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A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck Book Cover
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A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck Book Cover

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A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck

Sophie Elmhirst

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Maureen
1,717 reviews7,519 followers
February 11, 2024
“You only truly possess that which you cannot lose in a shipwreck.”
‎― أبو حامد الغزالي

This is the amazing true story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey’s 118 days adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were stifled with their lives, they had a perfectly nice new home, a car and good jobs, but it wasn’t enough, so after much discussion and planning, they sold the house and all their possessions, and left a 1970’s crisis ridden England in their lovely new boat, and set sail for New Zealand. However, things didn’t go according to plan when their boat was struck by a whale, leaving them adrift on a small raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

On the face of it, Maurice and Maralyn were an unlikely couple - Maurice was awkward, uncomfortable in other people’s company and he was extremely cautious, whilst Maralyn was charismatic and up for any challenge, and although they both wanted to be free to travel, to escape, unburdened by the nine to five and expectations of other people, Maurice was a real loner, and being adrift in the Pacific Ocean was as near as he came to escaping civilisation - so close to a whale that he could look into the darkness of its enormous eye.

Adrift on a tiny raft in the vast wilderness that is the Pacific Ocean, they were at the mercy of the ever changing weather patterns, from violent storms to extreme heat, and with food rations dwindling, and fresh water becoming increasingly scarce, they were forced to use initiative in sourcing these life saving essentials. Maralyn was the one who kept them both alive though - as Maurice became more and more withdrawn, she tried to see the positives and did everything she could to raise his spirits.
By necessity they learned how to make fish hooks from safety pins in their quest for food.
*I should indicate at this point that the narrative includes visceral scenes of the hunting and killing of turtles, fish and birds (as well as the cleaning and gutting of these sea creatures), but it was not gratuitous, - the creatures were killed for food, for survival and not for pleasure.* I skimmed through this part.

Beautifully written, this is a riveting tale of survival in the most extreme circumstances, and of the power of love when all appears lost. Very enjoyable.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage, Chatto and Windus for an ARC in exchange for an honest unbiased review *
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Nataliya
986 reviews16.1k followers
December 14, 2025
————————
“For what else is a marriage, really, if not being stuck on a small raft with someone and trying to survive?”

Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were an odd couple by all the usual standards. Despite very different personalities — Maurice riddled with self-doubts, awkward anxiety and rigid peculiarities, Maralyn adventurous and a bit spiritual, with a stubborn positivity streak — they both agreed they very much weren’t into the usual domesticity allure of the 1960s-1970s, desiring neither a settled domestic routine in a cozy home nor children. They sold off their house in order to buy a sailboat, worked on it for years, and in 1972 sailed across the Atlantic and into the Pacific, deliberately avoiding modern devices — not even a radio, navigating by stars, sextant and charts, both strictly sticking to their ship roles — hers was the galley, his was navigation. (Maralyn didn’t even know how to swim, although honestly it would not have made any difference in the ordeal to come).

And it all went very well until one day their boat sank after being hit by a dying whale, and they proceeded to survive 118 days on an inflatable raft and a dinghy, with 20 days worth of tinned food and water needed to be replenished by rain. They went on to fish and catch turtles and birds, suffered malnutrition until they were skeletal and looking decades older than their 40 and 32 years of age, and Maurice nearly died from a lung infection and body sores, until they were finally rescued by a passing South Korean fishing boat.
“They hadn’t felt it for so long, the intoxication of laughter, the way it rises within, but how else could they respond to the farce and horror of all this, the realisation that, on top of everything else they’d strangled or suffocated or beheaded, they were now murdering sharks?”


And you know the first thing they did after they recovered? Bought another sailboat with the proceeds from their story in media — and set on another sailing adventure.
“There weren’t many ways of being alone out on the ocean. They were profoundly alone, but they were still they, yoked together, like the dinghy and the raft. During the night, on watch, it was different, as if he were the only person alive in the universe.”
————
“It had somehow become a life, what they were doing. A strange life, but a life nonetheless, with routines and habits and pets.”
—————————

The survival story is fascinating, and it reads almost like a novel in the way Sophie Elmhirst described it. But besides pure physicality of their ordeal (catching sharks and birds with bare hands, fishing hooks made of safety pins, cutting eggs out of a turtle), the book focuses on another thing that kept them going — their marriage, the strength of the partnership that helped them along. Especially Maurice — he would not have survived without Maralyn, and he was very clear about it, in the way that the press initially focusing on Maralyn as the unnamed wife and a “small brunette” who they assumed had followed her husband rather than actually being the main drive behind the adventure and survival. And that marriage survived until Maralyn’s death from cancer in 2002.
“A theatrical departure in front of a well-wishing crowd followed by a long voyage on which you might be shipwrecked: It’s not bad, as metaphors go, for the relationship between a wedding and a marriage.”



