Whenever we leave our natural environment, we accept there’ll be an element of risk. But for those who’ve made their careers on yachts, fishing boats and cargo ships in vast and unpredictable oceans, the stakes are unfathomably high. This week’s longform collection plumbs the deep, dark depths of some of the most harrowing sea stories ever published.
Let’s dive in…
The Longest Night
Sean Flynn for GQ Magazine, 2008
“One Easter Sunday, the Alaska Ranger – a fishing boat out of Dutch Harbor – went down in the Bering Sea, 6,000 feet deep and thirty-two degrees cold. Forty-seven people were on board, and nearly half of them would spend hours floating alone in the darkness, in water so frigid it can kill a man in minutes. Forty-two of them would be rescued. Here’s how.”
Deep Sea Cowboys
I love the way Epic Magazine illustrates its content. This masterful piece of investigative journalism has a surprisingly tragic twist – made even more agonising because we’re personally introduced to each subject and are deeply invested in their fate.
Shipwrecked: Love, Loss and Survival
Kevin Koczwara for Boston Magazine, 2021
“As the storm continued, Cavanagh grew increasingly angry. At 21 years old and less experienced than most of the others, he felt as though no one had a plan for how they were going to get out of this mess alive. The motor was dead for the third time on the trip, and they had already cut off the wind-damaged mainsail. That meant nature was in control…”
Monsterwellen
Donovan Hohn for Outside Magazine, 2009
A classic from Outside’s archives, Monsterwellen is the stomach-churning account of what can happen when powerful freak waves and mighty cargo ships collide – and the impact of these incidents on global trade.
Into the Storm
Tristram Korten for GQ, 2016
“One terrible night in 2015, two giant ships sailed into a hurricane – a new breed of superstorm that, thanks to climate change, had defied all expectations and would soon cause the deadliest American maritime disaster in decades. The only hope for those aboard? A young Coast Guard helicopter squad…”
Bonus Long Read:
The Channel Islands Boat Fire
Kathryn Miles for Outside Magazine, 2020
“On Labor Day weekend 2019, the ‘Conception’ left Santa Barbara, California, for a diving trip to the Channel Islands. Six months later, authorities are still trying to determine how what should have been a routine excursion became one of the deadliest maritime disasters in U.S. history.”
Subscribe to Grown Up Story Club
Get a fresh batch of long reads straight to your inbox every Saturday – you can unsubscribe at any time.
Grown Up Story Club 