Nick Elliott's Blog, page 5

Angus McKinnon

Angus McKinnon is the character I created as the main protagonist in Sea of Gold. In the sequel, Dark Ocean, Angus is back, this time handling a cold case with consequences he could never have imagined when he took it on. The case forces him to confront a past trauma in his life and to investigate matters that call into question the integrity of a man whose memory he holds dear. This has meant more time building his back story and facets of his character as he faces uncomfortable truths from the past.

Sea of Gold is available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1jkQUYT

Escape from Hong Kong

I have just read Tim Luard’s Escape from Hong Kong, partly as context for the book I’m writing, Dark Ocean which is set in Hong Kong, but also out of interest in events surrounding and following the surrender of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941. Having spent eighteen years there its history is always of interest but I had never heard of this particular episode before.

The book tells of the escape by seventy odd servicemen and a Chinese Admiral across the border into China and Japanese occupied Guandong Province. Eventually, they make it to Burma, before continuing their respective military duties in various other theatres of war.

Wartime silver bullion salvaged from Atlantic

Inchcape Shipping Services, the company I’ve worked for over many years, has its roots in India, and particularly the British India Steam Navigation (BI)

Messrs Mackinnon & Mackenzie formed the line in the 1850s and James Lyle Mackay, later first Earl of Inchcape, took over and merged BI with P&O in 1914 assuming the chairmanship of what was then most certainly the world’s largest shipowner. The BI fleet alone comprised 158 vessels in 1922.

But with two world wars to contend with BI paid a high price in men, ships and their cargoes. In 1917 the Mantola was lost to a U-boat attack and in 1941 the Gairsoppa suffered the same fate, just two of many BI total losses in these years.

Fast forward to today and the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Odyssey Marine Exploration takes up the story:

Odyssey is the world leader in deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, searching the globe’s vast oceans for sunken ships with intriguing stories, extraordinary treasure and precious artifacts spanning centuries of maritime travel.

Before beginning the offshore search operations for Gairsoppa, Odyssey conducted extensive research using multiple sources to determine the highest probability area to search. Odyssey also acquired data from a previous search for the shipwreck. The Gairsoppa was located outside of the previous search area; near the location that Odyssey’s research department believed that the ship would be located.

The target shipwreck was located using the MAK-1M (deep-tow low frequency sonar system), aboard the chartered Russian research vessel RV Yuzhmorgeologiya. Visual inspection of the site was conducted with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the Odyssey Explorer. The video and still images acquired during the exploration of the shipwreck with the ROV were reviewed and analyzed at length to confirm the identity of the shipwreck as that of the SS Gairsoppa. The expedition and resulting data was also used to evaluate the condition of the shipwreck and to plan for recovery operations The Gairsoppa was discovered approximately 4700 meters below the surface of the north Atlantic, in international waters approximately 300 miles off the coast of Ireland.

Recovery operations are expected to commence in the second quarter of 2012. Odyssey has already identified the technology and equipment necessary to recover the silver cargo from the Gairsoppa and mobilization plans are being finalized. One of the world’s top deep-ocean salvage experts was aboard during the verification expedition to consult with Odyssey on customization of the system that will be used for the recovery operations.

While planning search operations for the SS Gairsoppa, Odyssey created contingency plans for several potential targets depending on when the Yuzhmorgeologiya charter was complete. Odyssey’s research team used Odyssey’s proprietary shipwreck database to identify other potential targets within range of the Gairsoppa search area and developed a search area for the Mantola. This preparation paid off when Odyssey located the shipwreck.

Historical overview

The SS Gairsoppa was a steel-hulled British cargo steamship that began her career in 1919 under the service of the British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd. of London. She was engaged in commercial shipping activity in the waters of the Far East, Australia, India and East Africa. By 1940, the SS Gairsoppa was enlisted in the service of the UK Ministry of War Transport and subsequently sunk in February 1941 by a German U-boat.