I would not have paid any attention to this book had it not been mentioned at the work book club, and I went into it cautiously, semi-expecting a combination of sensationalism of the perils of survival against all odds (“No one wants to read the story of an adventure going *right*) and fearing an injection of melodramatic preachiness on marriage into my survival story — and it was nothing like what I expected. It’s calm, lacking the sensationalism, and the inclusion of thoughts on marriage is thoughtful and sweet but with undercurrents bittersweetness underneath. The way Elmhirst renders the story of the Baileys is respectful and very kind and humane, avoiding the pitfalls of moralizing at the couple’s dynamics or lifting up one person at the expense of the other (although Maralyn was the determined heart of the survival, Elmhirst is very respectful of Maurice while not sugarcoating his own particular differences and difficulties). And she does not try to insert too much into these people, present things we would not have been privy to in order to make them more relatable to the readers — a pitfall that too many authors writing about real people are prone to. Sometimes a slight remove from a real person who’s not just a character in the story is a respectful thing to do.

Elmhirst gets it right with the skillful narrative, excellent and confident lyrical prose, and pacing that never falters, even in the parts where the boat slowly drifts in the Pacific as Maurice and Maralyn struggle to survive. Before you know, you are so immersed in the resilience and endurance mixed with startling vulnerability of the Baileys that it’s almost hard to surface from its pull.
“It was rare for him, this kind of clarity. But here was a way to evaluate existence. Measure its success by the extent to which you have loved and been loved. On that count, his life had been a triumph.”

5 stars. I know I wouldn’t have survived what they’ve been through.

——————
Also posted on my blog.
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Jenna
476 reviews75 followers
July 25, 2025
In my personal reading experience, this book has a whale of a problem and maybe even a pod of whales of problems.


I feel like I can talk about it because a) we already know everyone made it out alive, no spoilers! and b) media outlets and reviewers have been perplexingly generous toward this book and have showered it with coverage raving about it to a truly confounding degree. So I find myself stuck here on Flummoxed Island, but the book — aye, she’ll be fine.


Turns out that a book about being trapped on an inflatable raft in the open ocean for months on end is just as tedious as being trapped on an inflatable raft in the open ocean for months on end. Thank goodness both experiences were mercifully short.


It’s dramatic and admittedly amazing that two people survived something like this. Unfortunately, a dramatic and amazing incident doesn’t necessarily translate to a dramatic and amazing story. Now, there is only so much a person can reasonably be expected to do under the circumstances of being stranded at sea — that is totally fair — and most of it necessarily consists of base survival. The details of this are likely interesting to read about — for the length of maybe a solid longform journalism article.


Maybe a reflective, articulate, insightful first-person memoir relating the accompanying interior journey could have been interesting in the way that a prison narrative can be. However, there is just not a lot going on in the whole #stranded at sea lifestyle for a third-party narrator to recount. There’s a lot of surprisingly dull, repetitive, or filler-like content, like a list of wished-for foods that is SO extensive that I actually leapt up from what I was doing and fast-forwarded as though it were a Audible version of that VHS tape in The Ring and would have killed me if I listened any further.


(And I dare say that if you’ve ever been a member of PETA or Greenpeace, there’s probably even LESS content that you’re going to want to … sink your teeth into.)


Another issue: Due to the aforementioned, the whole Shipwrecked! portion of the book is over by the 60-something percent mark (I really panicked seeing this), and it takes a while to get to it in the first place. So what’s the rest of the book about…?


[crickets]
[or whatever would be the oceanic version of crickets. the song of the humpback whale, perchance?]


Yeah. That’s a good question.


Another problem is that for something like this project to work, you would need, probably, at least some degree of investment in the protagonists — you know, beyond the normal empathy a reasonable person should feel toward a shipwreck victim. Well, as at least one other reviewer pointed out: Was the author TRYING to make Maurice and Maralyn unlikeable?? because it often felt that way! This applies more to Maurice than Maralyn: the book is pretty frank that the guy was often regarded as offputting, a quality he seems to have embraced. Most of the last 40% of the book is him complaining about the stupidity of all humanity except for himself and Maralyn, and how stupidly all those stupid people reacted to his seafaring experience. He isn’t winning any charm awards in the first part of the book either.


