Atlantic S Last Stop Courage Folly And Lies In The White Star Line S Worst Disaster Before Titanic

The long-awaited, definitive, shocking history of SS Atlantic, the worst shipwreck in Nova Scotia's history, authored by the vessel's recognized authority. In the pre-dawn hours of April 1, 1873 - as the lookouts looked, the steersman steered, and the captain slept - something was happening to the SS Atlantic. The tide had quietly carried the White Star Line ocean liner twelve miles off course, and land was closer than anybody realized?or was willing to believe. The wreck of the SS Atlantic would become the worst transatlantic passenger ship disaster before Titanic, and although it happened almost 150 years ago, there are still many unanswered questions. That is changing. Ten years after co-authoring the most celebrated book to date on Nova Scotia's worst shipwreck, author Bob Chaulk has uncovered never-reported information that answers the question historians have been grappling with for over a century: why a state-of-the-art steamship, with all equipment in perfect working order, in good weather, and commanded by officers of the world's leading seafaring nation, ended up striking rock outside Halifax and sinking, resulting in some 550 deaths. Over a five-year period, Chaulk tracked down many descendants of those on the scene and aboard the ship, patiently piecing their stories together to reveal a shocking conclusion. This richly illustrated work, featuring maps and colour photos, includes many firsthand accounts from passengers, crew, officers, and local rescue people.

In the pre-dawn hours of April 1, 1873--as the lookouts looked, the steersman steered, and the captain slept--something was happening to the SS Atlantic. The tide had quietly carried the White Star Line ocean liner twelve miles off course, and land was closer than anybody realized--or was willing to believe. The wreck of the SS Atlantic would become the worst transatlantic passenger ship disaster before Titanic, and although it happened almost 150 years ago, there are still many unanswered questions. That is changing. Ten years after co-authoring the most celebrated book to date on Nova Scotia's worst shipwreck, author Bob Chaulk has uncovered never-reported information that answers the question historians have been grappling with for over a century: why a state-of-the-art steamship, with all equipment in perfect working order, in good weather, and commanded by officers of the world's leading seafaring nation, ended up striking rock outside Halifax and sinking, resulting in some 550 deaths. Over a five-year period, Chaulk tracked down many descendants of those on the scene and aboard the ship, patiently piecing their stories together to reveal a shocking conclusion. This richly illustrated work, featuring maps and colour photos, includes many firsthand accounts from passengers, crew, officers, and local rescue people.

This stirring narrative is the riveting tale of the sinking of the steamship "Arctic"--a story of extraordinary bravery and appalling cowardice that took nearly 400 lives and the American merchant marine business down with it. of illustrations.

A story of tragedy at sea where every desperate act meant life or death The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and five lifeboats were lowered. As four lifeboats drifted into the fog and icy water, never to be heard from again, the last boat wrenched away from the sinking ship with a few blankets, some water and biscuits, and thirteen souls. Only one would survive. This is his story. As they started their nine days adrift more than four hundred miles off Newfoundland, the castaways--an Irish couple and their two boys, an English woman and her daughter, newlyweds from Ireland, and several crewmen, including Thomas W. Nye from Fairhaven, Massachusetts--began fighting over food and water. One by one, though, day by day, they died. Some from exposure, others from madness and panic. In the end, only Nye and the ship's log survived. Using Nye's firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship's logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic. Adrift brings readers to the edge of human limits, where every frantic decision and desperate act is a potential life saver or life taker.

A fascinating account of varied careers, providing a rich snapshot of the later eighteenth-century sailing navy in microcosm.

"With disasters from all over the world, these are stories of the people--whether they lived or died--as well as the ships."--Back cover.