Rating: 
Summary: The Culture of Extreme Sports
Review: "Fatal Depth" tells five stories, each one about the death of a scuba diver pursuing an extreme version of the sport - diving on the wreck of the Andrea Doria. The personalities and circumstances of the divers vary, but the stories, taken together, provide a fascinating and multi-faceted look at the culture of extreme sports in general. What attracts people to extreme sports? To take unnecessary risks? And what are the consequeneces to the survivors when the gamble doesn't pay off? If you liked "Into Thin Air", chances are you will like this book also.
Rating:
Summary: The Culture of Extreme Sports
Review: "Fatal Depth" tells five stories, each one about the death of a scuba diver pursuing an extreme version of the sport - diving on the wreck of the Andrea Doria. The personalities and circumstances of the divers vary, but the stories, taken together, provide a fascinating and multi-faceted look at the culture of extreme sports in general. What attracts people to extreme sports? To take unnecessary risks? And what are the consequeneces to the survivors when the gamble doesn't pay off? If you liked "Into Thin Air", chances are you will like this book also.
Rating: 
Summary: Content interesting. Proof reader should be shot!
Review: As an avid wreck diver, I have read nearly every book available on the Andrea Doria. This book is similar to Deep Descent in that it documents some of the diving deaths at the Doria, however, this book goes into more details on the recreation of what may have happened to some of these unfortunate divers. I enjoyed the book but found it to be one of the worst examples of sloppy publishing I have ever read. I found nearly 50 examples of misspelled words, incorrect grammar, and sentences that made no sense because key works were missing. ( by misspelled words I am referring to words that will appear correct to a spell check program but are spelled incorrrectly in the context they are used. eg. the word "lot" will not be caught as a misspelled word but when you mean to write "lost"... you get the picture. A case of the authors mind running faster than his fingers. I would be surprised if anyone actually proof read this, and if it was proof read Joe should get his money back for the service. A 5 year old would have done a better job. Even more shocking considering that Joe Haberstroh is a reporter and columnist.
Rating:
Summary: Deadly Seasons of the Seeker
Review: As Scuba equipment and technique became increasingly advanced, dives to the "Everest of Scuba Diving", the Wreck of the Andrea Doria, were becoming increasingly routine throughout the 90's. Dan Crowell, skipper of the deep dive charter boat "Seeker", had a perfect safety record repeatedly visiting the site until the disastrous summers of 1998 and '99, when the "Doria" reasserted her reputation for doom and claimed five more divers. The author has presented the tale of the ill fated five with exceptional skill, managing to both impersonally recite the salient facts and yet provide a compelling story at the same time. Having told the tale so well, the book still draws no conclusions on the deadly dive seasons, leaving the reader to puzzle over the "why" of the Andrea Doria's still fatal depths. It is a satisfyingly dissatisfying ending to a good read.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating and impartial account of human striving
Review: Grippingly written by Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Joe Haberstroh, Fatal Depth: Deep Sea Diving, China Fever, And The Wreck Of The Andrea Doria is an impressively informative look at the cruelties of the sea itself and the people who brave it. Wreck divers routinely take the dangerous plunge to retrieve of artifacts from the lost ship Andrea Doria as a proving ground for their skills, yet plunging to such depths carries deadly risk -- and the death toll of the Andrea Doria's sinking continues to increase to this very day as some plunge to challenge themselves and never surface alive. A fascinating and impartial account of human striving, Fatal Depth is especially recom-mended reading for anyone with an interest in deep sea diving and underwater exploration.
Rating: 
Summary: boooooring!
Review: I actually had to forcefully keep my eyes open to finish reading this book. If you have read The Last Dive or Shadow Divers, you know that these books both share an immediacy and drama that reads like a novel. These are up-all-night page-turners that will leave you breathless. Fatal Depth was written like a summary of the author's short magazine articles about the events described; the book reads like the Coast Guard's accident files, lacking utter poignancy or interest. There is no attempt at defining the divers' characters or motives; as a result, we find ourselves feeling sorry for the victims but all the while unmoved by their two-dimensional profiles. Save your money and instead buy the aforementioned books. On a side note, this book's editing, as has been noted elsewhere, is aweful, inexcusable given the major publisher and the author's credentials
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: I enjoyed reading this book...for someone that does not dive it certainly is an eye-opener as to how many ways you can get in trouble quick at extreme depths.