As for Maralyn, I’ll just say that she seems to have embodied the concepts of manifesting (and possibly toxic positivity?) long before their time. In theory, it would be great to have someone like this with you when you are adrift at sea — in theory. Personally, these tendencies probably would have driven me to go swim with the sharks at a certain point.


The last big ole issue with this book is that again, it just received a befuddling amount of hype and buzz for supposedly offering some deep, sweeping, masterful metaphor about modern marriage. Reader, I simply did NOT see it. I swear I peered through my telescope, my periscope, my spyglass, I TRIED. But I didn’t see anything rising over the horizon and I found myself grounded in shallow waters.


I didn’t really need yet another reason to avoid a daring ocean voyage, but [adds “may be weirdly hard to write good book about??” to the list]. Moby-Dick et al. notwithstanding.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Sharon Orlopp.
Sharon Orlopp
Author 1 book1,145 followers
November 2, 2025
I saw that A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck was one of President Barack Obama's top reads for 2025 so I listened to it on audiobook, and it is riveting!

It is a true story about a British couple, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who set sail in June 1972 on their yacht Auralyn. Their intended destination was New Zealand. While on their way to the Galapagos Islands, their yacht was struck by a breaching whale on March 4, 1973. Their yacht sank and the Baileys escaped from their yacht on a five-foot inflatable raft without a motor or a radio. Maurice had thought a radio was unnecessary. BTW, Maralyn can't swim.

They are adrift for four months trying to survive with minimal amounts of food and water as well as wide ranges of weather. And most challenging, spending time together 24/7 under extreme circumstances.

Highly recommend!



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Julie
2,564 reviews34 followers
February 6, 2025
An audiobook was not available, so I took turns with Simon to read it out loud. It was very interesting to learn about another couple's journey and how their marriage survived the challenges of being shipwrecked for one hundred and eighteen and two-thirds days. We paused many times, sometimes due to being choked by our emotions, and other times, to explore our reactions to what we just read.

At day number sixty of being shipwrecked, Maralyn "noted how rare it was for a couple to have such a period of uninterrupted time together." I marveled at her way of seeing the positive of their predicament. Later on, when things become more dire Maralyn's "vital, internal force, far deeper than intellect, or thought, or language" is even more evident.

I loved the descriptions of their natural environment. This example describes Hawaii: "They saw the jagged edges of peaks and the pleated slopes of mountains [...] The Pacific glinted in the sun as they approached the shore, confirming the presence, according to local myth, of fairies who fished off the coast of Waialua."

I also loved the humanity - the honesty - in the retelling of their story. Sophie Elmhirst "first came across the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey researching a piece on our desire to escape," according to the dust jacket. She has done a superb job in bringing Maurice and Maralyn to life. This is her first book! May there be many more!

It's a great time to have been reading this, as Simon and I will be celebrating our fortieth wedding anniversary around Valentine's Day 2025.
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Jess Esa
134 reviews17 followers
November 20, 2023
I had never heard of the shipwrecked couple Maurice and Maralyn before picking this up, and it's hard to believe this ever happened and that they genuinely did survive being out on the Pacific Ocean for months on a tiny raft.

My partner and I were laughing because Maurice's immediate consideration of ending it all and it being purely Marlyn's unhinged blind optimism getting them through is absolutely how it would go down if we ever found ourselves shipwrecked.

I have such a fondness for stories of married couples getting through tough times together and this is where this book shines, it's a book full of touching and tender moments both at sea and in the aftermath where they end up rescued by a South Korean crew, and later tour Korea, Hawaii, California, and beyond as their reluctant fame precedes them.

Being someone who has had a lot of skipper friends, friends with houseboats, and those who prefer life at sea, I couldn't help but think of them fondly whenever the couple talks about how suffocating they find life on land in the UK and was not surprised that they wanted to be immediately back at sea after their ordeal.

The pacing of this book is the only thing that stops me from giving it five stars, it takes a little too long to get to them setting sail and stays a little too long as we follow the couple into old age and beyond. The middle feels like being on the waves yourself, excitement followed by calm, only for things to amp up again unexpectedly.

It can also occasionally feel disjointed, especially towards the end where it feels like a journalist piecing together what information there is and it loses its narrative flow and voice.

Overall, this is a very special book and a quick read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys stories of people surviving against the odds.
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libs :p
426 reviews7 followers
June 25, 2025
I really just don’t know what the point of this was…

I always feel weird rating memoirs. I feel like I’m passing judgement on someone’s life, and that just feels icky. That’s not what this review is.

This book has such riveting subject matter, following a couple who were stranded at sea for 118 days. But, truthfully, I don’t know why this book exists.

