An incredible tale of shipwreck, tragedy and more.

books:


	• MARKED FOR MISFORTUNE: An Epic Tale of Shipwreck, Human Endeavour and Survival in the Age of Sail Jean Hood Conway Maritime Press, 2004 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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An incredible tale of shipwreck, tragedy and more.

I rarely read novels - not even those about ships and the sea - preferring instead to read stories of real adventures - largely because fact is often stranger than fiction. As stories go, however, few can be stranger than that which followed the wrecking of the East Indiaman "Winterton" off Madagascar in August 1792. This is a story with all the ingredients one would expect to find in a novel - and more!

In her book "Marked for Misfortune," Jean Hood recounts an epic tale (and epic it truly is) of how this ship with it's precious cargo of 300,000 silver dollars was wrecked on one of Madagascar's treacherous reefs, of how 300 of those who had survived so far clung to wreckage as it was swept towards a violent, surf tossed, shore and how 40 of their number perished in that surf, of how surviving officer John Dale set out for Mozambique in their only boat on a journey that should have taken him 5 weeks - only to return 7 months later to find half of those he had left behind had died from malaria.

And if that is not enough, it doesn't end there - because on the way home they are captured by the French, twice!

Those on board the Winterton in 1792 were indeed Marked for Misfortune from beginning to end and I congratulate Jean Hood on the enormous amount of research that has gone into a book which is so well written.

I believe every diver who has ever visited, or intends to visit a shipwreck underwater, should read of the price paid by some of those who inadvertently created the object of their diving passion.

NM

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In the August of 1792 the East Indiaman Winterton, with her precious cargo of 300,000 silver dollars, was wrecked on a reef off Madagascar. As the ship broke up, the 300 crew and passengers clung to pieces of wreckage, eventually to be washed up, exhausted, on the beach. More than 40 of them perished in the surf. John Dale, the second senior surviving officer, rigged up the ship's yawl and set off with six officers to fetch help. But his efforts were marred by tragedy and misfortune. By the time he returned, alone, seven months later malaria had wiped out almost half the original survivors. And their ill luck did not stop there. War had since broken out between England and France, and on route to Madras the group was captured and imprisoned on Mauritius before finally gaining passage to India, while Dale himself was impressed into service on a French privateer, liberated by the Dutch and then taken prisoner again by the French, before reaching English shores more than two years after he had first set sail. Jean Hood has chronicled a fascinating episode in maritime history, which has all the more resonance for being rooted in the quiet heroism, the dignity, the suffering and courage of the sailors and passengers, men, women and children whose fate it was to board the 'doomed' Winterton.

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