Farley McGill Mowat was a conservationist and one of Canada's most widely-read authors.
Many of his most popular works have been memoirs of his childhood, his war service, and his work as a naturalist. His works have been translated into 52 languages and he has sold more than 14 million books.
Mowat studied biology at the University of Toronto. During a field trip to the Arctic, Mowat became outraged at the plight of the Ihalmiut, a Caribou Inuit band, which he attributed to misunderstanding by whites. His outrage led him to publish his first novel, People of the Deer (1952). This book made Mowat into a literary celebrity and was largely responsible for the shift in the Canadian government's Inuit policy: the government began shipping meat and dry goods to a people they previously denied existed.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship RV Farley Mowat was named in honour of him, and he frequently visited it to assist its mission.
Terrifying and awesome. The sea is an adversary with power beyond most landlubbers' imagining.
This is the story of the men and the ocean-going tugboats whose mission is to save ships, cargoes and crew in distress from stormy seas or the horrors of lee shores that can kill with ruthless inevitability.
At the heart of these true tales of courage lies Canada's Foundation Maritime and the salvage tug Foundation Franklin. Here she is on a daring mission to save half of a Liberty Ship, the Joel R. Poinsett, which broke apart in a North Atlantic storm. In 1945, in the midst of a desperate sea war, even half a ship was something to rescue if it could possibly be done.
"Suddenly the high grey hulk of half a ship loomed up ahead. 'She was a terror to behold'." Her Captain Harry Brushett had to pilot his tug along side, and eventually underneath the tilting, heaving monster, while a volunteer crew in a dory attempted to scale the sheer side of the wreck to catch and secure a towing line.
The salvage tugs went out alone, braving not only the seas and storms, but also German U-boats. They worked with only primitive Direction Finding (DF) equipment, with very short ranges. No radar. In radio silence for fear of the listening U-boats. The North Atlantic's already treacherous coastline was more so in war as cities (and navigation lights) went dark. Friends at sea could be as dangerous as foe--it may be that more merchant ships were damaged in convoy maneuvers than were destroyed by German fire.
Still there was something especially sinister about the German sea wolves prowling the cold grey waters. In one deeply spooky scene, the Franklin is hove to in a little open spot, anchored in the midst of dense pack ice, engines off, when the lookout whispers to Captain Brushett. There, in the "still night, silhouetted against white ice and against the swishing yellow of the northern lights" was the outline of a submarine's conning tower and periscope. To find out more, read the book!
Foundation Franklin, was made of iron, not steel; built in Aberdeen in 1918, she burned coal--a lot of coal. The "Blacks" who worked her engine rooms were perpetually coated in coal dust. It was an unenviable job, but if they were often broiling from the heat it was perhaps better than the bridge on one of those icy days for which the North Atlantic is famous.
This is Foundation Maritime's Capt. Dykeman on the iced-up bridge of a tug off Sable Island, the 'graveyard of the Atlantic'.
Among the most terrifying jobs was that of the divers, who would go down into the holds of the sinking ships to assess damage and sometimes, working in the dark by feel alone, patching holes and building bulkheads to help refloat the ship.
Even before the war the seas took their toll. This is the Franklin trying to salvage whatever could be saved from the British-registered Marsden hard aground on Ship Rock near St. John harbor.
There is a lot of machinery breaking down in the first half and it took a while to get used to the lingo, but even before the war broke out I was totally hooked. A must for sea-buffs and those interested in naval history.
Well done. Adventurous stories told by a tried and true author, Farley Mowat. He captured the difficulty of working in ship salvaging. Tough work and dealing with the northend of the Atlantic Ocean is no picnic. Enjoyed the book's tales of capturing ships without a rudder, or a lost propeller or sitting on top of a rampart of rock or without power, or a fire aboard. The Foundation Franklin with steam power plodded across the Atlantic at full tilt to rescue or salvage what was left. Lives saved and adventures abound.
A wonderful real life series of adventures at sea by a great story teller. Many parts were simply gripping and as a whole the book stands up well to comparison with works of the great writers of the sea such as Peter Freuchens and Joseph Conrad (exalted company!) The levels of human endurance and raw courage displayed by the officers and crew are almosrt beyond belief, and yet the book rings of truth in every page. A great read!
As a guy that actually works at sea for a living, this book has always been passed around ships and circles via either word of mouth or actually just an insisting hand placing it right in your lap. It certainly didn't disappoint at all, Farley Mowat captures just how much of a band of cowboys the crew of the Franklin was and its almost impossible to imagine any tug leaving North American waters taking the same risks. Great read, albeit slightly repetitive in the story telling, although an impressive feat to be able to capture the spirit and camaraderie of the amazing life of the Foundation Franklin. An unheralded piece of Canadian naval history.
