Ten Degrees of Reckoning's Worst Case Scenario
Hester Rumberg had her work cut out for her while writing Ten Degrees of Reckoning. Mainly because--as is clearly pointed out in the beginning of the book--it is not her story. It is her account of her best friend Judy Sleavin's family tragedy, aboard the Sleavin's sailboat, the Melinda Lee while sailing to New Zealand.
The tragedy is laid out in the first chapter, and so readers learn exactly what devastating heartbreak you're in for and most likely not forgetting anytime soon.
In 1993, the Sleavin family, of Tacoma, set out to live their dream, to sail around the world as a "cruising family," and they almost made it. Three years in to their "five year plan," on November 24, 1995, they were only 28 miles away from Cape Brett, New Zealand, when their sailboat was struck by a merchant ship.
Their eight-year-old son died instantly and went down with the ship while Judy, along with her seven-year-old daughter Annie, and husband Mike, were left to cling to an almost deflated dinghy in the middle of the ocean. Forty-four hours later, with a fractured skull, a back broken in several places, and paralysis below the waist, Judy was the sole survivor of the crash. (To this day, doctors have said that Judy suffered one of the worst cases of post-traumatic stress syndrome ever documented.)
Though this non-fiction novel is centered around a horrific accident, Ten Degrees has much more to offer than gloom and despair. Despite everything, it romanticizes the idea of sailing or "cruising" as a way of travel, vacation, and lifestyle. Appealing both to those who have or have not ever sailed before, it explains in detail what goes into to being or becoming a seasoned sailor; what it takes to sail around the world or on a long journey across oceans; and gives great lessons and depictions of the different geographies of the islands and countries the family visited before the accident.
Ten Degrees is also special in the sense that it is the first ever tell-all of the Sleavin family tragedy. After the accident Judy was approached by many international newspapers and magazines--even filmmakers--offering significant amounts of money in exchange for all the details. Rumberg writes, "Judy refused every offer. She didn't want to be the next tragedy of the week, an expression given to misfortunes that become well known and then are tossed aside."
Rumberg is herself a seasoned sailor, and a local Seattle author. She will be reading from Ten Degrees of Reckoning at Eagle Harbor Books on June 11, at 7:30 p.m. The event is free.
