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Gary Kinder

Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck Paperback – Illustrated, October 20, 2009

by Gary Kinder (Author)

4.6 1,828 ratings

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Originally published in 1998 and a best seller in its hardcover and paperback publications, Gary Kinder’s Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea 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 U.S. 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 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, journals, and even an intact cigar sealed under water for 130 years. Life magazine called it “the greatest treasure ever found.”

Gary Kinder tells an extraordinary tale of history, human drama, heroic rescue, scientific ingenuity, and individual courage. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is a testament to the human will to triumph over adversity. It is also a great American adventure story of the opening of Earth’s last frontier.

Print length

560 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Grove Press
Publication date

October 20, 2009
Dimensions

5.4 x 1.4 x 8.3 inches
ISBN-10

080214425X
ISBN-13

978-0802144256
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A National Bestseller

“White-knuckle reading . . . A marvelous tale, with generous portions of history, adventure, intrigue, heroism, and high technology interwoven . . . Gary Kinder has the skill to put it all together, and luckily for us, we get to read it.”—Los Angeles Times

“Drawing on the extensive testimony of eyewitnesses and survivors, Kinder has reconstructed the sinking of the Central America in harrowing and often poignant detail.”—New York Times

“A twenty-four-carat sea classic.”—New York Times Book Review

“Engaging, magnificently researched . . . a complex, bittersweet history of two centuries of American entrepreneurship, linked by the mad quest for gold.”—Entertainment Weekly

“An old-fashioned seafaring adventure, awash in time and vigor . . . A ripping true tale of danger and discovery at sea.”—Washington Post

“Titanic meets Tom Clancy technology . . . Kinder has lashed together a thumping good narrative.”—People

“Kinder makes the shipwreck so enthralling that it seems any later events are doomed to anticlimax. Not so . . . it is a truly great tale, cleverly organized and expertly written.”—Atlantic Monthly

“What a yarn! . . . If you sign on for the cruise, go in knowing that you're going to miss meals and a lot of sleep.”—Newsweek

“Gripping . . . the pages speed past.”—Newsday

“Extraordinarily gripping . . . An astounding and marvelous book.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“An extraordinarily good tale.”—Chicago Tribune

“Moving and riveting.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“It wasn't easy money, but it sure is a great story. Kinder tells it in fascinating, exhaustive detail.”—Time

“Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is nonfiction treasure . . . The book takes hold of you from page one and never lets go. history and heroics, science and suspense—Ship of Gold has that blockbuster feel.”—Sailing

“Worthy of the best fiction and enough action to shame James Bond.”—Men's Journal

About the Author

Gary Kinder is the author of the bestselling books Victim and Light Years. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; First Trade Paper edition (October 20, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 080214425X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802144256
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 1.4 x 8.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #91,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #35 in Ship History (Books)
- #63 in Archaeology (Books)
- #106 in Expeditions & Discoveries World History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 1,828 ratings

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Geoffrey K. Mitchell

Ship of Gold - a fantastic book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 23, 2023

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One of the best I have ever read. A long read but a fascinating one that ties people and families from the gold rush days that built much of California to the present-day technologies and unique inventors so needed to advance our technological knowledge base forward to more areas of discovery.

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Frank Tainter

Historical gold in a sunken ship.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 28, 2023

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One of my ancestors went to California during the gold rush in 1849, and struck it rich. I know very little about his life except that when he returned east with his gold in the ship Central America, it sank during a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina. Many passengers died. He lost his gold but survived with his life. He returned to his home in Minnesota and spent the rest of his life as a carriage driver for a taxi company. This book describes the incredible story of recent attempts to locate this ship and recover much of the gold that was lost. It is an incredible story!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Joseph L. Famulary

Great Book, with a nagging flaw

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2006

Verified Purchase

This book contains two stories: one of the sinking of a ship laden with gold; the other of its recovery many years later in a different era. It is well written and is all the good things that other reviewers have said. Yet for me there was a growing feeling of discomfort that I could not quite identify at first--a distraction that came close to ruining the second story.

A book without pictures compels the reader to imagine what the characters in the work look like. The main character in this work is Tommy Thompson. After the first 1,000 "Tommys" (Tommy said this, Tommy did that) I found I could only envisage a little boy called Tommy wearing a Halloween pirate suit (not named Tommy as almost all of the time the name on the birth certificate is Thomas). By page 400 I still could not picture a grown man with a precocious mind and the qualities of a leader, shaker, and mover, called Tommy. I started hearing the "na na na na na na" mocking phrase that little kids use to taunt each other in my head, but with the word "Tommy." I HAD to see what this grown man looked like before I could finish reading the book.

