Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck [Paperback]

Gary Kinder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2009

Ship of Gold tells the story of the sinking of the SS Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, two hundred miles off the Carolina coast in September 1857. Over four hundred lives and twenty-one tons of California gold were lost. It was the worst peacetime disaster at sea in American history, a tragedy that remained lost in legend for over a century. In the 1980s, a young engineer from Ohio set out to do what no one, not even the United States Navy, had been able to do: establish a working presence on the deep-ocean floor and open it to science, archaeology, history, medicine, and recovery. The SS Central America became the target of his project. After years of intensive efforts, Tommy Thompson and the Columbus-America Discovery Group found the SS Central America in eight thousand feet of water, and in October 1989 they sailed into Norfolk with her recovered treasure: gold coins, bars, nuggets, and dust, plus steamer trunks filled with period clothes, newspapers, books, and journals. Gary Kinder tells this extraordinary tale of history, human drama, heroic rescue, scientific ingenuity, and individual courage.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The facts speak for themselves. In 1857, the Central America, a sidewheel steamer ferrying passengers fresh from the gold rush of California to New York and laden with 21 tons of California gold, encountered a severe storm off the Carolina coast and sank, carrying more than 400 passengers and all her cargo down with her. She then sat for 132 years, 200 miles offshore and almost two miles below the ocean's surface--a depth at which she was assumed to be unrecoverable--until 1989, when a deep-water research vessel sailed into the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia, fat with salvaged gold coins and bullion estimated to be worth one billion dollars.

Author Gary Kinder wisely lets the story of the Columbus-America Discovery Group, led by maverick scientist and entrepreneur Tommy Thompson, unfold without hyperbole. Kinder interweaves the tale of the Central America and her passengers and crew with Thompson's own story of growing up landlocked in Ohio, an irrepressible tinkerer and explorer even in his childhood days, and his progress to adulthood as a young man who always had "7 to 14" projects on the table or spinning in his head at any given moment. One of those projects would become the preposterous recovery of the stricken steamer, and the resourcefulness and later urgency with which the project would proceed is contrasted poignantly with the Central America's doomed battle in 1857 to stay afloat.

Thompson, who spent nearly a decade planning and organizing his recovery effort, emerges as one of the great unsung adventurers of these times (the technical innovations alone required for such a task produced a windfall for the scientific community and defined a new state of the art for deep-sea explorers and treasure hunters), and the story of the steamer's sinking is compelling enough to make any reader wonder why the Central America sinking isn't synonymous with shipwreck in this Titanic-happy age. --Tjames Madison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Enormous publicity surrounded the 1989 recovery of an estimated billion dollars worth of gold?one of the greatest sunken treasures ever found?from the 1857 wreck of the SS Central America. Most of the publicity, however, came from media that, according to the author, "didn't have a clue what it was all about" and centered on the sensational aspects of the find off the Carolina coast. The story of the wreck itself, and the staggering effort it took to locate and recover the treasure, is the subject of Kinder's involving, fully realized history of the ship that amounts to a treasure in itself. He begins with a vivid account of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California, then seamlessly moves into discussions of everything from the ship's departure from San Francisco to nuclear submarine technology to the modern legal mechanics of securing offshore salvage projects. Along the way, Kinder (Victim) introduces the reader to a genuine American archetype?the eccentric Tommy Thompson. The inventor/scientist/adventurer, who led the decade-long "treasure hunt" (a term he despised) from start to finish, is constantly at the center of activity that involves not just finding a wreck 200 miles offshore but the juggling of investors, competitors, lawyers, scientists, a sea captain and an endless cast of cantankerous characters. The reader is thrilled by the thoroughness and intelligence of Thompson's planning and execution, as well as by Kinder's research and writing. This account of discovery, greed, technology and the elements makes for a splendid sea adventure.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Trade Paper Edition edition (October 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080214425X
• ISBN-13: 978-0802144256
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.4 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (242 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #198,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish there were more stars in the Amazon rating system. April 18, 2000

By Bibb

Format:Hardcover

One of the best nonfiction books I have ever read, and it's going to be hard to beat. It has many elements tied together into one highly readable volume, I'm surprised this wasn't nominated(as far as I know) for any awards. The book flips back and forth between a historical account of the SS Central America's final journey, and modern day efforts to recover the lost ship. Gary Kinder's extensive research and subsequent account of the SS Central America reads like a high-suspense thriller. The recovery process is a lesson in itself, demonstrating what persistence, determination and innovation can accomplish. Impossible? To Tommy Thompson that word was meaningless. "It can be done...Make it work...There is a way...You just haven't looked at all the possible perspectives." Where most, if not all, would have given up, he persisted and found and recovered a ship that was sitting on the ocean floor at "impossible" depths. The sub-ocean equivalent of putting people into space, this story is not to be missed.

