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Summary: You will surprise yourself with how much you enjoy this!
Review: I don't know which is more fascinating, the story of the steamship Central America sinking amid a violent storm; or the story of the engineer extraordinaire who resolved to recover it's California gold rush cargo that had remained undisturbed for almost 125 years under two miles of ocean. Fortunately, Gary Kinder chose to tell both tales and they are equally engrossing Almost by definition, disasters at sea make for interesting reading, and the foundering of the Central America ranks among the worst maritime losses in American history. She went down in water over 10,000 feet deep, lost for over a century. Kinder relates her final voyage, illuminating the heroism of her captain, crew and passengers in a style that nearly makes the reader weep as her decks vanish into the sea. That alone would make this book worthy of note in any list of ship histories, but Tommy Thompson determined to find the wreck and to recover a treasure that many experts considered to be unrecoverable. It takes a talented writer to make an engineer seem interesting, or maybe the engineer just has to combine an almost Edison-like gift for innovation with a bit of treasure hunter to be interesting. First you have to find the ship, then you have to figure out how to bring it's cargo back to the surface - no mean feat at those depths. But Thompson wasn't content with simply finding and recovering the gold bullion and coins that went down with the Central America, he wanted to bring the artifacts up as cleanly and completely as possible. Where others might have been content to just sink a robot-controlled bucket down to the wreck and scoop up what ever could be found, Thompson and his crew invented new technologies that brought coins up with so little damage that appraisers at first questioned whether they were from a shipwreck. Thompson and company face one challenge after another, engineering problems, technologic problems, financial problems and even the drama provided by rival treasure hunters. You might be surprised how difficult it can be to put this book down.
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Summary: Two Good Sea Stories Woven Into Book
Review: Author Gary Kinder is a good writer. In "Ship of Gold" he weaves two different stories into an exciting adventure book. The Central America was a two-wheeled steam ship carrying Californians and a large shipment of gold from Panama to New York in 1857. Beset by a hurricane off the coast of Georgia, she sank with a loss of 400 of her five hundred passengers. About a third of the book recounts the voyage of the ship, its growing impairment in the storm, eventual sinking and the rescue of survivors. Using many first person accounts, this sea story is as exciting as any of the recent spate of "true adventure" books that have hit the shelves in the last decade. Most of the book is given over the story of Tommy Thompson, dreamer, visionary and treasure hunter. We learn the life story of a young man who possesses an engineers ability to tinker, Franklin's persistence, inventiveness and curiosity, Rockefeller's business acumen and enough personal idiosyncrasies to drive many who have worked with him to distraction. Thompson dreams of working in deep oceans, recovering, maneuvering and exploring at depths not worked by anyone else. The work he wants to do is sunken ship recovery. The Central America is his target. Lying off of the Continental shelf, she is miles down. That depth has ensured, however, that she is unplundered, which can not be said about most wrecks laying in shallow waters that are the usual targets of treasure hunters. The problem is that the whereabouts of the Central America are unknown, and the means to find her and - if found - recover her treasure do not yet exist. Most of the story focuses on Thompson's creating everything needed to pursue his vision. He and his team research the Central America until they know it inside and out. They conceive of and invent the technological means of carrying out the search and recovering objects from the deep. They enlist sonar technology that can sweep likely swaths of the ocean in which their ship might lay. They hire experts to take the information they have and project possible locations of the ship. They identify, pursue and convince the wealthy of Columbus, Ohio to back their venture. The Tommy Thompson story is the story of an entrepreneur living the American "pluck and luck" ideal and conquering new frontiers. Actual ocean operations involve many challenges - pursuit by other treasure hunters, rough seas, technological breakdowns, false targets and frustration by financial partners looking for quick results. The story of Thompson at sea in search of the Central America is quick paced and surprisingly suspenseful given the fact that it really is the story of some guys on a modern ship with expensive technology conducting search and salvage operations. But that is the worth of the book. Kinder renders the Tommy Thompson story very well and manages to create believable suspense without being overwrought. He does an outstanding job of weaving a white-knuckle sea disaster with a modern tale of entrepreneurism into a pretty good book. My only complaint is that at times he becomes almost worshipful of Thompson and does spend a lot of time detailing his habits, history and person -- more than you usually want to know in this type of book. But it's a credit to the author's writing skill that this hagiographic element does not distract too much from a suspenseful and interesting tale.
