The Sea Hunters: True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks - Softcover

Cussler, Clive

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145164776X ISBN 13: 9781451647761

Publisher: Pocket Books, 2011

Synopsis

REAL STORIES. REAL EXCITEMENT. REAL ADVENTURE.

A steamboat goes up in flames . . . and down to the bottom of the sea. A locomotive plunges into a creek . . . and vanishes into mystery. A German on board, U-boat sends an American troop transport, and eight hundred onboard, to a watery grave . . . on Christmas Eve.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Clive Cussler is acclaimed worldwide as the Grandmaster of Adventure, and his series of novels starring his action hero Dirk Pitt now have over 70,000,000 copies in print.

Whether it's deep-sea diving, climbing mountains, or driving classic automobiles, adventure is at the heart of Cussler's life. As Cussler himself writes, "Providing my readers adventure tales based around a devil-may-care character by the name of Dirk Pitt is only one chapter of my existence. I'm addicted to the challenge of the search, whether it's for lost ship- wrecks, airplanes, steam locomotives, or people."

In The Sea Hunters, his first nonfiction book, Cussler explores the special world of undersea adventure that inspired and has its fictional parallel in the Dirk Pitt novels. He describes his lifelong love for the sea and ships, and how his involvement with the search for John Paul Jones's famous Revolutionary War ship, the Bonhomme Richard, led to his establishing the NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the discovery and preservation of historic shipwrecks.

From the more than sixty shipwrecks Cussler and his NUMA volunteers have found, he has chosen the twelve most interesting, whether because of the ship's history, the circumstances of its sinking, or the trouble, frustration, and peril that were encountered while trying to find the sunken wreck.

With the same wonderful storytelling that Cussler brings to his novels, he describes his searches for such ships as the Union 24-gun frigate Cumberland, sunk during the Civil War by the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the Merrimack); the Confederate Hunley, which became the first submarine in history to sink a warship; the U-21, a German U-boat, which during World War I became the first sub to sink a warship and escape; and the American troop transport Leopoldville, which was destroyed by a German submarine on Christmas Eve, 1944, with huge loss of life; as well as Engine #51, the lost locomotive of Kiowa Creek, which roared off a storm-weakened high bridge in 1878.

The wrecks date as far back as 1840 and span the continental United States, the Atlantic Ocean, and the North Sea.

As he does in the Dirk Pitt novels, Cussler opens each story with a creative dramatization of the ship and the way she met her end, then brings the story into the present as he describes the immense research and careful preparation so often necessary to find a long lost ship.

For example, he describes the tragic fate of the steamboat Lexington, which burst into flames in the frigid winter of 1840, causing the loss of over 150 lives -- but sparing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who missed the trip only because he arrived at the dock seconds too late.

There's also the odd fate of the steamboat Charleston, which became the warship Zavala and which was so horribly damaged in a terrible Atlantic storm in 1842 that it was abandoned in a Galveston, Texas, marsh, and slowly sank from view. In tracing its location, Clive Cussler finally found it -- under a parking lot!

Dramatic, compelling, and personal, Clive Cussler's The Sea Hunters is as exciting and satisfy- ing as the best of his Dirk Pitt novels.

About the Author:

Clive Cussler is acclaimed worldwide as the Grandmaster of Adventure. He got his start in advertising, first as an award-winning copy writer, and then as creative director for two of the nation's largest agencies. His initial foray into fiction was in 1973, when he wrote his first Dirk Pitt® novel.

Since then he has continued to write Dirk Pitt® adventures while living a life that nearly parallels that of his action hero. Like Pitt, Cussler enjoys discovering and collecting things of historical significance. With NUMA (National Underwater & Marine Agency, a non profit group begun by Cussler) he has had an amazing record of finding over 60 shipwrecks, one of which was the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley. Cussler also has a renowned and extensive classic car collection, which features over 80 examples of custom coachwork.

Along with being Chairman of NUMA, he is also a fellow of the Explorers Club (which honored him with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration), the Royal Geographical Society and the American Society of Oceanographers. Married to Barbara Knight for 40 years, with three children and two grandchildren, he divides his time between the mountains of Colorado and the deserts of Arizona.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 145164776X
• ISBN 13: 9781451647761
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432