Rating: 
Summary: Accurate but disappointing
Review: I had just finished Shadow Divers when I jumped into Fatal Depth. That's a shame because Shadow Divers so overwhelms FD that a completely unbiased review may not have been possible.
Haberstroh knits together the string of fatal dive incidents using the state of mind of dive boat captain Dan Crowell as the unifying thread. This attempt, though, turns up so little that the incidents really have to stand alone. As such, they seem like little more than incident investigations with perhaps a bit of background color for each of the victims. The author seems to have had no particular agenda and draws no conclusions. Even the status of a lawsuit described in the book's closing chapters is left unresolved.
If you want a STORY, ready Shadow Divers. If you want research material on deep diving fatalities or just cannot get enough of the genre then by all means pick up Fatal Depth.
Rating:
Summary: No artifact is worth your life
Review: The Andrea Doria is often called the pinnacle of wreck diving, and as author Joe Haberstroh relates the stories of men who've died pursuing their dreams of diving on the sunken Italian liner, it's easy to see how the thrill and mystique of mastering one of the world's most challenging wreck dives can cause otherwise experienced divers to throw aside caution in their quest for the sport's ultimate challenge.Without trying to assign blame, the author relates the circumstances surrounding the fatal dives taken by five men: Craig Sicola, Vince Napoliello, Richard Roost, Chris Murley, and Charlie McGurr. Technical divers with varying levels of skill, fitness and deep-wreck experience, the story of these men and their passion for the sport that ultimately killed them is what makes FATAL DEPTH a book that one can appreciate on many levels. The author (who is not a diver) has obviously done careful research on the sport, and he writes about the psychological and physiological effects of deep diving accurately and engagingly. I've never climbed a mountain, jumped out of an airplane or surfed a breaking wave, but I have plunged to the ocean's depths to visit the remains of ships lost generations ago. Haberstroh captures that excitement in his prose, and has penned a book that will appeal to everyone who appreciates a spirit of risk and adventure.
Rating:
Summary: A Gripping Read of Adventure and Danger
Review: The wreck of the Andrea Doria is considered the Mt. Everest of scuba diving. Resting at 250 feet in the cold Atlantic waters 45 miles south of Nantucket, the wreck's low visibility, swift currents, and extreme depths make it one of the most dangerous dives off the Atlantic coast. Yet hundreds of divers a year flock there to try and recover pieces of china as trophies, and proof they are among the elite scuba experts in the world. Long Island Newsday columnist Joe Haberstroh, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, covers a series of scuba diving fatalities at the Andrea Doria site over the summers of 1998 and 1999. All occurred from Dan Crowell's charter dive boat Seeker. While divers do not assign blame to Mr. Crowell for the accidents, controversy has arisen over the overall management of scuba diving. Although organizations such as PADI set a basic level of standardization, there is no governing body to regulate and enforce qualifications. Wrecks in international waters are out of the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard. As more and more people enter the sport, greater numbers of divers attempt advanced wreck diving. Without any kind of regulation many of these divers are unqualified or unfit to be attempting such dives. On average, the divers bringing up china from the Andrea Doria should have ten years of scuba and deep-water wreck diving experience. If less experienced divers are allowed to attempt such dives, more accidents are likely to happen. To quote from the book - "Making a safe dive trip on the wreck of the Andrea Doria is the ultimate rite of passage in Northeast shipwreck diving. Divers who pull it off have devoted themselves to mastering the most complex scuba diving equipment and techniques known outside the military. The dangers of the depth, the changeable nature of the sea conditions, and the remoteness from emergency medical assistance mean that anyone who undertakes a dive on the Andrea Doria is presumed to be competent. These divers are assumed to be able to take care of themselves if something goes wrong." Haberstroh wrote the book from the standpoint of a non-diving observer. Thus, he makes the technical aspects of diving easy to follow. Each accidental death is recreated through painstaking research and interviews with eyewitnesses. He captures the hands on feel of experiencing scuba diving and particularly the dangers of the Andrea Doria wreck. Included in the 256 page book is a brief history of the accident that sank the ship and a black and white photo section. He captures why divers feel compelled to risk their lives to salvage a few pieces of china from inside the wreck. Even for the non-divers, this book is a gripping adventure. "[This is] a well-narrated tale. Haberstroh does a deft job of laying out the character and motivations of five ill-fated divers and their guide...And Haberstroh's restraint serves him well, giving the book a fully informed breadth and, er, depth. This one is a solid, intriguing contribution to the genre." --(Seattle, WA) Times and Post Intelligencer
|