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Summary: A Must Read Book for Every Engineer or Engineering Student
Review: The title sounds weird but I really mean it. As a educator of pre-engineering students at a local two-year college I can think of no better book to introduce a student to what a truly gifted engineer does. If you have a friend, child, collegue, whatever who has a bit of engineer in them, get them this book and have them read it. If you are an engineer or love to tinker on old cars, planes, trains, etc. you won't be able to put this down. The disaster and man vs. nature storyline is enough to hook anyone but for those with a technical or mechanical bent, the descriptions of the problems encountered and surmounted in recovering the gold take the book beyond almost every other recent work in the genre.
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Summary: Fascinating true story of 1857 shipwreck off the Carolinas
Review: Fascinating, well-researched story of the SS Central America, a 300-foot side-wheel steamer that sank in heavy seas in September of 1857 off the Carolina coast carrying 21 tons of gold. It's still hailed as the worst peacetime sea disaster in American history Author Kindler vividly reconstructs the harrowing details of the disaster from the eyes of passengers and crew Then he tells the even more stirring story of how, after 130 years in 8,000 feet of water, the SS CentralAmerica was salvaged. Tommy Thompson of the Columbus-America Discovery Group found her and recovered gold coins, bars, nuggets, along with steamer trunks filled with historic clothes, newspapers, books and journals sealed under water for 130 years. Life called it: "The greatest treasure ever found." The salvage effort took several years and was completed in 1989. It was a classic example of the use of scientific ingenuity to penetrate the ocean floor at 8000-foot depths.... a barn-burning story and it's all true.
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Summary: Great story, excellent writing, and NO PHOTOS!
Review: If ever there was a book that cried out for photos, this one is it and yet no photos. I know there is now another book providing the photographic record, but they should have been in this volume. This is a huge and glaring mistake and only the skilled writer saved the book from disaster when the enginering must be verbally explained. I felt a number of minor characters in the story of the ship wreck could have been cut without any great loss to the central story which tends to bog down in detail about the disaster. The detail is needed in the recovery phase but not is telling the history and some drama was lost because of it. Over all a compelling read and well worth the time.
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Summary: Great Book but No Pictures
Review: I picked up a copy of this book new from the bargain rack in a local store, not really knowing what to expect. Kinder writes very well, explaining clearly any number of historical circumstances, as well as modern engineering and conceptual activities. The ship's history, and that of its passengers and captain make especially compelling reading. The team and the work that went into financing, searching for, discovering, documenting, and recovering items from the wreck may serve as a blueprint for someone interested in starting up any sort of business enterprise - Kinder's writing reveals principles of entrepreneurship as they actually functioned in the Columbus-America project. For me, the downside was the lack of historical photos and images from the search/wreck/recovery-process. Nevertheless, I think this is a book I will keep and probably reread.
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Summary: Excellent Ship wreck story
Review: This book has it all, a treasure seeker, a ship of vast wealth, a set of sympatheic passengers. And best of all an author who can weave the tale throughout the whole book. We get the whole story but the timeline is intricitly intervoven though the book. It's one of those beach reads, or winter by a fire with a hot drink that gets cold before you remember that its there again. The fire dying without you noticing, the sun going down and the kids have run off a mile down the beach before you look up. Its better than any fictional tale.
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Summary: Ship of Gold (in the Deep Blue Sea)
Review: I highly recommend this book as a clearly written, exciting description of the technical aspects of the search for, and discovery of the wreck of the Central America. Gary Kinder has avoided making an interesting story dull by use of a conversational tone, and an interesting juxtaposition of a description of the sinking of the ship,and the description of the organization and description of the Columbus-America partnerships discovery of the wreck 130 years later. I expected a fairly dry recitation of the facts, and was pleasantly surprised to have an almost couldn't put it down book. While a little more space could have been devoted to the artifacts recovered, overall the book is an excellent example of non-fiction writing and enjoyable to read.
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Summary: Phenomenal!
Review: This is a truly wonderful adventure, a great read, and extremely well written. What may seem like a simple treasure hunt is really a magnificent journey of invention, dedication, and inspiration. Gives the reader a glimpse into the minds of those thinking outside the box including the inherent professional and personal risks. What a story, rich history, modern invention, rivalry, court shenanigans, secrecy, drive, and a lot of gold. Highly recommended to all, but especially lovers of true adventure.
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Summary: Fascinating and inspirational!
Review: I wish I had another one as good waiting!
Think you have problems with some of your projects! Wow! From beginning to end, this team faced and solved huge problems to meet their goal. It's nice to see such an example of persistence and creativity. Better than "Perfect Storm!"
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