The author never met the couple, and the book basically collects passages from their own autobiographical accounts (previously published as their own books) and newspaper information, with some supplementary information from family and friends.

It truthfully feels like a watered down version of their story, with a vast amount of disconnect because the author doesn’t feel at all involved. Honestly? It read like a GCSE student giving a class PowerPoint presentation report on the events that had happened, with a brief summary and some facts about the event.

The book was really gripping for 2 of the 5 parts, but the other three just DRAGGED and we ended the memoir in such a place of despair and sadness that I was truly left wondering what the point was. The author took one of the main characters and just presented a bunch of facts that made an endearing old man ultimately unlikeable and stalkerish, and then the book just ends??? You’re telling me I spend 250 pages reading about this guy just for you to then tell me that everyone hates him and he actually was a really horrid person to be around? Thanks for that.

Ultimately, this just felt like a collection of facts. An abridged version of someone’s own story that was presented factually, without any of the heart and emotion that this story required.
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Terrie Robinson
649 reviews1,404 followers
December 31, 2025
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey couldn’t have been more different, yet so perfect for each other. He was solitary, and compulsive, and she was charming, and enterprising. Neither wanted a conventional lifestyle—Maurice was looking for an escape, and Maralyn was looking for an adventure.

Maralyn sparked a plan to sell their home and live meagerly while Maurice oversaw the construction of their boat, and they finally quit working. Maurice and Maralyn took on separate responsibilities—his was navigation, and hers was provisions—which carried over at sea when they set sail for New Zealand in June 1972.

After passing through the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean, and nine months after setting sail, a breaching whale strikes their sailboat, and it sinks. They gathered what they could into an inflatable liferaft and attached dinghy, which they shared for the next 118 days...

A Marriage at Sea reads more like a Historical Fiction novel than a Biographical Memoir with a British couple from Derby, England, and their unique relationship at center stage. Elmhirst's writing style is lyrical and engaging, constantly moving the reader forward to discover more about Maurice and Maralyn, who are fully fleshed out as if they were characters the author invented. At times, they seemed unbelievable, but they and their circumstances at sea were horribly real.

An immersive reading experience, the audiobook is narrated by Marisa Calin, who delivers a third-person narrative in her breathy, pausing British accent that held my attention. It felt like the perfect voice for recounting this book.

A Marriage at Sea is an unforgettable true story of shared isolation, extreme survival, battles with despair, sustained hope, and human resourcefulness. It's filled with details of this couple's ordeal at sea, what happened afterwards, and the years that followed. It's a fascinating read!

4⭐
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Traci Thomas
874 reviews13.3k followers
May 7, 2025
I really liked this book. The first 2/3 are stronger than the ending. It is a wild story and Elmhirst does a good job building the suspense. Overall a quick and super enjoyable read.
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Rob Delaney
Author 12 books2,045 followers
September 11, 2025
Sophie Elmhirst is a major new writer (of books; she’s been a journalist for years). No messing around. No showing off. A fascinating story told clearly and well. If you want to write, read this book. The LIGHTEST touch. I am wildly impressed. God damn; I feel like a master magician just did a trick in front of me.
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None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel
886 reviews184 followers
August 31, 2025
Maurice and Maralyn began in Derby with “the formula of suburban domestic stress” and a plan to exchange bricks for a hull. Their Golden Hind 'Auralyn' carried them into Biscay, “green water sweeping the deck,” then on to Madeira where “the Atlantic roared in, carrying boulders the size of small cars.” In Barbados, the rum left Maralyn “drunk as a lord,” while in Antigua “pinching of bottoms” chilled the air between them.

The Panama Canal offered “a miracle of locks and lakes” before the Pacific stretched ahead as “our terra incognita.” In the Galápagos, “sea lions sang like drunk tenors,” and in the Marquesas they “slept under a roof of palm leaves, the stars breathing through the gaps.”

Fishing yielded drinkable water “squeezed from flesh with a lemon squeezer,” storms bent their crosstrees, and letters from England brought “demands for repayment” that made breakfasts brittle.

Far from land, dolphins “left long milky wakes like snakes,” flying fish vaulted into the bilge, and sunsets “dissolved in milk” while Maralyn kept the log. Maurice spoke of “living by the seat of your pants” and varnished every orange to keep it whole.

Off Venezuela, a freighter passed close enough for Maralyn to taste “iron in her mouth.” Curaçao marked a stop with stores low and tempers thin. Onward, the Pacific alternated between “the horizon boiling with flying fish” and stillness that stilled thought. Each landfall gave relief, each departure a wager.

In Polynesia, palm crowns and volcanic slopes broke the blue, yet the sense of distance between them deepened, measured in unspoken sentences as much as in miles.

