Detailed item info | Synopsis | In September 1857, the SS "Central America" sank 200 miles off the Carolina coast, taking tons of California gold to the bottom of the Atlantic. In 1989, a salvage crew led by Tommy Thompson rescued much of the treasure, using a combination of oceanography, computer science, and information theory, in what has been described as the greatest treasure recovery of all time.
| | Size | | Length: | 507 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in. | | Width: | 6.8 in. | | Thickness: | 1.8 in. | | Weight: | 28.8 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | In September 1857, the SS Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, foundered in a hurricane and sank two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. 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 United States 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. Now Gary Kinder tells for the first time this extraordinary tale of history, human drama, heroic rescue, scientific ingenuity, and individual courage.
| | Industry reviews | "'Ship of Gold' is a marvelous tale, with generous portions of history, adventure, intrigue, heroism and high technology interwoven. Shipwrecks make for enthralling reading; adventure stories have been a mainstay of literature since 'The Odyssey'; tales of individual heroism ditto; and Gary Kinder can join Jules Verne, Bob Ballard and Tom Clancy in making underwater technology thrilling."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Richard Ellis (05/31/1998)
"Sounds like a great book--peril and death at sea, coupled with a detective story in which a colorful American finds a way to recover a king's ransom from the ocean floor. Alas, 'Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea' is not a great book....The main trouble is that...[the book] is a paradox: a once-over-lightly treatment that goes on, and on....[T]he book is twice as long and only half as good as it ought to be."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Carl Nolte (06/28/1998)
"...Kinder conns his literary vessel admirably, in fluent command of fascinating detail, judicial ramifications and a disparate crew....[T]he author writes beautifully--historical and technological reporting of a high order, as suspenseful and deft about the doomed steamer as the salvage vessels. 'Ship of Gold...' is a 24-carat sea classic."
New York Times Book Review - John Maxtone-Graham (07/12/1998)
"Even readers familiar with Mr. Thompson's salvage operation are likely to find new information in Mr. Kinder's text, and for those with no previous acquaintance, it is a truly great tale, cleverly organized and expertly written."
Atlantic Monthly - Phoebe-Lou Adams (08/19/1998)
"Though the story it tells is very much a testament to Tommy Thompson's pioneering work in deep-ocean recovery, 'Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea' is, at its heart, an old-fashioned seafaring adventure, awash in brine and vigor."
Washington Post Book World - Jennifer Howard (08/30/1998)
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