Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea
The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Titanic meets Tom Clancy technology” in this national-bestselling account of the SS Central America’s wreckage and discovery (People).
September 1875. With nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, the side-wheel steamer SS Central America encountered a violent storm and sank two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. More than four hundred lives and twenty-one tons of gold were lost. It was a tragedy lost in legend for more than a century—until a brilliant young engineer named Tommy Thompson set out to find the wreck.
Driven by scientific curiosity and resentful of the term “treasure hunt,” Thompson searched the deep-ocean floor using historical accounts, cutting-edge sonar technology, and an underwater robot of his own design. Navigating greedy investors, impatient crewmembers, and a competing salvage team, Thompson finally located the wreck in 1989 and sailed into Norfolk with her recovered treasure: gold coins, bars, nuggets, and dust, plus steamer trunks filled with period clothes, newspapers, books, and journals.
A great American adventure story, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is also a fascinating account of the science, technology, and engineering that opened Earth’s final frontier, providing “white-knuckle reading, as exciting as anything . . . in The Perfect Storm” (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
“A complex, bittersweet history of two centuries of American entrepreneurship, linked by the mad quest for gold.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A ripping true tale of danger and discovery at sea.” —The Washington Post
“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
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.
