The Ship and the Storm: Hurricane Mitch and the Loss of the Fantome

By Jim Carrier

"Utterly compulsive and unputdownable--the most exciting, authentic, and humanly moving of all the recent Storm books. Brilliantly paced and perfectly balanced. . . . Carrier is a marvelously trustworthy narrator. . . . A terrific book."--Jonathan Raban, author of Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings and Bad Land: An American Romance

"A wonderful story. An extremely well-written account of the events as I knew them. I commend Jim Carrier for a magnificent job."--Jerry D. Jarrell, Director, National Hurricane Center

In October 1998, the majestic schooner Fantome came face-to-face with one of the most savage storms in Atlantic history. The last days of the Fantome are reconstructed in vivid and heartbreaking detail through Jim Carrier's extensive research and hundreds of personal interviews. What emerges is a story of courage, hubris, the agony of command, the weight of lives versus wealth, and the advances of science versus the terrible power and unpredictability of nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Nov 20, 2000
• ISBN: 9780071374552

Book preview

Reviews for The Ship and the Storm

[ajarn7086-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jim Carrier has written a comprehensive and very well researched account of a tragic event that reminds us “not to mess with Mother Nature.” Many readers may be tempted to compare this to a rather famous movie “The Perfect Storm.” The comparison in this book extends beyond the factors contributing to the meteorological storm itself, but goes on to describe a perfect storm formed by technological breakdowns, greed on the part of ship company owners, a legal system that invites avoidance rather than compliance with safety regulations, and an economic system that exploits developing world workers.Carrier explores the history of the national Weather Service, its successes and failures and the continuing attempts to develop better predictive technologies to forecast Hurricanes and other serious weather threats. In this part on technology, we also get to read about the hurricane hunters that fly into storms, drop sensors, and provide real time updates to those in headquarters issuing the latest information to those in harm’s way from weather events. This event happened in 1998. By this time, the average people in the street trusted government services such as these to provide accurate forecasts. Those in the government looked for ways to politely say “these are estimates” while at the same time reassuring the general populace about agency credibility. This quite possibly led to a major reason for the Fantome being at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. Captain Guyan March trusted the technology.The Windjammer company owners at this time were two generations, both named Burke. Carrier describes the history of the company and the history of the ship, the Fantome. The ship had a history from 1925, the senior Mike Burke bought the ship in 1972 when it was in such a condition that it needed major overhauls and renovation. These types of operations can be done at great expense or on the cheap. As revealed in this book, when some parts needed replacement, there were no original parts in production to be purchased for replacement. Talented crew members could create workaround parts. These same crewmembers did not have education as machinists. To get the most profit for the least monetary outlay seemed to be the de facto motto of the founding Burke.Passengers on a cruise ship expect safety regulations as to operations and ship construction to be met. As Carrier reports, there are all kinds of regulations. They are written in various countries. Choosing a country of registration, adopting its flag, and following the regulations of “adopted citizenship” could be much cheaper than registering in and following the rules of, say, the US, despite the fact that the majority of passengers might be from the US. The friendlier regulations may have even been written by officials friendly to the industry for which they were being written. Even when a ship might be inspected by US officials; compliance was only measured by standards of the registering country.Although there are formal licenses and accreditation procedures for ship personnel, they don’t apply to everyone. Many of the Fantome crew seem to be either self-taught or educated through a type of mentoring system from experienced crew. The extreme example of this was when three crew members could not disembark the sip at one port because they did not have proper visas. Trained professionals would not be lax in such a small administrative matter; a responsible monitoring company would not allow this to happen. The locally hired crew were paid much less than crew hired in more developed countries. Carrier details how, although aware, crew members accepted this system as better than available alternatives. Several may have felt obligated to stay with the ship when alternatives to leave were given them.I would have given five stars to the book except for two parts. There were the dream sequences on the part of several family members of those lost. This lent a paranormal, fiction quality to an excellent non-fiction work. Then there was the part toward the end of the book in which Carrier interviewed several marine professionals where they speculated on what may have been the last thing the dying men may have seen. This, for me, disrupted the serious, factual tone of the book.It is good, it is informative, and a book I would recommend for those who like the sea, people with angst about income inequality in a global environment, and (really this is not a stretch) even global warming.

