A sailing yacht, crossing the English Channel at night, is nearly run down by the Mary Deare: an aging freighter seemingly abandoned but still under power. The yachts men are small-time salvage divers, and one (dreaming of a contract with her owners, and a check from their insurers) climbs aboard . . . and discovers wild-eyed, half-mad Captain Gideon Patch. Joining forces, they begin a desperate battle to save the Mary Deare and themselves.Those events, which take up roughly the first third of The Wreck of the Mary Deare are among the best that Innes, a superb adventure-story writer, ever crafted. His experience as a deep-water yachtsman and his familiarity with the Channel translate into a vivid sense of place, and the scenes aboard the dying freighter are gripping. The scenes of Patch and the narrator in the stokehold of the Mary Deare, shoveling coal as if their lives depended on it (which, indeed, they do), are a vivid reminder that action need not be violent to be thrilling. The Wreck of the Mary Deare, however, is as much a mystery as a sea story—why did the crew abandon ship? why was Patch aboard? what happened to her original captain?—and as a mystery it falters. The courtroom scenes and amateur detective work that make up the long middle section of the book are competent but uninspired, and they dissipate much of the narrative momentum. The final section returns to the Channel, and delivers more of Innes’ superbly written men-against-the-sea action scenes, but the need to wrap up the mystery drags like a sea-anchor. Taken as a whole, The Wreck of the Mary Deare is only adequate, but the good parts are more than good enough to make it essential reading for fans of modern sea stories.
I have read this gripping sea adventure story twice, about thirty years apart, and found I remembered much of it the second time, which is some sort of recommendation.It starts with a man sailing his yacht being almost run down by an old freighter, which apparently happened to Hammond Innes himself and inspired the story. The rest is fiction, but based on Innes' knowledge of all matters maritime.The book is divided into three parts, the mystery of the freighter, which is gripping and I believed could happen as described, a lengthy, slower paced and doubtlessly credible board of enquiry, and then a climactic duel for survival in the rocky seas off the Channel Islands, which is less believable but too exciting to object to. It is a good story, well constructed and well told.
Do You like book The Wreck Of The Mary Deare (2015)?
Riveting tale of a rusty old ship, captained by a man unwilling to let his command be spoiled by abandonment of his crew during a suspicious fire. A salvage captain of another ship comes on board the Mary Deare to see why this seemingly unmanned ship nearly rammed his ship the night before. The two ship's captains begin a friendship that starts with saving the ship they are now trapped on together. Finally off the ship, now they are in a courtroom to determine the causes of all the disasters and deaths on board this jinxed (?) ship.
—Jeanne
This is my first time reading Innes, and with Vintage reprinting some of his novels, I thought I’d give this a try, as I’ve always had a fascination with shipwrecks – especially ones that involve mysterious disappearances. That’s the premise here – John Sands encounters the Mary Deare adrift in the English Channel, and boards her in hopes of salvaging the ship, only to find Captain Patch aboard, half-mad and desperately trying to run the ship aground. But why? And where is the crew? Great idea for a novel, and the story of what happened is riveting at times. Unfortunately for me, Innes (an experienced sailor himself) buries the seafaring parts in too much nautical jargon, and the action-packed climax seems somewhat improbable. Also, the dialogue between Patch and Sands can get frustratingly circular and repetitive – it’s as if Innes is using Sands to discredit his own narrative. Overall it didn’t work for me, but people who know more about sailing may get more out of it. For myself, the odds of me trying Innes again are pretty slim.
—John Defrog
I found this book in a dusty box of old books, a series that I collected and digested when I was in my teens. Reading it again today told me something that I never knew then, that Hammond Innes knew what he was talking about when it came to ships and the sea.I have found over the years that not many good maritime authors exist, ones who can factually and correctly tell a nautical-themed story. Today, having spent over thirty years at sea or dealing with maritime incidents I can now see that Hammond Innes indeed knew what he was writing about.A great adventure book despite being written fifty odd years ago when his book cost 2'6 then bought second hand by myself for 9 pence.
—Ieuan Dolby
