The deep blue sea
A vicariously thrilling voyage through some of the great nautical mysteries and mishaps.
Ichallenge anyone to complete reading John McCrystal’s new anthology of nautical misadventures without suffering the merest hint of mal de mer. Worse Things Happen at Sea is arguably best read with your body firmly planted on a summery beach or reassuringly placed on a solid slice of terra firma. Nervous sailors and faint-hearted landlubbers beware: McCrystal’s freewheeling collection of
(to quote) “nautical mishap, misery and mystery” is not suitable reading for a Cook Strait ferry crossing. Imagination is a powerful thing and many of his stories are, shall we say, hair-raising.
To paraphrase Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ancient mariner, here’s a book that grips you with a firm hand and glittering eye as it recounts marine disasters ranging from the familiar (the Mary Celeste) to the very familiar (the Titanic, the Wahine) and the little known (the 1833 wreck of the Rifleman). Many of the stories can still shock a 21st-century reader. In 1874, fire erupted on the emigrant ship Cospatrick in the Southern Ocean, killing several hundred men, women and children and condemning the few survivors – all crew members – to an ordeal in open boats before rescue arrived.
McCrystal concedes that his book has no curatorial thread apart from being divided into three categories – the aforesaid mishap, misery and mystery. Some of his accounts are of roughly contemporary events whereas others delve into the past. While he’s a natural storyteller, the hearty avuncular style occasionally jars with the human tragedy. But if you have a taste for tales of the sea and those who go down to it in ships (quite literally in many cases), full steam ahead for an undemanding but vicariously enjoyable voyage through accidents, blunders and, sadly, rank incompetence. ▮
WORSE THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA, by John McCrystal (Bateman Books, $39.99)
Many of the stories can still shock a 21st-century reader.