability and valor, mustered all hands to patch the cracks and then try to right the ship. When these efforts came to naught, he helped transfer, across waves forty feet high, the passengers and the entire crew to lifeboats sent from nearby ships. Then, for reasons both professional and intensely personal, and to the amazement of the world, Carlsen defied all requests and entreaties to abandon ship. Instead, for the next two weeks, he fought to bring Flying Enterprise and her cargo to port. His heroic endeavor became the world’s biggest news.
In a narrative as dramatic as the ocean’s fury, acclaimed bestselling author Frank Delaney tells, for the first time, the full story of this unmatched bravery and endurance at sea. We meet the devoted family whose well-being and safety impelled Carlsen to stay with his ship. And we read of Flying Enterprise’s buccaneering owner, the fearless and unorthodox Hans Isbrandtsen, who played a crucial role in Kurt Carlsen’s fate.
Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen’s family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection–and respect–for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a “biblical tempest” of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the thirty-seven-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew. This is a gripping, absorbing narrative that highlights one man’s outstanding fortitude and heroic sense of duty.
“One of the great sea stories of the twentieth century… [a] surefire nautical crowd-pleaser.”
—Booklist é (starred review)

“Frank Delaney has written a completely absorbing, thrilling and inspirational account of a disaster at sea that occasioned heroism of the first order. In the hands of a gifted storyteller,
the ‘simple courage’ of the ship’s captain and the young radio man who risked their lives to bring a mortally wounded ship to port reveals the essence and power of all true courage–
a stubborn devotion to the things we love.”
–Senator John McCain

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 27, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415947630
      • File size: 277961 KB
      • Duration: 09:39:05

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It's Christmas 1951, and on the Atlantic the freighter FLYING ENTERPRISE is in trouble. She's been hit by a rogue wave, had her hull cracked, and, with only the captain and an assistant on board, tries to make her way to a safe port. Frank Delaney seems to delight in bringing listeners this saga. He has a cultured voice with a bit of a brogue, facility with foreign words, good pacing, and the ability to make the day-to-day operations of a freighter interesting. He changes tone for reports and interviews so the long narration doesn't get boring. The ship didn't make it, but Captain Carlsen's efforts earned him a ticker-tape parade in New York. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      Passengers and most of the crew left the S.S. FLYING ENTERPRISE when waves sent the freighter onto its side, but Captain Kurt Carlsen stayed aboard--aware that death could come at any time--to try to save the ship and its cargo. His "lone and heroic stand against the sea" made headlines in early 1952 and makes a perfect true-life story for Frank Delaney, who wrote the book with an ear for language, a quality that helps him spin a rip-roaring yarn as narrator. His rich descriptions, read with his hint of a storyteller's brogue, explain the facts clearly while bringing the setting alive for landlubbers. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 15, 2006
      Crippled by two monstrous waves during a 1951 North Atlantic hurricane, the freighter Flying Enterprise
      was left wallowing on its side and looking as if it would sink at any minute. The subsequent rescue, in mountainous seas, of 10 passengers and 40 crew by lifeboats from responding ships was indeed harrowing—and it's over by page 92 of this overblown maritime-distress yarn. The rest of the book is about the Enterprise
      's captain, Kurt Carlsen, who insisted on staying aboard to await a tugboat to tow the floundering ship to harbor. Carlsen certainly went beyond the call of duty, but heroism is measured by the stakes involved, which in this case were neither lives nor justice but merely the ship owner's investment. Delaney embellishes the tale with glances at Carlsen's family's anxiety, soggy reminiscences of his own family following the story on the radio and fulsome tributes to the Danish skipper's flinty Nordic resolve (which are rather undercut by the knowledge that Carlsen could have transferred at any time to one of the ships babysitting the hulk). Carlsen's story generated a lot of breathless press hoopla at the time, and it still has the feel of a trumped-up media sensation. Photos not seen by PW
      .

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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