This book first came to my attention when it was printed (in abridged form) in "The Reader's Digest" in 1973, and later when the author appeared on "To Tell The Truth". I've always been a sucker for adventure stories and this true-life account of grit, determination and ultimate survival makes the statement "the truth is stranger than fiction" ring all the more true.

By the way - with the 30th anniversary of the Robertson family's disaster looming - does anyone know what ultimately happened to them?

NOTE 4/30/03 - After writing my original review, I was directed to the Robertson family website - ... - to learn the family's fate. Their daughter, who left the voyage in Miami and was not on board when the boat was sunk, is the web-mistress for the site, and was very gracious in e-correspondence when I sought details about her parents' later years. As stated in another review, Dougal Robertson passed away in 1992, aged 68, his wife Lyn following in 1998.

I think this book was a good adventure book and it teaches you about diffrent animals and the hardships that a family went through when killer whales attacked a boat. It also makes it clear in the book that at the end the family had a very little chance of survival. This book is a very good book. I encourage you to read it if you like adventures.

If you are looking for a nice down-to-earth, real-life, well-written book about survival and teamwork, this is it.
In fact, by the time you've read through it, you'll probably wish that their adventure had lasted even longer!

Dougal takes care of explaining everything he does and the reasoning behind it so that under no circumstances are you left with any doubts as to why he makes certain decisions.

The book also has some thoughts on what equipment perhaps you should put in your boating survival kit. In my opinion this part could have been even more elaborated on.