A harrowing collection of salvage adventures by a North Atlantic tug which keeps you engrossed for 2/3rds of the book with seemingly endless near-death missions to save sinking ships. The workers involved do their jobs with alacrity and aplomb in horrible conditions. Only problem is the reader becomes desensitized going into the final third of the book. Amazingly, it becomes just a same old, same old. Yawn, another rescue in freezing conditions. The repetition takes away some of the sheen, hence only three stars.
I discovered this book via a recommendation on History Twitter. The author gets rave reviews and apparently influenced quite a few minds 40 or so years ago. He mostly wrote about conservationist topics. However, this book, written in 1958, whose title suggested a specific thrilling sea rescue - perhaps during the convoy battles of the SWW is not at all what I expected.
That is, it was not "A Cruel Sea" or "HMS Ulysses" albeit told from a salvage tug's point of view.
What you get it a 15 year story of a specific ship - the Foundation Franklin, a rugged salvage boat that served out of Halifax between the early 1930s until just after the end of the War. That part of the North Atlantic shipping lanes saw frequent freighter groundings, breakdowns, or other maritime disasters. These often occurred in the worst weather. When the SOS went out, Franklin got the call.
An interesting part of the book's early chapters was how the salvage companies made money. Basically, a contract was made between the ship in distress and the salvor, with the amount to be paid decided by an arbiter after the rescue (months after). This amount was based on the value of the ship and its cargo. Ship owners avoided to the last possible moment striking this deal with the salvors. Salvage companies, if they had options, could tell the captain of the injured ship to stuff it if they didn't quickly agree. Time was wasted while the seas got stormier, the winds howlier, and the rocks ever closer.
This dynamic made for some exciting recues of both ships and crews. Conditions were terrible. Oh, did I mention the Franklin was coal-fired? The Franklin's crew was made of iron and her captain of the toughest steel.
You'll need a map handy to understand where all these bays, ports, and islands are off the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland coasts. A warm jacket to protect you while you admire the crew through bitter cold and sleeting conditions can't hurt either.
OK, so why only three stars?
Well, it got repetitive. Franklin made countless rescues over the years under appalling and risky conditions. But once you've read about, say, five of the these, the next five aren't any more interesting. The accounts are taken from interviews and ship's logs (at least I think so, the author has no list of sources and no source notes for any of the accounts or quotes).
Another reason why only three stars is that Franklin's wartime experience was not particularly noteworthy. Only a couple of chapters are devoted to that period. She never was part of a convoy and never underwent a torpedo attack or even saw a U-boat attack.
When you read this, you will definitely come away with awe and respect for the rugged crews that manned Franklin over the years and even more admiration for everything she accomplished in salvaging ships and men from the dangerous coats and seas off the Maritime Provinces. Truly remarkable.
But books that cover the history of a ship over 15+ years are just not going to be 5 star reads unless you have some family connection with the Canadian ship salvage scene or are a real marine salvage aficionado.
No maps, one poor photo and one ship line diagram.
When you are looking for a gripping adventure story with superhuman characters overcoming incomprehensible adversity, I think I can safely say that most readers do not start by filtering on "history," or "maritime," or "tugboats," unless, perhaps, you are already a fan of Farley Mowat. For those of you who aren't (yet) but are looking for something that isn't Hunger Games or Ready Player One, I would recommend starting a new adventure by reading The Grey Seas Under.
As you can read in other reviews (which are plentiful), the topic of this book revolves almost entirely around a single ocean-going Canadian salvage tug, the Foundation Franklin, and more importantly, it revolves about the hardy Newfoundland and Nova Scotian sailors who manned and captained this ship. (Yes, "manned," I am afraid there were no women crew members in the 1930s. Some progress has been made since). And what you will read in the pages of this book is an account of the exploits of this ship and her crews, and you will read it with almost disbelieving awe—so much so that some of you may even write off the dramatic descriptions and vivid storytelling as excessive poetic license.
Now I will not deny that Farley Mowat is a master storyteller and capable of spinning a yarn ten yards long, but I also believe (as evidenced by his personal recollections in many memoirs like And No Birds Sang) that he doesn't tend to overblow the facts because the facts themselves are pretty sensational. In the case of The Grey Seas Under I have assurance from a good friend (a grand niece of Captain Harry Brushett, whose experiences with Foundation Franklin compose about a third of the book), that the tales are not overblown in the slightest.
Man is capable of remarkable feats of unbelievable endurance and survival, and these are worth writing about and reading about with the same awe as any fictional superhero story. And The Grey Seas Under is really, at its heart, historical and biographical evidence that humans have real superpowers in industry, perseverance, ingenuity, and raw resourcefulness, and that perhaps the sea, where life originated, is the source and catalyst for those superpowers.