Then the whale struck: “books leapt off the shelves” as “the whole hull shuddered” under the blow, and Maurice saw “forty feet of mottled black” heave beside them. Blood bloomed in the water, bilges filled “up to their knees,” and Maralyn watched “embroidered cushions drift away.” A fishing boat stinking of “tuna and diesel” took them in, and still they called it “worth every day.”

Sophie Elmhirst builds the account from diaries, logs, and recollections, producing a work that moves with the tide between romance, farce, and shipwreck, emotional as much as maritime.

The voyage reads as an allegory for two people out of their depth, charting a course through ambition and self-delusion. Maurice’s grandiose plans and Maralyn’s yearning for transformation crash against weather, want, and the realities of a leaking hull.

The book carries a warning about how love can founder when built on fantasy, yet it also preserves the intoxicating pull of risk. It belongs in the highest rank for maritime literature with its ability to capture both the smell of tarred rope and the sour breath of a love story gone adrift.
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Brandice
1,254 reviews
August 21, 2025
The story behind A Marriage at Sea is an interesting one — In 1972, after dreaming of something different, studying nautical navigation and preparing materials thoroughly, husband and wife, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. All seems well until months in, when a whale wrecks their boat, leaving them fending for their lives. The story is about their survival, physically and emotionally. ⁣
⁣
While I wanted to learn about Maralyn and Maurice’s story, it was challenging for me to stay interested in this book. I listened to the audiobook which felt dry, with a lot of extra content, and I found my mind drifting often. ⁣
⁣
I admire Maralyn and Maurice’s adventurous and determined spirit, and their pursuit of an unconventional life, especially back in the 1970s, however, A Marriage at Sea didn’t captivate me like I hoped it would — 2.5 stars
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Stephen the Bookworm
893 reviews122 followers
December 16, 2025
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey became household names in 1973 after managing to survive 118 days adrift at sea after their yacht sunk after being struck by a whale . The fickle hand of celebrity/notoriety has resulted in the story of this incredible couple being cast aside and lost in 50 years.

Sophie Elmhirst has taken the books written by the couple and other resources and retold the story of the Maurice and Maralyn. If alive today the couple's story would be standing alongside Raynor Winn on the bookshelf.

This is a tale of survival in the most extreme circumstances. The book captures the diversity in the couple's characters and how in many ways this complimented the marriage - balancing strengths and weaknesses and how in true love and life this recognised.

The excitement of escaping every day life is told with clarity but it is the palpable emotions of desperation and fear being stranded on the Pacific ocean with a dinghy and life raft that truly bring this book alive. Although in a wide open space , the feeling of a claustrophobia emanates off the page. It is clear that Maralyn was the motivator and the one that kept the couple alive in this time of disaster.

The subsequent tale of rescue and life beyond the 1973 event conveys the determination to return to sea and the love the couple had for each other but there is also a sense of life never returning to what they dreamed.Maurice recognises that despite the extreme circumstances they endured by the time they return to England more focus and praise is given to footballers and pop stars - nothing has changed.

This is a moving retelling of a survival story and deserves to be read and recognised by new generations and readership.
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Kerry
1,061 reviews183 followers
July 26, 2025
This book is non-fiction re-telling of a previously published story of a couple who end up adrift in the Pacific for 118 days after their sailboat is sunk by a run in with an injured sperm whale. The audio was released July 2025 and I read it in that form. (The original story, which I have not read, was called 117 Days Adrift written by the couple).

I've had a long history of being fascinated with non-fiction stories about survival after a plane crash or sailing accident. In high school I started keeping a list of movies and books that recorded these types of adventures (The original Flight of the Phoenix with James Stewart was a favorite). So when this latest came out in audio I was first in line.

This is a good story that is well researched using the diaries and logs of the couple and then piecing together their back story. It begins with the early days in the first pages with the event that sinks their sailboat and then travels back in time to give the story of how they met, early courtship and marriage. Then, the building of the boat, preparations of the trip and then the sailing. The early days of the trip are covered, ports of call and people met along the way.

Then the accident and living on a raft and dinghy for several months adrift in the Pacific. It is an adventure story that is a good one. As I learned as a midwife--in crisis true personalities raise to the top. I did like the story quite a bit though only the middle is about the survival and how the pair finds the courage and endurance to make it through. The last 1/3 of the book covers the rescue and days of celebrity afterwards. There book covers only in passing a second uneventful sailing and the eventual deaths of both of the couple.

