Albatross : a true story of a woman's survival at sea / Deborah Scaling Kiley and Meg Noonan.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

One late summer's day, the yacht Trashman set sail from Annapolis to Florida. On board were five young people: John, the captain; Meg, Mark, Brad, and Debbie Scaling. When the boat sailed into a gale, the eighty-knot winds shredded the sails. Forty-foot seas crashed through the cabin windows, and Trashman sank, leaving the crew adrift in a rubber dinghy. Albatross tells the story of how Debbie and Brad survived and how the tragedy changed Debbie Scaling's life forever.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In 1982, experienced sailor Kiley, then 24, agreed to crew a sailboat from Maine to Florida. After a fierce storm sank the boat off the coast of North Carolina, the crew of five struggled onto an ill-equipped rubber dinghy to face hunger, cold, thirst, sharks, festering sores, and hostile relations with each other. Telling her story is Kiley's way of overcoming the horrible memories of her ordeal. The survival tale is told so vividly that the reader nearly feels the sharks bumping the bottom of the dinghy, and shares in the crew's hallucinations as their fear and suffering mount. However, the author's overall insights are not especially perceptive. Public libraries should consider purchasing where there is an interest in sailing.-Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

It was an ill-assorted crew that set out in October, 1982, to deliver a 58-foot yacht, Trashman , to Florida. John, the captain, his friend Meg and the author first sailed from Maine to Annapolis, where they picked up two more crew members, Brad and Mark. Sailing without charts, they encountered gale winds and high seas off the North Carolina coast on the second day out. A freak wave crashed through the cabin windows, and Trashman sank in minutes, leaving the crew adrift in a rubber dinghy without food and water, each one hanging onto his or her own survival. Meg had been severely injured in a fall; she developed blood poisoning and died. The second day in the dinghy, John and Mark, both delirious, went overboard. Debbie and Brad managed to hang on to their belief that they would be rescued. Four days after the sinking, they were picked up by a Russian freighter and brought to shore at Morehead City, N.C. This is a harrowing story of endurance and survival. Author tour. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

A decade after she was fished from the Atlantic Ocean by sailors of a Russian freighter, Kiley realized that she had to face up to the terrors she had experienced or they would haunt her forever. This book is her act of "facing up." It is a remarkable story beginning with an unremarkable voyage--a routine delivery of a yacht from Maine to its owner in Florida. Kiley had a great deal of boating experience before this voyage, and notes throughout the inadequacies of her fellow sailors. Her knowledge also lends even greater terror to her precise descriptions of the yacht's final moments. While a storm tore the yacht to pieces, the captain sat in the engine room with a beer, purportedly working on the engine. All five crew members made it into the dinghy, but only two survived the entire five days at sea. Their bickering, anguish, and terror are exhaustively rendered. ~--Denise Perry Donavin

Kirkus Book Review

The knockout story of Deborah Kiley's five days and nights on a raft in heavy seas during a storm. Aided by journalist Noonan, she spins a harrowing tale. In 1982, 24-year-old Kiley, who had already sailed the Whitbred and other famous sailboat endurance races, fell in with John Lippoth, captain of the Trashman, a heavy-handling, 58-foot yacht he was sailing from Maine to Florida. The Trashman set sail with Debbie and John; his girlfriend Meg Mooney; tall, muscular Brad Cavanaugh and his buddy Mark Adams, a Brit with pale blue malamute eyes and a stupefyingly evil tongue. Somewhere off North Carolina they hit 40-foot seas; 80-knot winds shredded the sails and the engine burned out. The description of this part of the storm is hair-raising, with the crew frantically trying to handle the wheel and the character of each member showing strong and clear. Then, while Debbie was below catching a few hours sleep, the ship went down--in two minutes. (Her account of the terrifying awakening in heaving seas gives shivers.) The five victims clung to a rubber raft and initially fought hypothermia by staying in the water, whose walloping waves were warmer than the air. Eventually, they boarded the raft, found that Meg had many deeply infected cuts and scrapes, and kept each other warm by gathering in a heap in urinous bilge (released urine gave their only heat). Sharks tried to sink the raft from beneath; John and Mark drank seawater, went mad, and cast themselves into the sea; Meg died of blood poisoning. After many ships failed to see them, a Russian freighter finally picked up Brad and Debbie. Short and adrenaline-charged, especially with those sharks.