Linda Greenlaw is a minor character in the best selling book that became this summer’s blockbuster hit, The Perfect Storm. She’s the captain of the swordfish boat The Hanna Boden, and in the movie is played by the actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
She can talk fish, weather, navigation, tide charts, lunar cycles, feeding beds, spawning cycles — you name it — with the best of ‘em. She’s tough, she’s tanned, she’s tenacious. The only female captain in the machismo world of swordfishing, Greenlaw beat the guys at their own game.
She kept her crew in line, caught more fish and earned more money than anybody else on the East Coast. And she was also the voice of reason during the 1991 no-name storm of the century. Greenlaw kept her boat 500 miles east of the hurricane’s eye and warned Captain Billy Tyne to do the same. She lived to tell her story.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Linda Greenlaw, author of The Hungry Ocean