Capsized: Four Men Adrift for 119 Days

After four months adrift in the South Pacific in 1989, the survivors were in such relatively good health that at first their story was disbelieved. Though upside down and half-submerged, their boat was well made. Its captain, John Glennie, a shrewd old salt, and his three companions--including Nalepka, an Outward Bound guide and the sole American--had originally set out from New Zealand for Tonga, and after capsizing they made living quarters in a compartment in the hull the size of a double bed with 18 inches of head- room. Nalepka tells how they caught fish and rigged a rain-collecting contraption, but he focuses most on the changing relationships among the men as they coped with stress and were forced to become a team to survive. Glennie lost his macho authority, the tentative Phil Hoffman, a heart patient, grew surer, and a loving tenderness developed between Nalepka and Rick Hellreigel, a young man with a brain tumor. Aided by Callahan (Adrift), Nalepka tells an intriguing tale of personal victories claimed from disaster. Illustrations not seen by PW (Oct.)