The Gairsoppa was built at Palmer’s Co, Newcastle in 1919 and launched on August 12 as the War Roebuck, but was renamed in October to Gairsoppa in honour of the stunning waterfalls in southwest India of the same name. The ship was 412 feet in length with a beam of 52.2 feet, 28.5 feet in depth and weighed 5,237 tons. The Gairsoppa joined the British India Steam Navigation Company fleet transporting valuable cargo through the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

In 1931, with war looming, the UK Director of Sea Transport of the Admiralty approached the British India Steam Navigation Company and requested passenger vessels to join the British naval fleet in times of national emergency. By Easter 1940, the entire fleet of 103 British India Steam Navigation Company ships was under the orders of the UK Admiralty and the Ministry of War transport. Of these, 51 ships with 1,083 lives were lost by the end of WWII.

The Gairsoppa’s final voyage began in Calcutta in December 1940 loaded with nearly 7,000 tons of diverse medium and high-value cargo, including a large amount of silver. She joined convoy SL 64 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which departed for Liverpool, UK on January 31, 1941 without a military escort. Many of the merchant ships in the convoy were in such a poor state of repair that they could only achieve a maximum speed of 8 knots.

The Gairsoppa and convoy SL-64 sailed the dangerous waters of the Atlantic, intending to rendezvous with convoy HG-63, which was escorted by two warships. Before they could join its ranks, HG 63 was attacked by U-boat U-37, and lost seven ships. As convoy SL-64 reached the northern latitudes, the Gairsoppa, loaded down with a heavy cargo, was forced to further reduce speed due to high winds and ocean swells. As the weather worsened on February 14, 1941, the Gairsoppa, running low on coal and with insufficient fuel to keep up with the convoy, was forced to sail on alone without the protection of the convoy and headed for Galway in western Ireland.

On 17 February 1941, Captain Ernst Mengersen submerged his 66.5 meter-long U-boat U-101, which carried 14 torpedoes and 26 mines, and moved in for the attack. By the end of the war, Mengersen had sunk over 70,000 tons of shipping, most of it British merchantmen. Four torpedoes were fired, one hitting its mark. Around 22.30 hours an explosion occurred in the Gairsoppa’s no. 2 hold. The impact of just one torpedo caused the foremast to crash onto the deck, snapping the wireless antennae and cutting the ship off from the outside world, so no distress call could be sent. Water began to wash over her bow and the forecastle was quickly submerged. The bow continued to sink, propelling the stern clear out of the water. Shortly after the attack, the Gairsoppa slipped deep into the icy waters of the North Atlantic Sea.

According to Lloyd’s War losses, 83 crew members and tw gunners were aboard the Gairsoppa when she was hit by a torpedo. The crew of British and East Indian sailors abandoned ship under U-boat machine gun fire, but only one person, Second Officer, Mr. R.H. Ayres survived the long journey to shore after thirteen days in a lifeboat.

The Mantola

The SS Mantola was a 450 foot British-flagged steamer which was delivered to the British India Steam Navigation Company in June 1916 at a cost of £146,700. She could hold 66 first-class passengers and 61 second-class passengers and was intended for London/Bombay service. Just four months later, she struck a mine off Aldeburgh, UK. Although a large hole was blown in the No 1 hold, the ship made it safely to port.

On February 4, 1917, the SS Mantola left London for Calcutta with 165 crew members, 18 passengers and cargo which included a shipment of silver. Her captain was David James Chivas, the great-nephew of the Chivas Brothers, famously known for their Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky.

On February 8, 1917, while sailing under full steam in a zig-zag pattern, she was struck by a torpedo from German submarine U-81 under the command of Captain Raimund Weisbach. With the No. 2 hold taking on water in high seas and clouds of steam billowing from broken steam pipes, passengers and crew abandoned the ship to lifeboats. Before the Captain and officers left the Mantola, the U-boat resurfaced and began shelling the ship. The U-boat later moved close to the Captain’s lifeboat but suddenly submerged and vanished just before the HMS Laburnum arrived in response to the Mantola’s distress call. All but seven crew members, who drowned when a lifeboat overturned, were rescued by the Laburnum. An unsuccessful attempt was made to tow the Mantola before she sank on February 9, 1917 – less than a year after she was launched.

