"Nautical history"
Sea adventure novelist Clive Cussler is as highly regarded
for his efforts to hunt and find real shipwrecks (see THE
SEA HUNTERS) as he is for his exciting NUMA books that are
far from the Pitts. Mr. Cussler and Craig Dirgo provide a new account of their
search for shipwrecks (and air-wrecks) around the world.
Each description provides fascinating historical background
data that includes information about the vessel, where it
allegedly sunk and why, and the team search of records and
other related evidence before finally conducting an on-site
investigation. Bottom line is that THE SEA HUNTERS II is an absorbing
account that confirms or denies the "authoritative"
locale. Though a fictional account of what the crew might
have said as the ship sank might turn off historical
purists, THE SEA HUNTERS II is an engaging look at
predominately nautical history through the disasters that
typically shocked those individuals aware at that time. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 10, 2002
SummaryFor twenty-three years, Clive Cussler's NUMAŽ-the National
Underwater & Marine Agency-has scoured the rivers and seas
in search of lost ships of historic significance. His teams
have been inundated by tidal waves, and beset by the
vagaries of man and nature, but the results-and the stories
behind them-have often been dramatic: The 2000 raising of
the Confederate submarine Hunley made national headlines.
Here, then, are more true tales of sea- and land-going
adventures, as Cussler and his crews set out to track down
history. The famous ghost ship Mary Celeste, found floating
off the Azores in 1872 with no one on board; the Carpathia,
the ship that rescued the Titanic survivors and was itself
lost to U-boats six years later; L'Oiseau Blanc, the
airplane that almost beat The Spirit of St. Louis across
the Atlantic before disappearing in the Maine woods-all
these, plus steamboats, ironclads, a seventeenth-century
flagship, a certain famous PT boat, and even a dirigible,
prove tantalizing targets as Cussler demonstrates again
that truth can be "at least as fun, and sometimes stranger,
than fiction" (Men's Journal).
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