Customer Reviews

Shipwrecks: An Encyclopedia of the World's Worst Disasters at Sea

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The book is quite good as far as it goes. The writing is good. One wonders at the author's choice of shipwrecks as some wrecks with considerable loss of life are not included.. It would seem that too extensive a listing is given to some obscure wrecks. Also, a number of entries are not on shipwrecks but associated items and places, perhaps too many such entries.

Also, in my opinion, a number of articles were too short, and a number of shipwrecks that should have been included were omitted.

Too Short: Third World wrecks that are included, Estonia, Exxon Valdez, Flying Enterprise, Wilhelm Gustloff (shipwreck with the most victims), Lakonia, Mikhail Lermentov, Morro Castle, Noronic, Oregon, USS Pollux, Princess Sophia, Princess Alice, Principe de Asturias, Principessa Malfala, Queen Elizabeth, USS Squalus, Sultana, HMS Thetis(sub), USS Truxton, HMS Vanguard , HMS Victoria.

Left Out: Athenia, Baychimo, USS Cairo, Derbyshire, HMS Edinburgh, Farallon, Grosvenor, HMS Hood, CSS Hunley, I-52, Iron Mountain, Joyita, Laconia, Lancastria, Achille Lauro, Mary Rose (Tudor), Melbourne, USS Memphis, HMS Natal, Oceanus, Ohio, Pacific (Collins Line), Princess Victoria, Prisendam, HMS Royal Oak, Royal Charter, Veendam, Volturno, Yankee Blade, and probably any number of wrecks occuring in Third World countries.

David Ritchie has produced a good basic reference work on shipwrecks throughout the world.

It is a bit uneven in concentrating on New England, the Outer Banks, the Great Lakes, the Columbia River bar and the Caribbean. Other areas of the world, by comparison, receive relatively short shrift.

I was particularly puzzled why Ritchie left out some shipwrecks that were very well-documented and dramatic. The one that immediately comes to mind is the burning of the immigrant steamer Volturno in the mid-Atlantic in 1913. Hundreds of the ship's passengers were rescued thanks to the bravery of the ship's captain and crew and those of the rescue ships that steamed to the scene.

I also would highly recommend that in subsequent editions, Ritchie consider a detailed entry on the Derbyshire, a mammoth freighter that disappeared during a typhoon in the South China Sea in the 1980s. The recent discovery of the ship in water nearly two and a half miles deep helped solve a mystery, bring closure to a horrible loss for the crew's families and offered engineering lessons that may well save the lives of hundreds of seamen in the years ahead.

If you want good narrative (and aren't too finicky about accuracy of detail), try to obtain a copy of Jay Robert Nash's book on disasters. (Hint to a publisher: This one urgently needs to be dusted off, updated and republished, as do Dwight Boyer's works) Until that happens, Ritchie's book will do yeoman service in your reference collection.

In the introduction the author apologizes to the reader for not being able to include 'every shipwreck' in the text. Some readers, he noted, were bound to be upset that a particular sinking was left out. Now of course we all know no book could cover every shipwreck or every disaster at sea, but certainly one could do better than this. As it is, all but a very few are given no more than a paragraph, making this more of a dictionary than encyclopedia. On top of it all, the book is filled with errors. The reader might just as well stick to the list of sinkings provided at the end, and ignore the text. Ritchie writes well, and could have produced an exellent work if only he had spent more time on the research and organization.

This book is written by a popular science journalist. It's a fact-filled reference of shipwrecks, mainly from the last few centuries. Here you can read the stories of the Wilhelm Gustloff, Titanic, Central America, and others.

The cover is global but the focus is on American wrecks and wrecks from the last two centuries. The book does not cover warships sunk in battle. Hundreds of ships are listed alphabetically and described. There is also a chronology and a keyword index. All this makes the book a useful reference.

The illustrations are few, consisting of simple drawings and black and white photos. More illustrations and a few colour photos would have made the book better.

A few comments:

- On keyword sheathing, the book gives the impression that lead sheathing of Spanish ship hulls ceased in 1567. That is not true. In 1999 I was diving on the remains of San Pedro de Alcantara. It was Spanish, lead sheathed and built on Cuba in 1770.

- On keyword Grand Congloue, the ancient wreck site is described as one wreck. But today's archaeologists agree that it's actually two wrecks on top of each other. The author refers to a book from 1971, which may explain why the text is out of date.

- On keyword Magna Carta, there is no mention that this famous document is from the 13th century AD. That is a pity. Readers who don't know about Magna Carta might get the impression that it's a modern text.

Despite these complaints, the general impression is good. The author has assembled an impressive amount of information in an easy light style. The book is a straightforward and useful reference for both professionals as well as for school kids. It is useful for readers anywhere, but considering the lack of ancient and European wrecks, the book may be best suited for American readers.

Set out like a dictionary, each section commences with a capital letter of the alphabet under which a limited number of shipwrecks and other subjects are included in strict alphabetical order. Under "B" for example there is the heading "bodies" which commences with the words "Shipwrecks commonly have resulted in loss of life." Whilst this is just one example of how the publishers have wasted printed space in stating the obvious, it is also an example of the way in which this book is very poorly written. On the very same page one shipwreck which resulted in the loss of 125 lives in 1892 is afforded no more than 5 lines and another (with 92 people lost) gets just 3 lines. From these and other entries the reader will learn nothing of those disasters or even of the ships themselves.

More frustratingly, many a good shipwreck - famous throughout the world of those with an interest in this absorbing subject, are not included at all. Whilst some accounts of certain ships do seem to get better than average coverage, for the most part, this book is not even a collection of short stories to entertain those who like a good read and is, therefore, likely to become a book which is put down unfinished.

In short, great subject, good layout, pretty awful content, nothing here for the serious researcher and could so easily have done so much better.

NM.

This is a good effort, but not difinitive. It was hard to tell by what criteria some wrecks were covered in detail and others bacame footnotes. I would have liked more pictures as well.