A journey into the world of merchant shipping from the shipyards in Korea, to a crossing of the North Atlantic in a ferocious gale, and into the boardroom of a wealthy ship owner in Monaco. Learn how a captain masters his craft, why a deckhand spends nine months at sea and how a ship is broken up on the shores of India. Daniel Sekulich is a masterful writer in the vein of John McPhee, with an observant eye and a gift for sparkling detail.
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In Ocean Titans, author Daniel Sekulich takes us on a fascinating journey as he delves into the world of merchant shipping. We travel to massive shipyards in Korea, across the North Atlantic in a ferocious gale, and into the boardroom of a wealthy ship owner in Monaco. Along the way, we learn how a captain masters his craft, why a deckhand spends nine months at sea, and how a ship is broken up on the shores of India. Through it all, Ocean Titans seeks to understand the ageless appeal of ships and the sea, and attempts to answer the question: Does a ship have a soul?
Daniel Sekulich, a documentary filmmaker, has a trained eye for detail, and his unsurpassed skills of observation are in full bloom. Take, for example, his description of the scrap yards on the sandy shores of the Bay of Khambhat in India:
"To glimpse the ghosts who once inhabited these ocean titans, all you have to do is follow that offshore breeze as it swirls around, over and into the ship, gliding through empty corridors and darkened cabins. The winds moan and murmur as they explore the vessel, at times pausing until the air becomes heavy with the smell of sweat, steel, and heat. Then they resume their airborne journey through the leviathan until the gusts grow bored and exit into the brilliant sunshine of
northwestern India."
The oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers of the earth are teeming with more than forty-six thousand merchant vessels, Daniel Sekulich points out. As many as two million people make their livelihood from seafaring. Merchant shipping is a multibillion-dollar, multinational endeavor that carries over 90 percent of global trade: crude oil, cooking oil, beer, wine, vodka, wheat, fresh fruit, vegetables, livestock, medicine, computers, furniture, automobiles, and much more. In the past thirty years this most traditional of occupations has changed dramatically. Why? And how?
Ocean Titans is a masterfully written investigation of the magnetism and mystery of the sea and those who are drawn to it.
From the Back Cover
In the tradition of John McPhee’s Looking for a Ship, Ocean Titans is a sparkling narrative about the birth, life, and death of modern ships—and the men who sail them around the world.
Follow Daniel Sekulich’s worldwide journey at sea, as he describes the dreamers, the builders, the owners, the masters and engineers, and the deckhands. Here is a masterful, colorful portrait of life and sea. The following excerpt will attest to that:
In peace and in war, ships have always left port laden with their cargoes, the sailors resigned to their fates, trying not to think about the madness of the seas and the maliciousness of the human beings who might await them. The wheelhouse officers will plot a course, the engineers will get up speed, and the deckhands will cast off lines. And if anyone is going to get swept overboard, it’s likely to be an ordinary seaman, the rank and file of the merchant-shipping world.
In peace and in war, ships have always left port laden with their cargoes, the sailors resigned to their fates, trying not to think about the madness of the seas and the maliciousness of the human beings who might await them. The wheelhouse officers will plot a course, the engineers will get up speed, and the deckhands will cast off lines. And if anyone is going to get swept overboard, it’s likely to be an ordinary seaman, the rank and file of the merchant-shipping world.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The life of a ship,
By
This review is from: Ocean Titans: Journeys in Search of the Soul of a Ship (Hardcover)
As a seafarer, I always view books about merchant shipping with some trepidation. The exerpt from the prologue quoted on-line for this book included a reference to corridors on a ship; ships have alleyways instead, just as they have bulkheads and decks rather than walls and floors. Despite this small niggle, I bought the book simply because there are so few in the genre, and it's always interesting for a seaman to see how 'outsiders' view our environment when they get to know something of it.There are a few other small mistakes that the editor should really have picked up; a reference to 'salty brine' - what other type is there?, 'immense clipper ships like the Cutty Sark' - clippers were not immense, even by the standards of the day, and there are now ocean going tugs that are bigger. The author refers to captains still being able to perform marriages at sea, but I am certainly not aware of any statute that allows this, I think it is another popular myth. Later in the book a container ship burns through 20,000 tonnes of fuel a day! Probably just bad proof reading. Nevertheless I was glad I bought the book and, these few errors aside, it is a well above average picture of deep sea merchant ships and the people who man them, and a credit to Daniel Sekulich, the author. The book broadly follows the life of a ship, after the prologue which starts at the end on a ship at the breaker's yard at Alang in India, the author encounters firstly a consultant who co-ordinates for the prospective owner the design and ordering of the ship, a sort of project manager from conception of the owner's requirements right through to when the ship completes sea trials. Next, we visit one of the largest shipyards in the world at Ulsan, Korea, for an overview of the construction process and the environment around the Hyundai 'company town'. After this we visit a shipowner in Monaco, where the author manages to get a surprisingly personal view of shipowning from the owner of the ship that Daniel visited completing sea trials at Ulsan. Following are chapters titled Masters, Engineers and Deckhands, where the author describes his time on the bulk carrier Antwerpen on a US East Coast voyage. Daniel describes well the naturally taciturn and wary manner with which seamen of all ranks regard 'outsiders' but the views he does get from them are I think representative of our type. Similarly, later in the book he meets the crew of a container ship whilst on a trans-Atlantic voyage. Probably the most illuminating chapter though is the penultimate one, where among other things, a Master gives his views on his 'relationship' to his ship, which are certainly similar to my own. There is mention of the increasing suspicion with which seafarers are regarded in many countries, especially the US, after the 9/11 attacks, and increasing restrictions on shore leave and the resultant hardships this creates. The author covers well the sense of isolation and loneliness that many if not all ocean-going seaman feel, with the long tours of duty and the distance of modern shipping terminals from cities - observing that the Europa Container Terminal in Antwerp is a $100 cab ride from the house of Rubens. After meeting a port chaplain who tells him that 'I don't have the courage to be a seafarer', the author follows with a very perceptive passage - 'When one thinks of the "courage of the seafarer", the images that often come to mind are of a sailor being swept overboard in rough seas and his crewmates struggling to save his life. Or of a battered and beaten ship, whose crew is trying to keep her afloat in mountainous oceans, fighting its way through the waves to a safe haven. But a more practical representation of the courage required of a mariner is the ability to withstand months, even years, away from your home; to endure crappy weather; and to be isolated from the rest of society in a tiny cabin.' The author has hit the nail on the head with this. The 3rd Mate on the container ship laments that when he does go home after say, a six-month stint at sea, all his former friends have moved on, he has no girlfriend and little prospect of finding one, so often the seafarer ends up just as alone when he gets home as he was on the ship. Sounds all too familiar to me from my deep-sea days, now thankfully in the past. The author goes on to describe little known phenomena, at least outside the shipping fraternity, of rougue and mountainous waves, up to 30 metres high, and of the threat of modern day piracy - a theme I feel the author perhaps could have developed in more detail. I would thoroughly recommend Ocean Titans to anyone who wants to know more about the realities of modern day merchant shipping, a world that is, as the author notes, largely invisible to the general public, notwithstanding that it is essential for the very existence of global trade.
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