Fortunately there is a web site (URL's not permitted in reviews, sorry) that contains a photograph that is probably Tommy. If it isn't, I was at least able to rid myself of the mental image of little Tommy after seeing it. There are several superb photographs on this site, a few of which would have added an enormous plus to the book, which contains only one photograph--that of the author.

Little Chucky grows up to be Charles or Chuck. Martial arts master and TV star Chuck Norris, for example. Charles Norris would work, Chucky Norris or Chucky Chukson....I don't think so. Little Tommy grows up to be Tom or Thomas, or even Double T (the sobriquet given by George Bush to his Tommy Thompson). Some of the backers of the project referred to Tommy as Tom, and interestingly, the judge that ruled in Tommy's favor referred to him in his ruling as Thompson, thus keeping the juvenile name and image out of the courtroom.

If you think this commentary is trivial nonsense, try to imagine this: Tommy's right hand man was Bob Evans. Suppose he was instead Bobby Bobson. Then we would have had Tommy Thompson and Bobby Bobson starring in: The Bobbsie Twins hunt for Lost Treasure. A little hard to sell don't you think?

It's a great book. Read it. But check the website first. Not only will you see Thompson, but you will the ship Arctic Discoverer and lots of other fascinating images that should have been included in the book.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Great read on treasure hunting!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

In a story that spans more than a century, Gary Kinder gives us the account of the SS Central America's sinking and it's discovery by one of those prototypical eccentric geniuses, Tommy Thompson.

The book begins with the historical account of the SS Central America, a ship making the run from Panama to the US east coast, bringing people and gold from the California "Gold Rush" that sank in a hurricane in 1857. It's an extremely well written account that goes beyond the bare facts and is constructed from first-person accounts of the survivors. These chapters set the stage for the recovery of the treasure because it lays out the conflicting evidence on exactly where the ship went down.

The book then moves into a biography of Tommy Thompson and how he became drawn into the problem of doing work in the deep ocean as well as how he became interested in the SS Central America. Thompson viewed the enterprise of treasure-hunting as bringing together every aspect of a system, from finance to robotics and Tommy had the rare ability to ask "what next" and "what if that doesn't work" and have ready answers or alternatives. That the ship was found and the treasure recovered - tons of gold in the form of bars, coins and dust - is due almost exclusively to Thompson.

I was impressed with the book. It was exciting and I kept reading at a sitting - often longer than I had planned - because of the suspense the author created in each chapter. Really, it is very well written and a good read. The only things I didn't like was that there were no pictures of the treasure and the book ends at the treasure's finding. There's no exposition of the finds outside of a couple items recovered. Thompson was very forward-thinking in that he planned to recover more than just the gold and other artifacts that have historical and cultural significance were also recovered. The book ends without showing the reader all that had been found and the significance of the finds.

None the less, this is a very good read for fans of history, suspense, technology or folks just looking for a great read that's a little different. Good book - four stars.

15 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Arrived as Described

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 6, 2023

Verified Purchase

Timely delivery and book arrived as described.

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Top reviews from other countries

Els

Tedious, overly-detailed hero worship

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on January 28, 2021

Verified Purchase

Vaguely interesting for those interested in the detail of the elements involved accessing and recovering from very deep sea wrecks but the story is far too detailed and the author's apparent hero worship of the Johnny is a joke. It's even funnier if you search for what happened next!

Norman

A great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is a fabulous adventure story about a long lost shipwreck and the cargo of gold she carried . The sinking at the time was one of the worst at sea ever for America and a loss of over four hundred people and a total of twenty one tons of California gold rush gold etc. The salvage was amazing and the story made really interesting reading right through , well worth buying .

Silver Lady

Ship Of Gold In The Deep Blue Sea

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 9, 2012

Verified Purchase

This is a very interesting book, giving an insight into the background of a shipwreck, and the recovery of part of its cargo. It should be read in the knowledge that it was edited/approved by one of the main characters, and therefore, gives a rather glowing account of his (Tommy Thompson's) exploits.

2 people found this helpful

P. Freeman

A good 'un

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 11, 2012

Verified Purchase

Item just as expected; safely and swiftly packaged - and with an excellent pricing too, so absolutely nothing to complain about!! We're very pleased and would recommend this vendor again. Thank you.

One person found this helpful

NEILL G.

Gold!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

Wonderful, wonderful adventure of real life quest.

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Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck Paperback – Illustrated, October 20, 2009

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