917, the British Ministry of War Transport paid a War Risk Insurance Claim for £110,000 (in 1917 value) for silver that was on board the Mantola when she sank. This sum would equate to more than 600,000 ounces of silver based on silver prices in 1917. In September 2011, the UK Government Department for Transport awarded Odyssey a salvage contract for the cargo of the SS Mantola. Under the agreement, Odyssey will retain 80% of the net salved silver value recovered.

Ends

The estimated value of the silver salvaged from the Gairsoppa is £150 million.

With kind permission of Odyssey Marine Exploration:  www.shipwreck.net

and Inchcape Shipping Services: www.iss-shipping.com

 

Silver bars from the Gairsoppa

 

Mantola Foracastle

 

Mantola engine room skylights

 

SS Gairsoppa

 

SS Mantola

Work in progress

I’m around half way through the first draft of my second book, Dark Ocean. I left a few loose ends in Sea of Gold which can be tied into this one. I’ve grown to like the characters. Some will reappear, including Angus McKinnon, of course. I’ll carry on in the first person too. It comes more naturally to me and I think it brings the reader closer to the events and action.

Sea of Gold: setting the scene

Perama, Greece: where ships come to die, and  scene of a violent confrontation

Kohsichang, Thailand: rice cargoes are loaded at the anchorage here, and maritime fraud is not unusual

Svaneti, Georgia: where gold is still panned for – evidence of Jason and the Golden Fleece

The Shore pub, Leith: one of Angus’s haunts

Profitis Ilias, Piraeus: the hill above the city  where Angus lives

Gold mine run-off, Mindanao: open-pit mining leads to deforestation and threatens local villages, and Angus’s life

Colonial ‘Black-and-White, Singapore: beautifully maintained old houses, and home to a mining boss

Liddesdale, Scottish Borders: Reiver country where illusions become reality

Exmouth, Devon: how does Angus find himself in this place?

Cocos Keeling Islands, Indian Ocean: nearest landfall to the wreck

Tbilisi, Georgia: where it all begins

North Ossetia, North Caucasus: home to ruthless gangs of smugglers

8 February 2016

I’m half way through the first draft of my second book, Dark Ocean. I left a few loose ends in Sea of Gold which can be tied into this one. I’ve grown to like some of the characters. Some will reappear, including Angus McKinnon, of course. I’ll carry on in the first person too. It comes more naturally to me and I think it brings the reader closer to the events and action.

If I’m struggling with plot issues I go for a walk. It gets me into the right frame of mind. I can think things through in a way that doesn’t come so easily when I’m sitting in front of a screen. I carry my voice recorder or my phone so I can mutter notes and ideas as I go along. I get some odd looks occasionally. Mostly though I’m out in the countryside or on the coast.

I am curious and have an active imagination. This combination helps motivate me to write. I can’t imagine writing anything other than thrillers. I’ve been reading them since discovering John Buchan as an adolescent. History and travellers’ tales of far-off places are influences too.

For the next few weeks though I’m occupied in editing the quarterly house magazine for Inchcape Shipping Services, the company I still work for. Then it’ll be back to Dark Ocean.

Where I like to walk…

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1 February 2016

By chance, as I was half way through writing Sea of Gold, I met Peter Flannery, author of the successful psychic thriller, First and Only.

Peter was forming a small group of fellow writers. We call ourselves The Border Scribblers. We meet once a month in a local coffee shop here in the Scottish Borders for a couple of hours and talk about (surprise) writing. Sometimes we read out passages from whatever we’re working on. Sometimes we discuss a particular topic like ‘sense of place’ or ‘point of view’ or ‘characterisation’. And sometimes (often) we discuss marketing and promotion.

We’re all either self-published or with a publisher. And we’re all very enthusiastic. Meeting Peter and the others was a stroke of luck.