Well worth the listen, I did feel it said a lot of how two people can come together in a marriage and how character shines through. I will be thinking about this one for awhile and may eventually read the original account.
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Meagan (Meagansbookclub)
782 reviews7,256 followers
July 21, 2025
Good not great. Read like fiction which is always my favorite nonfiction but I kept wanting more from the story. Writing was solid, story didn’t have that it factor.
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Lisa (NY)
2,148 reviews835 followers
unable-to-finish
August 7, 2025
Stopping after about an hour of the audio. Too dry.
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Paperback Mo
468 reviews102 followers
July 20, 2025
Wait this book was non-fiction?!

What I expected:
-A gripping, survival story
-Sharp insights into human resilience
-Rich emotional depth
-5 star read (considering the Nero Awards)

What I got:
-Endless lists (to make up a word count?)
-An emotional void in the shape of a boat
-More lists

I wanted to care, I tried to care. But the pages felt like they were ticking boxes: word counts, boat parts, weather report, existential emptiness. Maurice and Maralyn's ordeal should’ve been awe-inspiring. Instead, it was itemised and catalogued into oblivion. There’s no emotional core, no tension; if the author had spent half as much time developing interiority or narrative momentum as she did itemising supplies, this could’ve been compelling.

2 stars
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Tammy
1,618 reviews352 followers
July 15, 2025
4 stars. An unthinkable true story of one couples year-long survival at sea that kept me turning pages up until their rescue. From there it felt a bit longer than it needed to be but I would definitely recommend it!
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Nina ( picturetalk321 )
810 reviews40 followers
July 28, 2025
In one word: disappointing. Now, the sense of disappointment comes about from expectations under-served. And I'm afraid to say that the marketing of this book is responsible for these expectations. The marvellous book cover (illustration Bryan Angus, design Yeti Lambregts), the beautiful interior cameo vignettes (not credited), the lovely youtube trailer and the sub-heading 'A whale, a shipwreck, a love story' -- all conspired to make me think I was going to read a book about shipwreck on the open ocean. And to be sure, I did. But that bit formed only one part of the book. The other four or so parts are about... well, I don't really know what they're about and that's a big part of the problem with this book.

So what are the highlights? Well: the shipwreck and how they survived. There is, for me, an intrinsic interest in these events. How did they fish? What did they drink? What happened when their raft sprung a leak? What is it like in the Pacific during a storm? I've read more evocative descriptions but to be fair, these incidents were page-scrollers. On the other hand, intrinsically interesting events do not good reading make. The writing by Sophie Elmhirst is serviceable but this book is not Gabriel Garcia Márquez's unforgettable The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor which I read in the 80s and which continues to haunt my imagination. Márquez makes the account of the shipwreck into a philosophical and moving musing, with precise details of survival and mental breakdown. Elmhirst doesn't manage to attain these heights, which as such isn't tragic but there is another flaw:

The main characters' personalities. I found the two titular characters to be singularly unlikeable. I remained unmoved by their marriage, their love, their resilience etc. All stories of survival celebrate the human spirit, resilience, and so forth, so that as such is not special. And also shipwreck doesn't only happen to likeable persons but then the author needs to do some value-adding. The mmc has mental issues which is fair enough but Elmhirst didn't manage to make him a sympathetic person (to me); after all, I don't absolutely have to like a character to be involved in their plight but all I was left with here was a sense of self-involvement, curmudgeonliness and pettiness. Nor did I warm towards the fmc whose pragmatic attitude reminded me of those British colonisers in jungles and far-flung places who 'got on with it'. Her taste in food is ghastly for one (a cake with layers of Mars bars?? (115))

Your mileage may vary in this respect but the author perpetuates ideologically-charged stereotypes of an all-white, Enid-Blytonish land where we have 'the food of childhoods: little sandwiches and tablecloths' (116). I hadn't realised you could formulate sentences like this in the 21st century without awareness that this is a very particular kind of experience and not something that applies to all humanity. The tone vis-à-vis feminism and women is also weird, as if written by a bemused bystander. Nor did Elmhirst's declaration that 'the bins, the laundry, the procession of meals' being 'the golden days' (213) strike a great note (to me). Yes, to be fair, if our lives are horrendously disrupted by, for example, war, even the bins may provoke nostalgia but it is odd that the things the author picks out are chores done mostly by women in today's patriarchal conditions (see my earlier point re feminism).

