William H. Flayhart

A nice book for any sea-faring stories buff to own and essential to a library like mine. Not quite so ‘up-to-date’ as the author might have imagined, but then no imagination could come up with our latest disaster, in the “Med” in 2012 with a liner’s so-called‘Captain’ refusing to re-board his own distressed vessel to assist the passengers and resisting all Coast Guard orders to do so! (He was, he claimed, ‘thrown off’ his ship into one of the lifeboats!)
Essentially the book offers a straightforward chronological narrative, in well researched and clear prose, of over 21 shipping disasters in the Atlantic. Each event is very fully detailed, from the first (usually) navigational error to resulting Board of Inquiry conclusions. Obviously Professor Flayhart has deep understanding on nautical affairs and terms, but does not “show off” his knowledge by any unnecessary descent into the lingo or “Esperanto” of the seaman’s language. It is this core skill … seamanship… that shines through many of his accounts of these shipwrecks. Marconi Radio Operators showing initiative and staying at their posts long past good sense should have let them. Captains being always the last to leave the ships – if at all. Or, conversely, the mad, expedient and very prompt evacuation of the crew first, long before that traditional ”Women and Children First” rule.
After many years at sea, through a few ‘near misses’ of my own, these stories thrill. Nowadays my seafaring is restricted to “Cruising” in vast, top-heavy ships designed to ensure that most passage-makers are totally isolated (protected?) from the experience and realization of their actually being at sea.
With ingrained distrust of such un-seaworthy designs and mistrust of crews whose only experience seems to be in the hotel and resort trade, I always ensure my wife and I know the most direct route to our designated lifeboat and its location on the true boat deck. I am pessimistic in my expectations that in the event of yet another “Steamship Disaster” the crew will be away in the boats whilst most of the passengers are still compliantly assembling – below decks – in the dining room as they have been trained to do in the pantomime of the usual Cruising Ships “Boat Drill”. Only my wife’s complaints stop me from boarding with our own self-inflating life-vests, complete with snap-shackles and safety tethers!
Only one thing grated throughout this enjoyable and gripping read – in my near-seventy years of boating, sailing and reading about the Maritime Service, boats, ships and vessels have always been called such, never, as they are consistently and persistently in this work, were they ever referred to as ”units”.

But that is the only gripe about this work from this very satisfied reader.… (more)

While the Trafalgar element gets a paltry 1 or 2 pages that is no great matter (I reckon the editor/publisher merely pounced on a popular aspect of the book). In its main topic it is a very good recounting of the diplomatic background to and the military expedition itself. The British forces involved land in Naples to fine a Russian general with seniority who is well past his prime and whose subordinate is ill-favoured towards the British. The diplomatic quagmire of political intrigue associated with the Bourbons there is as dangerous as the threat of action by Napoleon, and the reliability and quality of the local forces leaves much to be desired.
Somewhat disappointingly the Battle of Maida and that section of the campaign is barely touched, but otherwise it's a dizzying view into the financial and political maelstrom that is coalition warfare.… (more)