false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180283063m/1019347.jpg 1019347 3 <P> In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick's bestselling <I>In the Heart of the Sea,</I> Joe Jackson's <I>A Furnace Afloat</I> tells of the American clipper ship <I>Hornet,</I> which went down in flames, casting its crew adrift for forty-three days on the open ocean. Along with the stories of the Bounty and the whaleship Essex, the <I>Hornet</I> disaster was once one of the country's most infamous naval disasters. <P> Over the years, a handful of famous shipwrecks have become symbols of something greater, their accounts a floating opera of sudden disaster, wasted life, and privations endured by survivors. One of these was the 1866 saga of the clipper ship <I>Hornet,</I> the crew of which barely survived for six weeks on ten days' worth of rations and shoe leather, drifting 4,300 miles in a single lifeboat as they all slowly weakened and became delirious or mad. <P> The American clipper ship <I>Hornet</I> left her homeport of New York City on January 15, 1866, and embarked on what was considered a routine voyage to San Francisco around Cape Horn. She enjoyed an exceptionally smooth passage until the morning of May 3, when the ship ghosted gently a thousand miles west of the Galápagos Islands. On that day, the first mate went below to draw some varnish from a cask and accidentally set the cask afire. Within minutes, the entire ship was engulfed. <P> The ship's company of thirty-one men escaped into three small boats, set adrift under the burning sun of the Pacific Ocean to watch helplessly as the <I>Hornet</I> became a floating bonfire and sank beneath the waves. <P> The <I>Hornet's</I> complement -- twenty-nine officers and crew, and two aristocratic passengers -- mirrored all the prejudices and nuances of Industrial Age America. Their ordeal was harrowing: half of the <I>Hornet's</I> crew disappeared; the survivors were stalked by sharks and waterspouts, desiccated by heat, driven mad by lack of food and water. Soon the social divisions in the boat erupted into class war. <P> The crewmen accused the captain of hoarding food, water, and even gold, and they plotted mutiny. Their only salvation was to land on the "American group," a mythical set of islands said to exist somewhere in the Pacific. But the islands never materialized, and with no hope left, the men planned the details of cannibalism. On the day they were to draw straws, they reached Hawaii. By chance, a young, little-known Samuel Langhorne Clemens was in Hawaii. He wrote an account of the voyage that would make the crew famous, and Mark Twain (Clemens' nom de plume) a household name. <P> Drawing on extensive primary sources, including survivors' diaries and letters, as well as newspaper accounts and Twain's reporting, Jackson has created a gripping narrative of the horrors and triumphs of men against the sea. 2729991 2003 A Furnace Afloat: The Wreck of the Hornet and the Harrowing 4,300-mile Voyage of Its Survivors total:7|5:1|4:0|3:0|2:0|1:0| 7 27 20 1 3 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 11:15:42 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 11:49:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Oct 20 18:26:38 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 18:26:38 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jul 21 09:23:36 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 08:17:07 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Jun 19 21:45:35 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 05:51:20 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 21:45:35 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu May 28 20:28:11 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 20:28:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jan 18 20:36:15 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 20:41:26 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jan 17 07:40:49 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 07:40:49 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jan 06 12:17:49 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 12:17:51 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jun 06 06:05:52 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 06 06:05:52 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Tue May 06 08:41:16 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 15:55:33 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon May 05 07:24:48 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 07:24:52 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon May 05 00:04:06 -0700 2008 Thu May 22 01:35:40 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sun May 04 07:16:02 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 05:47:37 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Mar 26 16:10:03 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 26 16:10:12 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Thu Jan 03 15:38:06 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 15:38:11 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Thu Jan 03 15:09:27 -0800 2008 Tue Apr 28 04:59:19 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Jan 03 15:06:38 -0800 2008 Sat Jun 07 10:19:46 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sun May 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 21 10:50:54 -0800 2007 Sun May 04 01:17:57 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Wed Oct 10 04:37:24 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 10 04:37:24 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Wed Sep 12 13:14:59 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 12 13:15:30 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1019347