Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, November 27, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Tom Waldron

"The Loss of the Pride of Baltimore"

ABSTRACT -- She was considered the most beautiful topsail schooner in the world and turned heads wherever she sailed. But on a spring day in 1986, the Pride of Baltimore and four of her crew were lost during an unforgiving Atlantic storm. The loss stunned the Baltimore region and the sailing community around the world. Baltimore writer Tom Waldron tells the story in Pride of the Sea (Citadel 2004) and explains how the disaster grew inexorably from decisions made a decade earlier. In his talk, he will discuss the process through which civic leaders created the Pride, the mistakes that were made and the confluence of circumstances that led to the disaster.

SPEAKER -- Baltimorean Tom Waldron is the author of Pride of the Sea, which recounts the loss of the schooner Pride of Baltimore in 1986. Now a freelance writer, he worked for 17 years as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. For much of that time, he covered state politics and government, serving for five years as the State House bureau chief. He also covered stories around the country, including Hurricane Andrew in South Florida, the USS Eisenhower (the first co-ed aircraft carrier) when it headed to port, and the arrival of the survivors of the Pride after they were rescued at sea. A graduate of Yale, Waldron is married to Baltimore Sun feature writer Stephanie Shapiro; they have two sons. Pride of the Sea is his first book.