Some nice sentences"
'They were used to moving fast through water, air flowing past them. Now that they were still, the heat enclosed them like a tomb.' (73)
'It was like fishing in an overstuffed pond: Maurice could pluck them out of the water one after another.' (86) I read about this bounty of the Pacific in Thor Heyerdahl's evocative Kon-Tiki.
'They sat in pools of water like plant pots in saucers.' (92)

Ultimately, I guess I am left cold by allohet asseverations of marital amazingness. The paragraph of how 'he felt he'd become asexual' was totally superfluous (I mean, how would that even be something to occur to you as you drift on the seas in a dinghy??) - maybe it did occur to the mmc but where is authorial packaging of this nugget? Then there is Elmhirst's statement that 'we can only see ourselves through the eyes of a partner, as though they have greater access to reality' (96) to which I can only reply "No" (and also: relevance to shipwreck story?). When the author declares that nobody cuts off all their hair without it being a protest or a 'nun-like shunning of the world' (97), I think of all the people with cancer, for one.

Anyway, that's me. Make up your mind, if you will. But be warned: only a portion of this book is about 'shipwreck and survival' and the 'true love' is by no means 'extraordinary' (as per the tag line).

Read for my landscape theme of 2024: the open ocean.
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Diane
1,125 reviews3,209 followers
January 2, 2026
For what else is a marriage, really, if not being stuck on a small raft with someone and trying to survive?

This is my eighth nonfiction book on shipwrecks, and my second one in which a whale was responsible for destroying the boat.* (This may help explain my fear of drowning in the ocean.)

However, this is my first book about a married couple trying to survive a shipwreck by themselves, all alone in the middle of the Pacific. In 1972 Maurice and Maralyn Bailey planned to sail from England to New Zealand, but disaster struck while headed for the Galápagos Islands. Their yacht was hit by a whale one morning, and within 40 minutes it had sunk. They were able to grab some supplies and transfer them to a life raft and a dinghy, and amazingly they figured out how to survive for 118 days before they were rescued by a South Korean fishing boat.

The book tells the story of their courtship, planning for their big trip, the disaster, the fight to survive, the rescue, the media coverage during the aftermath, and lastly, Maurice's years of grief after Maralyn dies in 2002. The first 3/4 of the book is great, but the last section covering their return to England drags a bit and I was impatient to finish. One of my big takeaways from their story was the power of ingenuity and of staying optimistic in times of crisis — the couple struggled most when one of them (usually Maurice) was pessimistic and grouchy, making it even more difficult to persevere.

Even though the final part could have been edited down, I would still recommend this book if you appreciate survival stories. My rating is 3.5 rounded up to 4.

*If whales attacking ships interests you, I highly recommend "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Favorite Quotes
"It is not so much the feats of endurance that keep people alive as the absence of surrender."

"If in doubt, do. Things always need to be done. All vessels, all homes, however small and insubstantial, require a system."

"But here was a way to evaluate existence. Measure its success by the extent to which you have loved and been loved. On that count, his life had been a triumph."
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Rebecca
4,191 reviews3,450 followers
February 24, 2025
The true story of an English couple who were stranded on a dinghy and raft in the Pacific Ocean for nearly four months in 1973 after a sperm whale overturned their boat. Seven ships passed them by before an eighth, miraculously, picked them up. I most enjoyed reading about the daily routines of food-gathering, boat maintenance, etc. that sustained them. After their supply of tins and other preserved food ran out, they ate turtles, sharks and boobies that they caught and killed. They kept journals and pet turtles, made a deck of cards, and dreamed about the lavish dinner party menus they would create when they got home. Maralyn Bailey was the optimist, never doubting that they would be rescued; Maurice was morose and perhaps neurodivergent. There was zero privacy when you had to do all your excreting in the same bucket.

Elmhirst briefly tries to make a case for their situation being a microcosm of marriage in general: "For what else is a marriage, really, if not being stuck on a small raft with someone and trying to survive?" She's crafted this based on Maurice's published books, Maralyn's journal, letters, newspaper articles, and so on. It's the sort of narrative nonfiction that reads more like fiction, but Elmhirst might have gone that bit further and done more to flesh out her characters. It's often very matter-of-fact, as one-thing-after-the-other as history, whereas she could have taken more liberties. Once the pair are rescued, there is pretty much no reason to keep reading; indeed, I skimmed the last 100+ pages. So while I found the core of the story reasonably engaging and will recommend the book to my book clubs since both struggle to agree on nonfiction, I was a little surprised to see it win a prize (the Nero Award). Though I would probably never have picked it up had it not.

[Interestingly, I had just a few weeks before finished reading the author's husband's debut novel (Going Home by Tom Lamont); I had no idea of the connection between them until I got to the Acknowledgements at the end.]
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Stephanie
428 reviews127 followers
August 8, 2025
A couple in the 70s survives being stuck at sea for 117 days after their boat capsizes. First half describes what they dealt with- surviving on turtles and fish, and the elements.

