A story of tragedy at sea where every desperate act meant life or death The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and five lifeboats were lowered. As four lifeboats drifted into the fog and icy water, never to be heard … never to be heard from again, the last boat wrenched away from the sinking ship with a few blankets, some water and biscuits, and thirteen souls. Only one would survive. This is his story.
As they started their nine days adrift more than four hundred miles off Newfoundland, the castaways–an Irish couple and their two boys, an English woman and her daughter, newlyweds from Ireland, and several crewmen, including Thomas W. Nye from Fairhaven, Massachusetts–began fighting over food and water. One by one, though, day by day, they died. Some from exposure, others from madness and panic. In the end, only Nye and the ship’s log survived.
Using Nye’s firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic. Adrift brings readers to the edge of human limits, where every frantic decision and desperate act is a potential life saver or life taker.ip’s log survived.
Using Nye’s firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic. Adrift brings readers to the edge of human limits, where every frantic decision and desperate act is a potential life saver or life taker.ip’s log survived.
Using Nye’s firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic. Adrift brings readers to the edge of human limits, where every frantic decision and desperate act is a potential life saver or life taker.ip’s log survived.
Using Nye’s firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic. Adrift brings readers to the edge of human limits, where every frantic decision and desperate act is a potential life saver or life taker.
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Adrift is a distressing story about loss and survival in the Atlantic. Adrift recounts the story of Thomas W. Nye after the passenger ship he was on capsized. This tale focused on his fight to survive on a raft with thirteen others. This book was packed with both history and action. I found myself falling into the story, desperate to discover what happened next. If you love stories about survival in harsh elements then you will enjoy this book!
The timeline of events was well established and I found the information on the ship and iceberg activity the year of the tragedy to be very explanatory. This was one of my favorite survival tales to date. I really enjoyed this story and my heart broke for those lost to the ocean. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Excellent true story about the lone survivor of a shipwreck in the winter of 1856 who was in a lifeboat in the north Atlantic for 9 days. Great historical and sailing info.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.
I read Brian Murphy’s 81 Days Below Zero, and thoroughly enjoyed the story and the storytelling. He’s a great writer, and while this is based on one person’s experience and retelling, Murphy makes the whole story come to life.
The John Rutledge is a packet ship going from Liverpool to New York in 1856. Its cargo included mail, dry goods and more than 100 passengers, mostly Irish immigrants hoping to escape poverty and find a better life. After the Rutledge hits an iceberg, only one man survived, Thomas Nye, a member of the crew. Murphy recreates the journey from Nye’s story and other research.
Nye made his way, with the ship log, to a lifeboat along with 12 others. We are then witness to the passengers succumbing to the harsh elements, and the madness that takes over after they drink seawater. Once Nye has given up hope and is waiting for the elements to take him, he spies a ship. With his last ounce of strength, he is able to summon it, thereby becoming the lone survivor.
I find stories of survival fascinating, and this book was no exception. There is a lot of history given at the beginning of the book, and some parts seem to be disjointed. The actual sinking of the ship doesn’t happen until halfway through the book, but I still found it to be quite interesting. All the historical facts and stories helped to place me in the mindset of life at that time. It may seem a little slow at first, but I highly recommend this book.
In Adrift, Brian Murphy recounts the journey of the packet ship John Rutledge from its navigation down the Mersey River to the ice fields that sank four ships in 1856. Nearly 1,000 souls died in three months, with commercial losses in the millions of dollars. The Irish immigrants and crew on board the Rutledge were all lost, save one man. This is his story.
I love a good adventure story, and if there are ships and ice involved, I’m all in. I was also interested in reading Brian Murphy’s Adrift because it is about Irish immigrants, who in 1856 had scrimped and saved for their passage, hopeful they would find a better life in America. My own Irish ancestors left their homeland for England, a much shorter sea journey. But the reasons for leaving their homeland would have been the same, as well as their poverty.
The book is based on the story of Thomas Nye, a New Bedford maritime sailor who was twenty-two when he shipped on the packet ship John Rutledge out of Liverpool. The ship carried over 100 Irish passengers, bound for New York.
In 1903, just two years before his death, a journalist interviewed Nye who told the story of the sinking of the Rutledge, his nine days asea watching the other survivors succumb to the elements and dehydration, and his providential rescue.
Murphy takes us on Nye’s journey, recreating the events, drawing from Nye’s writings, ships logs, and newspaper accounts. We are there when the ship strikes a berg and during the launching of the lifeboats. We experience Nye watching as his fellow passengers in an open board are driven to desperate measures and die until only he is left.
It is a tale of harrowing adventure, but also a study of human nature in desperate circumstances when conventional morality and social norms are washed away. There is no cannibalism involved, thankfully, for as Murphy shares, sometimes that did happen.
Reforms to improve maritime safety did not advance until the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. (Some things never change: the lives of impoverished immigrant families did not spur safety advances, but the deaths of some of the richest men in the world did.)
As climate change accelerates the calving of Greenland’s ice sheet, more icebergs will clog shipping lanes. Today we have communication between ships and ship and shore, and knowledge of where the ice fields are.
Murphy is a journalist with the Washington Post and the author of three books.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.