Shipwreck: A Saga of Sea Tragedy and Sunken Treasure (Hardcover)

by Dave Horner (Author) "Within a hundred years after Columbus discovered the New World, Spain had become a great power..." (more)
Key Phrases: Juan de Hoyos, Don Diego, Los Mimbres (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...Dave Homer has put together a book that challenges the excitement and action of any Hollywood blockbuster." -- Skin Diver Magazine, March 2000

"...adds an exciting and vividly documented episode to the long history of undersea exploration." -- The American Neptune, Vol: 60 #3

"For those who love the sea and history, this is a good read." -- Style Weekly, Richmond, VA, March 7, 2000

"the author captures the spirit of exploration and adventure in Spanish treasures both lost and found on the high seas." -- Sport Diver Magazine, Jan/Feb. 2000

Based on the exceptional and fascinating eyewitness account of a 17th century Spanish padre, Dave Horner's Shipwreck is the absorbing and true story of two immense galleons that were lost (along with hundreds of passengers and millions of pesos in treasure) to disasters at sea. Shipwreck is an extraordinary literary adventure which interweaves accounts of the many attempts throughout the past three centuries to recover the sunken treasure, including the recent discovery and salvage of one of the galleons by Dave Horner himself. Shipwreck is an outstanding history of true adventure on the high seas, past and present, which is wonderfully enhanced for the reader with 50 halftone photographic illustrations, six maps, four line drawings, seven appendices, as well as bibliographies of archival sources, institutions, original documents or primary works, and a general listing of thematically appropriate titles for further suggested readings. -- Midwest Book Review, October 12, 1999

Some people dream of buried treasure. Some read about it with fascination. A rare few take a deep breath and jump in after it. Dave Horner does all three.

Reading this book, you understand that Horner isn't just some wild-eyes adventurer. You also understand that, in being a scholar and writer as well as a treasure seeker, Horner swerves from the centuries-old salvor tradition of dive, pillage, and disappear.

Horner's book, Shipwreck, tells many tales. First, there are blow-by-blow accounts of the wrecks of two Spanish galleons: La Capitana, carrying 10 million pesos in silver coin and bullion, grounded on the reefs off the coast of Ecuador in 1654; and Maravillas, a 900-ton ocean liner, four stories tall, strewn across the white sand under the waters of the Little Bahama Bank in 1656. A sailor himself, Horner loves to melodramatize a maritime mishap, as when "The rigging clattered, the wind howled and shrieked like all the devils of hell."

Standing steady through the storms is Padre Diego Portichuelo, a priest with a wild hair up you-know-where that drove him into the company of pirates and thieves. In 1657 he published a diary of the escapades he witnessed, and his half-pious voice surfaces now and then as Horner uses him to tell the tales first-person. The padre can get colorful, as when he describes pigs brought aboard, hog-tied and huddled into a galleon corner, their constant grunting shushed when a Honduran seaman "cut six-inch pieces of papaya wood and rammed the sticks well into the rectum of each swine," at which point "the only noise the pigs emitted was an occasional whistle when wind was passed through the papaya twigs." You've got to believe that Horner embellished just a bit on the good padre's diary.

The third level of story links salvors of the ages with Horner's own salvage operations, performed with significant success off the Honduran coast in 1997. To read the lists of 17th-century divers and their hauls, it's a wonder there's any treasure left in the Caribbean sands. Then, to read Horner's accounts of the bureaucratic red tape faced by 20th-century treasure seekers, it's a wonder he has anything he can bring for show and tell. -- November 9, 1999- C-Ville Weekly, Charlottesville, VA

Through this chronicle of Spanish treasure lost in the 1650s, readers learn how a series of ill-conceived decisions, accidents and English attacks caused Spain to miss out on consecutive years of its main wealth supply-the silver and gold transported from the New World through the Carrera de Indias. The missing wealth was one of the main reasons a cash-strapped Spain lost its dominant position as a world power. Horner is an undersea diving and salvage expert who spent thousands of hours piecing together historical documents and survivors' journals to formulate a narrative that is rich in detail. Most interesting are excerpts from the journals of Padre Diego, a clergyman who lived through the first shipwreck in this story, and who, on a subsequent journey a few months later, was captured by the English.

Readers are treated to a firsthand report of colonial life in the mid-1600s, the absolute insanity of sea travel at the time and the terror of maritime warfare. Upon finishing this book, one marvels at how Spain managed to attain such power considering the depth of corruption, outright thievery and, in many instances, the complete lack of qualified decision-makers in charge of New World colonies and trade routes. Recommended reading for maritime experts and the layman with an interest in history and the culture of the period. -- Today's Librarian, October 1999

Product Description
Readers' hearts have long thrilled to gripping tales of golden galleons, tossed by gales and engaged in bloody battle, as heroes triumph and cowards are vanquished in frantic search for treasure. Incredibly, such fantastic stories are now eclipsed by the phenomenal true saga of Shipwreck.