[zmagic69 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Ship and The Storm is a tough book to find, Amazon has some resellers with both new and used copies, I recant recommend this book more highly, this was an outstanding story. A far more engrossing story than the Perfect Storm, although the author of the The Perfect Storm, does do a better job writing. The Windjammer company, never seemed to have the a grip on doing what was right, and after doing some further research about the company after they lost the Fantome, their pattern of deceit and manipulation really came to light. This Hurricane defied all predictions and the path of destruction it left was mind blowing.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well-written and researched. I would have liked to have gotten a bit more of the flavor of a good cruise juxtaposed with the tragedy as it happens. It would have made it even more engaging. But the jumping between the ship, the National Hurricane Center, the Miami office, the terror on land and the families' feelings, thoughts and emotions worked very well. A very good book that shows Windjammer, warts and all, and doesn't seek to bestow any blame for the disaster. You are left to draw your own conclusions.

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read this a couples of years ago. Classic case of overreaching and miscommunication. The ship sailed right into the path of Mitch.

[tymfos · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a fascinating book about an unconventional cruise ship and a hurricane which refused to follow the computer models used to predict hurricane development and path.The Fantome was a floating party under sail. Well, it really depended more upon its engines for propulsion, but the sails looked good. It began life as the Duke of Westminster's elegant schooner for cruising the French Riviera. It was owned for a time by Aristotle Onassis, though he apparently never used it. It wound up as part of the Windjammer Barefoot Cruises fleet, owned by Mike Burke -- an operator who did things his own way. A storm which began as 1998's Tropical Wave 46 eventually became tropical storm Mitch -- and then, with unexpected swiftness and ferocity, Hurricane Mitch, at the time the 4th most powerful Atlantic storm on record, one of those rare monsters known as a Category 5 hurricane. And Mitch was an exceptionally unpredictable storm.The ship and the storm would encounter one another in the Gulf of Honduras, among the Bay Islands which rarely see powerful hurricanes. The ship would take evasive action -- but was there anywhere to run?This book vividly evokes how the good-time atmosphere of the Fantome was replaced by a battle for survival; how hurricane forecasters struggled to make sense of what computer models said about Hurricane Mitch, compared to the storm's actual behavior; and the misery of residents of the Bay Islands and coastal Honduras as they were assaulted by a storm that was supposed to go somewhere else.I thought the phrasing was sometimes a bit awkward, but for the most part this was a compelling, thorough, and evenhanded look at a real tragedy. I wish there had been footnotes, but the source of information was often indicated within (or could be inferred from) the text. There was no bibliography; the book appears to have been largely based upon interviews, the subjects of which are noted in the Acknowledgments.

[deadfred_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well researched and well written . Kudo's to Jim Carrier . Carrier allows you to be the jury as to who gets the blame, My vote : MITCH!!.. I can't imagine what the crew experienced that last night .. or better expressed.. "afraid to imagine what the crew experienced that last night

[riofriotex · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

My husband actually sailed on the Fantome, a four-masted schooner that cruised in the western Carribbean, shortly before Hurricane Mitch (the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane to date) destroyed her and 31 crew in October 1998. Carrier, a journalist and sailor, provides a detailed account of the ship and the hurricane primarily through interviews with crew members (pre-storm) and their families, Windjammer Barefoot Cruise staff, Hurricane Mitch victims in the western Caribbean, and National Hurricane Center personnel. The Fantome attempted to avoid the ultimately Cat-5 storm that took an unexpected turn southward, directly into the ship’s path (most hurricanes tend to track northwest).Carrier describes the remarkable history of the Fantome, which I did not realize spent 14 years in Seattle. Even more fascinating were the descriptions of the experiences of “hurricane hunters” who flew into the storm, and of people on the island of Guanaja and the country of Honduras, which suffered the worst destruction (particularly from the torrential rains, flooding, and mudslides as the storm went ashore). This book makes me want to read "Isaac’s Storm," about the 1900 Galveston hurricane, as a comparison.Carrier is at times a little bit too detailed – he said in interviews he used “forensic journalism” to write the book. But like a good journalist, he avoids laying “blame” for the loss of life and ship, presenting all sides of the story so readers can draw their own conclusions. The book includes maps with the ship’s and the storm’s tracks inside the covers, more detailed maps of the areas showing towns and villages named in the book, drawings comparing the forecasted and actual track of the storm, diagrams of the layout of the ship, and photographs of the ship, crew, and storm.