Kelley Library

The sea hunters, Clive Cussler & Craig Dirgo

eng

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The sea hunters

186098

Clive Cussler & Craig Dirgo

In the Sea Hunters, his first nonfiction book, Cussler explorers 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 Bonhome 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 ships' 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 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

The steamboat Lexington. Through by daylight -- 1840 -- Enter NUMA -- 1983 -- The Republic of Texas Navy Ship Zavala. A sweet-handling ship -- 1836-1842 -- Ship in a parking lot -- 1986 -- U.S.S. Cumberland and C.S.S. Florida. Her flag still flying -- 1862 -- She-devil of the Confederacy -- 1864 -- Where did they go? -- 1980 -- Back with a vengeance -- 1982 -- C.S.S. Arkansas. The gauntlet -- 1862 -- Go down to the levee -- 1981 -- U.S.S. Carondelet. The river war -- 1862 -- Some days you can't win -- 1982 -- The Confederate Submarine Hunley. The little sub that could ... and did -- 1864 -- The toughest find of all -- 1980 -- Once more with feeling -- 1981 -- If at first you don't succeed -- 1994 -- The lost locomotive of Kiowa Creek. Journey to nowhere -- 1878 -- One that got away -- 1989 -- H.M.S. Pathfinder, U-21, and U-20. Death from the depths -- 1914 -- Down in eighteen minutes -- 1915 -- I'd rather be in Hawaii -- 1984 -- The troop transport Léopoldville. Silent night, deadly night -- 1944 -- Curses, foiled again -- 1984 -- They can't be found if you don't look. Postscript -- Current list of national underwater & marine agency shipwreck surveys and discoveries -- Foreign ships discovered and surveyed -- Additional sites surveyed