Wrecked and ruined: true sea disasters from the eastern edge

Robert C. Parsons

Nonfiction: Atlantic Canada, History, The Sea, Shipwrecks
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
Includes illustrations and photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-15-9

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

Fishermen and mariners exist in a self-contained fragile world dominated by the whims of ruthless natural forces. The sea can be a harsh dictator that determines if a ship and the men aboard survive or die. As a result, disasters abound and the sea offers up mysteries aplenty. In November 1886, for example, the New Brunswick ship Blanco was sailing mid-Atlantic when its crew saw a man adrift on a crude catamaran. The captain put his ship about, drew near and prepared to take the nearly exhausted man aboard. There seemed to be no reason why he wouldn't want to be picked up. But the castaway was reluctant to climb aboard. Why? The author explores this and many other curious tales of the sea.

What really happened to the rum-runner John Dwight? In September 1923 the vessel was supposedly intentionally scuttled, but then bodies of its crew along with whiskey and ale barrels washed ashore. The bodies were strangely slashed and mutilated. And what about several other renowned smugglers who came to mysterious ends during the Prohibition era?

When the passenger-mail steamer Limari went up on the rocks, all hands - including Scott Hayes, the son of an American president - had to be rescued. Not long after that the rescue ship Montaro itself slowly sank in the storm. Aboard the vessel was a menagerie of wild animals. Many, including halfcrazed lions and tigers, broke from their deck cages. The fate of all aboard Montaro seemed worse than death by drowning.

And then there are the mysterious messages in bottles from sailors, many belonging to Canada's eastern seaboard, who disappeared with their ships. These are just a few of the many curious and strange stories recounted in this intriguing book. Wrecked and Ruined contains 57 stories of mischief, murder, mayhem, mystery, disappearance, destruction, as well as survival, struggle, rescue and reward.


Robert C. Parsons was born in Grand Bank, one of the great Newfoundland seaports for sailing schooners in the salt fish, hook and line era. He attended an all-grade school in his community and later graduated from Memorial University with a master's degree in Language. Wrecked and Ruined is Robert's twenty-third book. He frequently contributes sea stories to magazines, journals and newspapers and has appeared on the TV series Disasters of the Century.

Also by the author: Shipwrecks of New Brunswick, Ocean of Storms, Sea of Disaster, In Peril on the Sea and The Edge of Yesterday: Sea Disasters of Nova Scotia.