Ten Hours Until Dawn

The thrilling national bestseller from the coauthor of The Finest Hours. "A fascinating story and just as good as The Perfect Storm." ―Portsmouth Herald

In the midst of the Blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals in Salem Sound off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard heard the Mayday calls and immediately dispatched a patrol boat. Within an hour, the Coast Guard boat was in as much trouble as the tanker, having lost its radar, depth finder, and engine power in horrendous seas. Pilot boat Captain Frank Quirk was monitoring the Coast Guard's efforts by radio, and when he heard that the patrol boat was in jeopardy, he decided to act. Gathering his crew of four, he readied his forty-nine-foot steel boat, the Can Do and entered the maelstrom of the blizzard.

Using dozens of interview and audiotapes that recorded every word exchanged between Quirk and the Coast Guard, Tougias has written a devastating, true account of bravery and death at sea, in Ten Hours Until Dawn.

"Arguably the best story of peril at sea since Sebastian Junger's Perfect Storm." —Booklist (starred review)

"An incredible tale of heroism and sacrifice." —Nathaniel Philbrick, New York Times–bestselling author

"Tougias's true gift is his ability to plumb the depths of human emotion to take us ever deeper into the hearts of those who survived the ordeal—and even into the lives of those who did not." —Spike Walker, bestselling author of Coming Back Alive

"Reads so much like a fiction thriller that I had to pause now and then to remind myself the events were real." ―Portland Herald, Maine Today