In 1654, Padre Diego Rivadeneira watched the immense Spanish galleon Capitana, "Queen of the South Seas," as she sank off Ecuador carrying treasures worth 10 million pesos. Later he was among 45 survivors when the 900-ton Maravillas sank on the wild shoals of Los Mimbres, Bahamas, burying 600 people as well as 5 million pesos in silver and gold.

Three hundred years later, diver and maritime historian Dave Horner discovered Padre Diego's diary in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville. Twenty-five years of subsequent research led to the discovery and salvage of the Capitana, as well as a diving expedition on the Maravillas shipwreck site. Moreover, Horner has painstakingly forged an authentic historical context for the padre's singular story. The result is an unparalleled account of real-life adventure on the high seas, and a stirring portrait of the riches that drove men across uncharted oceans to a new world, as men are still yet driven in search of treasures long lost at the bottom of the sea.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Sheridan House; First Edition first Printing edition (October 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574090844
• ISBN-13: 978-1574090840
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #255,007 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well researched and historically informative work, October 25, 1999

By	John de Bry (archaeology@historicalarchaeolog... (Melbourne Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

Set in Virginia, Florida, Ecuador and the Bahamas, there are no clear winners in this story, and Horner aptly entitles one of his chapters "Treasure is Trouble", something befitting the 17th-century Spaniards who met a tragic fate on the waters of Ecuador and the Bahamas, as well as the modern-day treasure hunters whose greed has brought them nothing but "trouble". The exception remains Dave Horner whose goal was clearly the quest for historical truth and the dissemination of valuable historical and archaeological data, something he achieved with eloquence. A captivating book and a lesson to be learned... again

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The unluckiest Padre ever?, September 29, 2002

By	A. J. Watson "Bones" (Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Immaculate research and superb translations from Spanish archive material turn this into both a scholarly research vehicle and a concise history of the Spanish colonies and the Treasure Fleets.
A good part of the narrative is in the words of a Spanish Padre sent out to Chile to minister to the colonists; this tells us first-hand of the vast mountains of silver that were being exported from South America, and of the nepotism, greed, dishonesty and cowardice that seems to be the product of any get-rich-quick scheme - and Spain had more than its fair share in the 16th & 17th Centuries. The rest of the story is supported by quotes from sailors and court officials, while Mr.Horner fleshes out the story with historical facts and some surmise - the many notes are detailed as appendix and are not intrusive, while there is other useful information contained in other appendices.

Our Padre seems unusually unlucky in being shipwrecked twice, and on the way home the fleet is ambushed in sight of Cadiz and he, along with two ships and 4 million pesos (38 cartloads!) are captured in a brilliantly described battle that Hornblower would be proud of.

However, he lives to tell the tale; his memoirs are so detailed that we have a better idea of the actual wealth contained in the treasure fleet than the manifests admit - also the position of the wrecks is so well decribed that Mr.Horner was able to locate the sites and recover valuable artifacts (and of course, silver).

As a bonus, we are treated to a superb description of the daringly successful 1657 British attack on the treasure fleet holed-up in Santa Cruz, in which the whole Spanish fleet was destroyed, with the loss of no ships and only 60 men on the British side. This effectively crippled Spanish hopes of sea-rule and bankrupted Seville.

The final chapter warns us of the perils of dealing with the red-tape and gung-ho journalism that inevitably accompanies any salvage, not to mention the thievery when there is treasure involved.

A very worthwhile read. ****

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well researched and historically informative work, October 24, 1999

By	John de Bry (archaeology@historicalarchaeolog... (Melbourne Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

A well researched and historically informative work about two 17th-century Spanish treasure galleons, their tragic history and fate, and the story of the modern-day treasure hunters who found and salvaged them. Dave Horner did an excellent job in researching the background history of the two vessels in Spanish archival repositories, and writes passionately yet objectively about the men who lived and died on the high seas in their futile attempts to bring New World riches back to Spain. Horner also writes extensively on the modern-day saga of the finding and salvage of the two wrecks. The story told is one of intrigues, greed and deceit. Tragic as it may seem to some, one cannot help but smile as the events surrounding the search and discovery of the Jesús María de la Limpia Concepción, a.k.a. la Capitana, unfold. Set in Virginia, Florida and Ecuador, there are no clear winners, and Horner aptly entitles one of his chapters "Treasure is Trouble", something befitting the 17th-century Spaniards who met a tragic fate on the waters of Ecuador and the Bahamas,as well as the modern-day treasure hunters whose greed has brought them nothing but "trouble". A lesson to be learned... again.