Gary Kinder – författare

An extraordinary tale of history, maritime drama, heroic rescue, scientific ingenuity and individual courage, recounting death, danger and discovery on the high seas in the search for lost treasure.In September 1857 the side-wheel steamer S.S Central America, which had been carrying five hundred passengers, many of them returning from the Gold Rush in California, sank in a hurricane two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. The tragic story of this fabled shipwreck resurfaced in 1989, when ocean engineer Tommy Thompson sailed into Norfolk harbour with over ten tons of pioneer gold. Using oceanography, computer science and information theory to sift through historical records and explore the deep sea, the scientists of the Columbus-America Discovery Group established mankind’s first real working presence on the deep ocean floor. Battling storms, technological challenges and intrusive salvagers, they recovered mint-state coins, antique bars and sparkling gold dust from what Life magazine described as “the greatest treasure ever found”.Ship of Gold is a copiously researched historical record of the initial disaster, rendered in chilling detail from contemporary accounts by eyewitnesses and survivors. It is a fascinating chronicle of the technological breakthoughs at the frontiers of knowledge, in which deep-sea robots were developed to perform heavy, delicate and complex work. And it is an incredibly exciting adventure story of the human will to succeed, a compelling tale of the triumph of making possible the impossible.

The 20th-anniversary edition of Gary Kinder's bestselling dramatic story of shipwreck, treasure lost and found, and a new chapter in deep-sea technologyFrom bestselling author Gary Kinder, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea is a “ripping true tale of danger and discovery at sea” (Washington Post), newly updated for this special 20th-anniversary edition.In September 1857, the SS Central America, a steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, was caught in a hurricane two hundred miles off the Carolina coast. Despite the heroic efforts of the captain and his crew, the ship, over four hundred lives, and twenty-one tons of California gold were lost. It remains the worst peacetime disaster at sea in American history. Combining historical adventure and scientific discovery, Gary Kinder re-creates the ill-fated voyage, and then tells the story of Tommy Thompson, a young engineer from Ohio who, in the 1980s, set out to be the first ever to work on the bottom of the deep ocean. As the target for his impossible quest, Thompson chose the wrecksite and fabled treasure of the Central America. Kinder chronicles Thompson’s epic battles with naysayers, violent weather, experimental technology, the harsh environment of the deep ocean, and unscrupulous rival treasure hunters. The result is an extraordinary narrative of human drama, heroic rescue, scientific ingenuity, and individual courage.