Tommy Thompson has since published a coffee-table quality companion book, that shows numerous pictures and details of what he found. If anyone has read "Ship of Gold", this companion book is not to be missed! (can't think of the exact title offhand, but just search: Tommy Thompson)

This book would make a fine movie. I don't think a page went by without anything interesting going on. As a matter of fact I'm sure that by now a studio has bought the film rights.

And finally, this is the first book that comes to mind whenever anyone asks "Read any good books lately?" and is one that I wouldn't hesistate to give as a gift. Great, great stuff.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "The greatest treasure ever found"--$1 billion in gold! March 14, 2005

By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Gary Kinder tells three spell-binding narratives as he describes the search for the SS Central America, a sidewheel steamer which left Panama in 1857 and went down in the Atlantic while carrying gold from California (then valued at over $2 million). First person accounts by some of the survivors tell of the ship's journey, the hurricane which suddenly arose in the Atlantic, and the frantic efforts of crew and passengers to keep the engines fired and the ship afloat. Touching love stories revealed in these accounts give human faces to the drama, as women and children were put into lifeboats while their husbands stayed with the ship.

These survivor accounts alternate with the narrative of the life of young Tommy Thompson, a phenomenally inventive child who grew up in Ohio, studied engineering, became fascinated by the challenges of underwater engineering, and eventually worked for famed treasure hunter Mel Fisher, learning what kind of underwater equipment was needed but not available. In the early 1980s, Thompson, more interested in research than in treasure, decided to search for the SS Central America, with the backing of a group he convinced to underwrite his expedition. As the ship was thought to be in eight thousand feet of water, deeper than had ever been explored, Thompson would succeed only if he could design the necessary equipment.

The third story describes the search for the ship itself, a search which had two false starts before the site was finally located. Kinder develops almost unbearable tension as he describes how Thompson has to fend off rivals who are "treasure hunters," rather than scientists. Thompson's experimentation with equipment, the comprehensive documentation of the site through photographs and film, the legal battles for the rights to the salvage, and the final recovery of "treasure" ranging from gold bars and coins to beautifully preserved suitcases of clothing are vividly portrayed.

A book with appeal to historians, engineers, marine scientists, adventurers, and all who pursue dreams, Kinder brings the entire recovery process to life, honoring the efforts and heroism of the Central America's Captain Herndon, the indomitable spirit of Thompson as he developed unique robots and equipment to explore the ocean at depths of over a mile, and the scientific commitment, rather than treasure-hunting, which inspired Thompson, his crew, and his backers, the Columbus-America Discovery Group. Gripping, and filled with the wonder of discovery, this is non-fiction at its most exciting best. Mary Whipple

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars If you're reading reviews, then, yes, you'll like this book. July 11, 2000

By Tom Gillis

Format:Paperback

I feared that this would be yet another nonfiction book that starts out like gangbusters (California! Gold! Sunken treasure!), then fades into 400 pages that should have been a magazine article. I was mistaken -- this is a terrific book that (amazingly) maintains the reader's interest all the way through.

As I write this, there are >120 reader reviews for this book -- I assume that they are overwhelmingly positive (they should be, anyhow), and there's little I can add to the previous effusive commentaries. I will add the following critical comments, which (in my mind) forced a 4-star rather than a 5-star rating: (1) I found an excessive level of hero-worship here. Perhaps it was deserved, but I'd rather get there by myself, rather than have it force-fed ("he's a hero! "). (2) The really huge news in this book was the development of deep underwater techniques and tools. Yet, this is treated almost as an aside (e.g., over the next 2 months, the underwater robot (which nobody had ever built before due to technological deficiencies) was put together). This, it seems to me, was the big breakthrough, not guys poring over sonar charts. It would have been great to hear more about this story.

These are minor issues. It's a fine book. Go ahead.

And read it now, before they make a movie out of it.