Second half was how they became famous, Travelling the world to tell their story. However, all they truly wanted was to be at sea and with each other.
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Karen J
601 reviews287 followers
August 31, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️


This story was absolutely unbelievable I kept looking to see if this really was a true story.
The hardships this couple endured was astronomical. I highly recommend reading this unforgettable adventure.
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Sophie
7 reviews
May 13, 2025
Reading this felt like the author was struggling to hit the minimum word count. The book could have been interesting in a diary format, with photos and some of the lists printed directly in the pages. But instead, the author describes every picture in excruciating detail and, for example, endlessly lists the dishes they dreamed of while lost at sea, making it a tedious and repetitive read.

The claim that this is an “extraordinary story of love” has to be a joke? If anything, it highlights how Maurice depends entirely on Maralyn to structure their lives, while contributing chaos (No radio? Really?) and refusing to carry any of the mental load, leaving everything to her, even their survival seems to hinge on her initiative. Maurice comes across as a deeply self-absorbed character who seems to only value the things Maralyn did for him. The final section of the book nearly made me put it down for good - it turns into an extended pity party, with Maurice rambling about how cruel life has been to him while mistreating the few people who still stand by him.
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Louis Muñoz
358 reviews199 followers
August 7, 2025
3.5 stars; recommend. I didn't expect that I would be so invested in this couple and their experiences, but author Sophie Elmhirst does a first-rate job in describing Maralyn and Maurice Bailey's harrowing 118 days adrift in the sea, after a dying whale(!) smashes their boat during the British couple's journey around the world. The book is not perfect - it simultaneously spends too much time on Maurice's latter years and not enough time on the couple's post-rescue life - but this book was well worth my while.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publishers for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.
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Stephen
2,183 reviews464 followers
May 15, 2024
interesting and emotional retelling of the adventures of Maurice & Maralyn Bailey through their 4 months adrift on the ocean after their boat sunk and how they survived with their faith in each other.
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Suzanne
160 reviews1 follower
November 30, 2024
I honestly do not know where to begin with this book? It only became apparent I was reading an actual true story at the point I almost gave up. Pulling 3 sharks by hand into a raft was just too much nonsense for me. At first I thought I was reading a plagiarised version of a Rachel Joyce novel but without the excellent writing. It was completely soulless, lacked any depth and the characters completely unlikable. I cannot believe it has been endorsed by such renowned writers the likes of which include Rachel Joyce and Joanna Cannon. Do they really think it was ‘extraordinary and jaw-dropping?’
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Deborah
1,610 reviews82 followers
August 24, 2025
2.5

I’ve read a lot of compelling nonfiction books lately that read so much like a novel, keeping me enthralled and engaged and unable to stop reading. This was not that. All the ingredients for a thrilling story are there: a British couple in the 1970s sell up everything to buy a boat for their dream of sailing to New Zealand to start a new life, only to have the boat catastrophically holed by a dying whale, sinking within an hour, leaving them adrift in the Pacific on a rubber dinghy and raft for four months, starving and with next to no water. How could that story turn out to be so lacklustre. And yet I found it to be so, alas.
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Debbie
496 reviews77 followers
November 11, 2025
3.5⭐.

Some books about survival can be captivating 5⭐ reads. Think Into Thin Air, Unbroken, Deep Down Dark, or Endurance. This book is not one of those.

In 1972, an English couple, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey decide to quit their jobs, sell their home and everything they own in order to buy a boat and sail to New Zealand. Their plan is to traverse the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by themselves. I found it hard not to question their sanity, but I was intrigued.

The story mentions very little about their journey across the Atlantic from London but settles into their long and arduous survival experience once a large whale shatters their boat, and their dreams, when they reach the Pacific. They spend the next 117 days on a raft enduring hunger, thirst, illness, and loneliness. Much of their existence at this time was torturous.

A lot of this couple's tale is extracted from portions of the diary that Maralyn kept on the trip. I applauded their courage and their will to survive. Maralyn is the type of optimistic and hard-working person that you would want to be stranded with while Maurice is the kind of person that you would like to throw out of the boat.

Approximately 60% of the book is about their ordeal and the remaining time is spent on the media circus that followed and how they moved on with their lives. The craziest part was when they immediately began to plan for their next ocean adventure. I thought that their previous brush with death at sea would have been enough to cement their feet onto land for the rest of their lives. Not true. They obviously had the gift of wanderlust.

Audiobook by Penguin Audio. 5 hours and 50 minutes. Also available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions.
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