The Sea Shall Embrace Them: The Tragic Story of the Steamship Arctic - Hardcover

Shaw, David W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1587242451 ISBN 13: 9781587242458

Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc, 2002

Synopsis

Describes the 1854 collision between the American steamship Arctic and the Vesta, a French ship, an accident that cost hundreds of lives, including many passengers left behind when the crew fled the ship in the lifeboats.

About this title

Review:

By the mid-19th century, steamships were eclipsing traditional sailing ships in the lucrative transatlantic trade. The largest of these, the American Arctic, collided with a smaller vessel in 1854 with a frightful, and unnecessary, loss of life. David W. Shaw's The Sea Shall Embrace Them tells the story of this disaster, eerily similar in many ways to the later sinking of the Titanic. Shaw lays out the immediate and secondary causes of the disaster: bad weather, no established shipping lanes, the ship's owners' preference for speed rather than prudence, and an appalling lack of safety precautions. As well, he describes the suffering and grotesque deaths of many aboard and dozens of acts of pure cowardice on the part of the crew. The writing for the most part is vivid and effective, though the physical layout of the ship is somewhat murky. The story of the Arctic is not only sad and the tragedy avoidable, but one that, as Shaw points out, would be repeated many times in the decades to follow. --H. O'Billovitch

About the Author:

A journalist for nearly twenty years, David W. Shaw has written extensively about nineteenth-century American history in four of his previous books. His most recent is America's Victory, a riveting account of the world's most famous yacht race in 1851. Shaw's expertise as a sailor and his in-depth knowledge of the Civil War make him ideally suited to tell the story of Confederate raider Charles W. Read and his infamous voyage of 1863. Shaw has contributed articles to numerous publications, including The New York Times, Sail, Entrepreneur, Cruising World, Woman's World, and New Jersey Monthly. He lives in New Jersey with his wife.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1587242451
• ISBN 13: 9781587242458
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320