More recently I’ve joined another group who I discovered through Meetup in Edinburgh. Again, some of us are self-published and others have a publisher. But the emphasis is on self-publishing.

Whilst the Border Scribblers are mostly novelists, the Edinburgh group includes poets, short story writers and academic text book authors.

Being a solitary business, writers need the company of like-minded folk from time to time and I’m fortunate to have found such a good crowd to chew the fat with.

Sea of Gold

I say in the book’s blurb: “In the world of international shipping, the rules are blurred and the oceans lawless.”

While there is some dramatic licence in this statement, it contains a strong element of truth as well. The laws governing the shipping industry are inevitably compromised by the plethora of jurisdictions involved in the simplest of transactions. The ship may be registered in a tiny Pacific island state. Her crew may represent half a dozen different nations. Her owners may be Greek but her charterers from Switzerland. Her cargo might originate in Brazil and be destined for China. The ship might be insured in London while her cargo is insured in New York. International law attempts to reconcile all these differing interests, but the reality is that jurisdictional issues become blurred by the sheer complexity of it all.

Enter the criminal mastermind pursued, in this case anyway, by maritime claims investigator, Angus McKinnon. Writers are inspired by different influences but “write what you know” is a steadfast rule for many of us. So it was only natural to draw on my own experience in the world of shipping. What else? I’d worked in the business throughout my career. I still found it deeply fascinating. And along the way I’d encountered plenty of dubious characters and more than a few nefarious schemes.

So although planning Sea of Gold was a tortuous business, I was able to draw on some of these experiences to construct a framework for the story. And that’s how it got started: cargo theft, contract fraud, unexplained damage and loss, Act of God and force majeure. I was in familiar territory. As a Piraeus-based marine insurance claims handler I’d gathered plenty of material for the book.

The story opens with the theft of a cargo of ethyl alcohol from a port in the Republic of Georgia. I was sent there to investigate it. The maritime fraud perpetrated in Thailand actually went back years to a shipment of charcoal from Malaysia to the Gulf. The firm I was with managed the ship. The agent in the Philippines who carried two guns in his car? I was in the car! And as I recalled these events I began to embellish them in my mind: a touch of violence here, a beautiful woman there and so on.

But just as I was feeling rather pleased with myself, I hit a snag. What I had was a series of interesting events with some lively characters but no coherent plot or story arc. It’s all very well for those writers whose characters somehow naturally lead the plot but mine needed some help.

And I wanted the plot to be complex. I’m a fan of Len Deighton and relish the complexities of his tales. But was I trying to force a series of disparate events into a plot that didn’t exist? Yes, I was.

Long walks in the Scottish Borders and on a little Greek island, armed with trusty voice recorder brought results. I walk therefore I think. It always works.

So finally I had the plot, with events and characters all lined up. Just as I thought I had it settled I hit another snag. Sea of Gold is not a blood and thunder kind of story but I wanted a climax worthy of any good thriller. There had to be action and violence. But it had to bring matters to a head as well; and be plausible. More long walks. Finally, I decided to walk but not come home until I’d resolved the climax issue. It was early in the year. I walked along the banks of the River Tweed deep in thought. Dusk gathered. I walked on. Darkness fell and it began to rain. But I would keep my promise. I would not return home until I’d sorted it out. It worked, and as with many things, less was more. The climax would be violent, packed with action, but not try and resolve everything in one go.

Then came the cover

Once I’d decided on an enigmatic metaphor for the title of the book, the cover theme became obvious. I searched online and one image jumped out from the rest. I tracked down the photographer, Noriaki Tanaka, through Flickr. He told me the photo was taken from Mount Chokai looking out over the Sea of Japan, and was under Creative Commons so it was free – except the cost of sending him a complimentary copy of the book.

I believe the photo works beautifully. The metallic tone of the sea is truly golden while the ripples and shadows on the surface evoke the mysteries and dangers faced by Angus. The ship silhouetted off centre up towards the horizon, unknowingly awaits her fate.

In the end I was pleased with the result: my first novel, and the first in a planned series. Angus McKinnon had arrived!