Customer Reviews
Payoff from persistence - By: Stephen A. Haines, 15 Jan 2006 
Ship of Gold may be the ultimate Horatio Alger story. Kinder's account of the bizarre Tommy Thompson's quest to locate a 19th Century shipwreck is a delightful rags to riches story. Kinder weaves historical & contemporary events together seamlessly. He takes us back & forthin time, showing how a clear modern knowledge of each stage of the shipwreck led to the S.S. Central America's location at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Kinder is adept at the difficult task of maintaining two story linesin one book. The loss of the Central America is clearly a fascinating storyin its own right. Its cargo, millions of dollars worth of gold bullion would have had significant impact on the nascent American economy. Kinder has performed a major featin tracking the course of the journey & presenting the passenger accounts of the storm & sinking. He shows us the terror, the struggles to preserve the ship & the attempts by other vessels to rescue the survivors. His descriptive powers are excellent - the reader is kept enthralled as the tragedy unfolds.
Thompson's career is just as finely detailed as the historical account. Kinder shows us the workings of a firmly focussed mind. Thompson has the capacity to irritate & captivate those he deals with, whether on technical or economic levels. Clearly, he is infectious when presenting ideas or encouraging his followers. The results were almost foreordained that he would succeedin locating the wreck.
The finding, however, was anything but inevitable. Finding any sunken vessel at such depths, let alone the correct one, Kinder shows is a nearly insurmountable problem. Yet,in his account, success is achieved. It took ingenuity, persistence & insight, with some help from technology. Deep sea exploration devices, while not exactlyin their infancy at this time, had serious limitations. Kinder recounts many of the issues Thompson & his team faced, but is reticent about their solutions. He presumably laboured under some form of non-disclosure agreement with Thompson. Even without explicit details, Thompson's ingenuity & persistence is clearly manifest. Kinder portrays himin the clearest possible light just as he illuminates the history of the Central America. The combination is an action-packed epic,in both historical & modern perspectives. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
"The greatest treasure ever found"--$1 billion in gold! - By: Mary Whipple, 09 Mar 2005 Gary Kinder tells three spell-binding narratives as he describes the search for the SS Central America, a sidewheel steamer which left Panamain 1857 & went downin the Atlantic while carrying gold from California (then valued at over $2 million). First person accounts by some of the survivors tell of the ship's journey, the hurricane which suddenly arosein the Atlantic, & the frantic efforts of crew & passengers to keep the engines fired & the ship afloat. Touching love stories revealedin these accounts give human faces to the drama, as women & children were put into lifeboats while their husbands stayed with the ship.
These survivor accounts alternate with the narrative of the life of young Tommy Thompson, a phenomenally inventive child who grew upin Ohio, studied engineering, became fascinated by the challenges of underwater engineering, & eventually worked for famed treasure hunter Mel Fisher, learning what kind of underwater equipment was needed but not available. In the early 1980s, Thompson, more interestedin research thanin treasure, decided to search for the SS Central America, with the backing of a group he convinced to underwrite his expedition. As the ship was thought to bein eight thousand feet of water, deeper than had ever been explored, Thompson would succeed only if he could design the necessary equipment.
The third story describes the search for the ship itself, a search which had two false starts before the site was finally located. Kinder develops almost unbearable tension as he describes how Thompson has to fend off rivals who are "treasure hunters," rather than scientists. Thompson's experimentation with equipment, the comprehensive documentation of the site through photographs & film, the legal battles for the rights to the salvage, & the final recovery of "treasure" ranging from gold bars & coins to beautifully preserved suitcases of clothing are vividly portrayed.
A book with appeal to historians, engineers, marine scientists, adventurers, & all who pursue dreams, Kinder brings the entire recovery process to life, honoring the efforts & heroism of the Central America's Captain Herndon, the indomitable spirit of Thompson as he developed unique robots & equipment to explore the ocean at depths of over a mile, & the scientific commitment, rather than treasure-hunting, which inspired Thompson, his crew, & his backers, the Columbus-America Discovery Group. Gripping, & filled with the wonder of discovery, this is non-fiction at its most exciting best. Mary Whipple
best book of it's type - By: stephen.croft@wgint.com, 07 Jun 2001 A gripping story & well infused with a description of the technology used. As a sea story or a story of exploration I well recommend it.
3 books in one - By: A. J. Watson, 24 Apr 2000 Really three booksin one; the harrowing, white- knuckle, real-life adventure of a prolonged shipwreck; the agonisingly meticulous search for the remains; the multi-million dollar rescue ... each one different, but inextricably entwined with the others. Without the clues from the diaries & memoirs of survivors, plus ships' logs, & the tenacious convictions of the salvor, this story would never have unfolded. As it is, the first third of the book had me on the edge of my seat for hours - what a tension-filled ride that was! I can recommend the book on the strength of that story alone & give it 5 stars.
What follows is less nail- biting, but nontheless exciting, as the clues unfold from information gleaned from all over the US, patched together by a man with a single- minded ambition to recover the richest prize ever recovered from the sea.
The fact that it layin 8,000 feet of water takes up the final third of the book with the almost insuperable technical difficulties, but we are still left hanging, for we don't yet know the full value of the prize. The meticulous recovery methods employed ensured recoveryin pristine condition - other quick & dirty methods would have been much cheaper & faster, but would have transformed the coins from 'gem' quality to 'fine' or less, depriving them of a another 2 or 3 times their worth,in a collectors' market. This market has probably still not been fully exploited, so there may still be millions waiting to be recouped ... & they deserve it!
A bonus is that the story of the ill-fated Captain Herndon's previous trip down the Amazon is to be released later this year (July 2000); 'Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon' written by the same Gary Kinder, it promises to be another spellbinding tale.
More like this, please.
Fabulous. Inspiring. A true entrepreneur! - By: , 13 Nov 1999 This is an amazing story. And it's true! The hero of the story, Tommy, is the epitomy of the American entrepreneur (or what an entrepreneur should be)! It is inspiring to read about someone who pushes all of the limits far beyond anyone's imagination, not because of greed but because of true curiosity & entrepreneurial vision. The heroes of this story are heroes for all the right reasons. If you like adventure, action, suspense, & truly original people, this is it. If you liked the adventure stories of Shackleton & his expedition to the south pole, or "In to thin Air" about the Everest expedition, you'll love this. Its actually even better.