I don't think I have read any books that detail the life of a ship and its crew like this one does. In this book, Farley Mowat, tells of the life of the salvage tug, Foundation Franklin, and all the rescue operations it handled in the North Atlantic from its home ports of Halifax, Nova Scotia and St. John's, Newfoundland during the 1930s and 1940s. Farley Mowat was always an excellent story teller, and he brings out the exploits of this ship and its crew in living color. I wish there had been a map of the North Atlantic to accompany this book, but it does so well at covering the dangers of the North Atlantic and shipping in those waters. I would think twice about crossing this area of the Atlantic by ship after reading this book. It would be a good book to read as you flew above it in a jet plane, feeling much safer.
If you want a carefully plotted story with character, development, adventures leading up to logical (if surprise) climaxes, etc., don't bother. This is non-fiction.
If you want a (perhaps somewhat colourful) history of what it was like fighting the North Atlantic in a salvage tug during the 1930s, and 40s, then this book is for you. There are lots of exciting moments, but life isn't artificially plotted like an adventure story: there are long periods of boredom (quickly skipped over), major characters come and go, sometimes promising story lines fizzle out, sometimes events repeat themselves, and sometimes dramatic things happen suddenly with no narrative build-up.
The reviewers complaining about the book sound like they came looking for a carefully-plotted, fictional sea adventure tale. Real life (even with Mowat's trademark exaggerations) is messy.
This is the first of Farley Mowat's books that I have read that I didn't enjoy. The book tells the story of the "Foundation Franklin" , a salvage tug who in the 1930s-1940s engaged in the daring rescue of a number of ships in the Atlantic. The characters are the ships, really, and the human beings are only desribed peripherally. As such, I found it hard to care about the ships - or the very dangerous rescue missions they engaged in. It reads like a ships log; clinically describing events, without Mowat's trademark passion and personal interest in the subject matter.
This was the perfect mixture of information and intensity. Each salvage tale was told in a quick chapter, which easily kept my interest.
I found reading this a little like facing my fears. I’ve always known I have a fear of being in the middle of the ocean on a boat because as human you can become totally helpless.
I had no idea that the salvage industry even existed but I also feel like I understand Canadian east coast heritage so much more now. I really enjoyed reading that and I have so much more respect for people who make their living on a boat.
I really wanted to like The Grey Seas Under, but I just found myself bored by it. It lacks the accessibility of Farley Mowat's other books, with its dry and overly detailed prose. I never felt any of the tension or fear that must have accompanied the tug's rescue missions. I don't think the subject matter is the problem, since I enjoyed The Boat Who Wouldn't Float much more, but simply the presentation.
The Grey Seas Under is probably best suited for intensely nautical readers, who want a meticulously detailed history more than an immersive one.
Living in Southeast Alaska, I have always assumed the people of the sea up here are of the fiercest stock. After reading ‘Grey Seas Under’ I find I have underestimated those of the North Atlantic. These seamen battled weather, water and Mother Nature without radar, electricity, modern technology or navigation. Gone are these power houses of little ships and great seamen. True grit, courage, strength and indomitable will...”and it is ‘Franklin’s’ voice that sounds the call to arms”.
I truly enjoyed this book. I chose it as my February book, a book with a color in the title, for the Massachusetts Center for the Book 2024 reading challenge. So far I am very happy that I joined the challenge. I have read two books that I would not have chosen to read otherwise. I wasn't sure about it when I started it, but it definitely got better as I kept reading. The very descriptive style of writing made me feel as if I were right there. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!!
Untold stories about the thankless, exhilarating, and terrifying lives of crew members aboard salvage tugs in the early 20th century. I found myself physically cold during the detailed narratives of harrowing nighttime rescues in frigid arctic waters. Farley Mowat is a true word smith and this book is well worth a read.
Different topic. Detailed research and solid based of content. Delivery could have been better and story line in tune with build up of anticipation or a curveball, and with that missing, there was no need to test through all the book, for all it mattered the end could have been done 100 pages earlier or later and it would not have impacted the rating.
This is truly an amazing book about a tugboat and the people who manned it as they went out in search of and to save ships which ran into trouble, either from the failure of their own equipment, from running aground or being attacked by U-boats. The challenges they faced, hurricane force winds, freezing temperatures, icebergs, and the list goes on. And it is well told. An incredible read!
It is amazing what the men on thus salvage tug did. Brave souls indeed. Contrary to most I thought the book was poorly written, technical terns were inserted without explanation, and the writing should have been more colorful and exciting. Read in Nova Scotia where only 1 person in the Halifax Maritime Museum knew what the Franklin was. I did find a plaque dedicated to the tug in Halifax.
(Heroic adventures of a gallant ship and the brave men who battle the cruel sea.)
I very much enjoyed reading this exciting book of true accounts of the many vessels and hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of lives saved by the Foundation Franklin. I love all I’ve read of Farley Mowat’s books.