All Hands on Deck
A Modern-Day High Seas Adventure to the Far Side of the World
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A maritime adventure memoir that follows a crew of misfits hired by Hollywood to sail an 18th-century warship 5,000 miles for the making of a beloved blockbuster film,
“An unbelievable ride . . . Will Sofrin has lived the real experiences and survived to tell the tale.”—Dan Shotz, Emmy Award-winning producer of Black Sails
In the late 1990s, Patrick O’Brian’s multimillion-copy-selling historical novel series—the Aubrey–Maturin series, which was set during the Napoleonic Wars—seemed destined for film. With Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin, the production only needed a ship that could stand in for Lucky Jack’s HMS Surprise, with historical accuracy paramount. The filmmakers found the Rose, a replica of an 18th-century ship that would work perfectly. Only there was one problem: the Rose was in Newport, Rhode Island, not in Southern California, where they would be filming. Enter a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs who stepped up for the task, including Will Sofrin, at the time a 21-year-old wooden boat builder and yacht racer, who joined as the ship’s carpenter.
All Hands on Deck is Sofrin’s memoir of the epic adventure delivering the Rose to Hollywood. It’s a story of reinvention, of hard work on the high seas, of love, and of survival. The Rose was an example of the most cutting-edge technology of her era, but in the 21st century, barely anyone had experience sailing it. The crew effectively went back in time, brought to life the old ways of a forgotten world, and barely lived to tell the tale. Just a few days in, a terrifying hurricane-strength storm nearly sank the Rose, and later, a rogue wave caused a nearly fatal dismasting. And the ups and downs weren’t limited to the waves—with the crew split into factions, making peace between warring camps became necessary, too, as did avoiding pirates and braving the temptations of shore leave. All Hands on Deck is a gripping story of an unforgettable journey and a must-read for fans who adore O’Brian’s novels and the dramatic film adaptation of the Academy Award-nominated Master and Commander.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I always knew sailing Rose to California was a special, once in a lifetime kind of experience. But it took me two decades to truly understand what I got out of it," recollects shipwright Sofrin in this nostalgic account of sailing a replica of an 18th-century British warship from Rhode Island to California in 2002. Hired as a deck hand, 21-year-old Sofrin and his fellow crew members piloted the Rose down the Atlantic seaboard, through the Panama Canal, and up the Pacific coast to San Diego, where it would be used in the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. From patching a leaky hull and climbing 10 stories up to secure a broken section of the mainmast, the 30-person crew had to learn the "forgotten skills" of sailing an 18th-century "tall ship" on the fly. Sofrin intersperses details of life aboard the Rose with tidbits of tall ship history and enlightening commentary on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, on which the film was based. High-spirited and finely detailed, this adventure tale will delight sailors of all stripes. Photos.
Customer Reviews
Must Read
If you love the film Master and Commander, you’ll love hearing how they got the Rose (the Surprise) from New England to San Diego! Enjoyable read, highly recommend.