Previous
Albert Johnston
Karen Stimpson is a 42-year-old experienced sailor who, with her friend Sue Bylander, is hired by Ray Leonard to crew the sailboat Satori’s trip to Bermuda. She fights to keep the Satori afloat before calling in a mayday, and she comes to terms with the likelihood of her death before ultimately being rescued by Dave Moore of the Coast Guard. She defends Leonard’s stubbornness about being rescued, understanding his attachment to his boat.
Karen Stimpson Quotes in The Perfect Storm
The The Perfect Storm quotes below are all either spoken by Karen Stimpson or refer to Karen Stimpson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The World of the Living Quotes
"I was in a corner and I covered myself with soft things," says Stimpson, "and with a flashlight I took about ten minutes and wrote some goodbyes and stuck it in a ziplock bag and put it in my clothing. That was the lowest point. […] But it's a strange thing. There was no sentiment there, no time for fear. […] It was a grim sense of reality, a scrambling to figure out what to do next, a determination to stay alive and keep other people alive, and an awareness of the dark noisy slamming of the boat. But it wasn’t a terror beyond words. I just had an overwhelming sense of knowing we weren’t going to make it."
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
"When I got up into the helicopter I remember everyone looking in my and Sue's faces to make sure we were okay," says Stimpson. "I remember the intensity, it really struck me. […] They’d take us by the shoulders and look us in the eyes and say, 'I'm so glad you're alive, we were with you last night, we prayed for you. […] When you're on the rescuing side you're very aware of life and death, and when you're on the rescued side, you just have a sort of numb awareness. At some point I stopped seeing the risk clearly, and it just became an amalgam of experience and observation."
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Perfect Storm LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Karen Stimpson Character Timeline in The Perfect Storm
The timeline below shows where the character Karen Stimpson appears in The Perfect Storm. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Flemish Cap
In early September, a sailor named Ray Leonard hires two experienced sailors—Karen Stimpson, who’s 42, and Sue Bylander, who’s 38—to crew his boat, the Satori, which he’s sailing...
(full context)
The Barrel of the Gun
...they’re in the midst of a full gale. After a brief respite, Tuesday finds Leonard, Stimpson, and Bylander taking turns at the helm, clipped into a safety line to avoid getting...
(full context)
The World of the Living
...them is the Satori. In spite of Ray Leonard’s insistence, the storm only worsens. Karen Stimpson clips herself into a safety line and fights to control the boat. Sue Bylander begins...
(full context)
At 11:15 p.m. on October 29th, Stimpson, with Leonard’s sullen permission, calls in a mayday. The information is relayed to the Boston-based...
(full context)
...But gradually all three crew members work up their nerve to leap into the ocean. Stimpson recalls that when Dave reached them, he said, “‘Hi, I’m Dave Moore, your rescue swimmer,...
(full context)
Stimpson remembers the intense, sincere concern of the Coast Guard rescue team, but she also recalls...
(full context)
Into the Abyss
...northeast, for help. That’s when the Coast Guard airmen, who’d just been chatting with Karen Stimpson in Boston, prepare to embark on another rescue.
(full context)
