I enjoyed the movie (George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Diane Lane), and found it to be an incredible story, but like most true stories, if you want more of the fact you have to read the book.

Sebastian Junger does an excellent job of telling this story and since nobody knows for sure, what happened in the last moments on the Andrea Gail, he fills this in with the best possible information, by interviewing others that have faced similar conditions so that in reading it, you understand just what the crew would have been doing in an attempt to stay afloat and get back safely. It doesn't really matter which day or which wave it was that finally did them in because, as Junger describes it, there options would have just kept disappearing one after the other until there was nothing left that they could do. Out of all the things that could have happened in the end, he details them all and then draws reasonable conclusion to what would have most likely been the final moment but you have all the scenarios to think through yourself as the reader.

What you really find here though is a sense of the desperation and the severity of the situation, and just how bad their luck turned out to be (or how lucky the rest of the fleet was). Junger also provides plenty of information on how ocean currents flow, the effect of temperature, sustained wind, and the skill it takes to navigate the north Atlantic. He also give chilling details of what the process of drowning is and what a person will go through (physically and mentally) as their life is ending.

This story is haunting and sad. It will stay with you for a long time.