Looking for a Ship

An excellant book that is at times laugh out loud funny. One of the main characters, Andy, graduated a couple years behind me and I was aquainted with him so it made the book even more real. The people described are defintely the real deal. It's a book that I reread nearly every year.

I think I was born wanting to go to sea. I had never even seen an ocean as a kid, but I instinctually seemed to have a knowlege and a love of ships and the sea. As I grew older it puzzled me that the Merchant Marine wasn't considered a viable career choice. It also puzzled me that I never met anyone who had worked in the merchant service later than the early 50's. There was also the fact that the world's biggest industrial powerhouse seemed to have so few American flagged vessels..... Well, this book explains things. You can't get a berth on an American flagged ship for the same reason it is becoming impossible to find a factory job inland- the corporations decided that it was cheaper to hire cheap foreign labor and flag their ships in third world countries to get around taxes and decent working conditions. That is why reading this book is a bittersweet experience. On the one hand it is great reading about famous captains or modern day pirates, but on the other, you realise that you'll never know any part of such a life. Pretty hard to get a sea card when licensed officers are being "shoved down the hawse-pipe" to serve as deckhands.... When I finished this book I dug out my old Bowditch and sextent and thought about what could have been. Maybe I couldn't have cut it, but damn it, I deserved a chance to find out.

McPhee joins a merchant marine as he tries to find a ship to work on - hence the title - then journeys with him as the boat does its work. I picked this book up because I've read other books by McPhee that make subjects that I would normally not even think about fascinating. This book was no exception. For readers who have read his geology series (compiled into Anals of the Former World) and found it a bit too technical and dry, this book will be a refreshing change. I never would have thought I'd be interested in this subject, but McPhee made it interesting.

This book gives a clear look at the merchant shipping industry from the perspective of the modern day merchant mariner. This world is very obscure to the public at large, especially to those of us living inland, and this book gives us an up close look. The book is also useful in pointing out what has happened to what was once a strong U.S. industry.

I rarely re-read a book, but this is one I find myself reading again and again. It also was my first introduction to John McPhee, and he has since become my favorite living author! He could write about quilting bees and make it interesting!