Ghost Ship by Brian Hicks

Ghost Ship by Brian Hicks

On December 4th, 1872, a 100-foot brigantine was discovered drifting through the North Atlantic without a soul on board. Not a sign of struggle, not a shred of damage, no ransacked cargo--and not a trace of the captain, his wife and daughter, or the crew. What happened on board the ghost ship Mary Celeste has baffled and tantalized the world for 130 years. In his stunning new book, award-winning journalist Brian Hicks plumbs the depths of this fabled nautical mystery and finally uncovers the truth.

The Mary Celeste was cursed as soon as she was launched on the Bay of Fundy in the spring of 1861. Her first captain died before completing the maiden voyage. In London she accidentally rammed and sank an English brig. Later she was abandoned after a storm drove her ashore at Cape Breton. But somehow the ship was recovered and refitted, and in the autumn of 1872 she fell to the reluctant command of a seasoned mariner named Benjamin Spooner Briggs. It was Briggs who was at the helm when the Mary Celeste sailed into history.

In Brian Hicks's skilled hands, the story of the Mary Celeste becomes the quintessential tale of men lost at sea. Hicks vividly recreates the events leading up to the crew's disappearance and then unfolds the complicated and bizarre aftermath--the dark suspicions that fell on the officers of the ship that intercepted her; the farcical Admiralty Court salvage hearing in Gibraltar; the wild myths that circulated after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published a thinly disguised short story sensationalizing the mystery. Everything from a voodoo curse to an alien abduction has been hauled out to explain the fate of the Mary Celeste. But, as Brian Hicks reveals, the truth is actually grounded in the combined tragedies of human error and bad luck. The story of the Mary Celeste acquired yet another twist in 2001, when a team of divers funded by novelist Clive Cussler located the wreck in a coral reef off Haiti.

Written with the suspense of a thriller and the vivid accuracy of the best popular history, Ghost Ship tells the unforgettable true story of the most famous and most fascinating maritime mystery of all time.

From the Hardcover edition.

Dr. Brian Hicks is a scientist and engineer specializing in the development of instrumentation for space-based research in astronomy and space physics. A graduate of Macalester College (B.A. 2002, Physics and Astronomy) and Boston University (M.A. 2006, Astronomy; Ph.D. 2011 Electrical Engineering), Dr. Hick is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Center for Atmospheric Research. His active scientific interests include direct imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanetary systems, interstellar and intergalactic dust, as well as the study of gas and plasma dynamics around Earth and the various other bodies throughout the Solar System that could support life including Mars, Ganymede, Europa, and Titan.

In addition to participating in a number of design studies for satellites-, balloon- and rocket-borne imaging and spectroscopic instruments, Dr. Hicks has played major roles in the design and fabrication of high-contrast, high-resolution imagining and measurement instrumentation for the study of exoplanets and their morphological environments. A highlight amongst these instruments was the NASA-funded Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Sounding Rocket (PICTURE) project, which he helped to launch through the support of his graduate advisor, Dr. Supriya Chakrabati, in October 2011.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780345466655
ISBN 10	0345466659
Title	Ghost Ship
Author	Brian Hicks
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2005-06-28
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable