Dennis M. Powers’ Tales of the Seven Seas: The Escapades of Captain Dynamite Johnny O’Brien recounts the story of a larger than life sailor who rose from being a bullied sixteen year old ship’s boy sailing before the mast to become a ship’s captain at only 25. Over his more than 60 year career, Captain “Dynamite” Johnny O’Brien would sail as master of both sail and steam ships and would fight pirates, his own crews and the very sea itself. It is quite a tale to tell.
John O’Brien was born in Ireland in 1851. After being educated in a boarding school in England, his parents wanted him to join an architectural firm. While traveling by train to interview for a position, the then 15 year old O’Brien struck up a conversation with an English ship captain traveling to meet his ship. The captain’s stories of distant lands and great adventures convinced the young man that he should seek his fortune at sea and not in a London office.
Johnny signed aboard the square rigged ship Marlborough as ship’s boy and quickly discovered the less romantic aspects of life at sea – hard work, little sleep and bad food. The mate on the Marlborough delighted in attempting to break the ship’s boys through hazing and general brutality. John O’Brien fought back. When attacked my the mate after they arrived in Calcutta , John grabbed a binnacle lantern and smashed it into the mate’s face. Rather than being sent to jail, the ship’s boy was merely signed off and left in Calcutta where he found an outbound ship on which conditions were, fortunately, much better.
The ambitious and scrappy sailor rose quickly to mate and then captain, ever mindful that if he did not knock down an unruly sailor, the sailor was likely to knock him down. The line between appropriate force and brutality was never clearly drawn. As a young captain O’Brien shipped Robert “Wolf” O’Malley as mate. Wolf O’Malley proved to be cruel and indeed murderous. O’Brien, who would later cross paths with the writer Jack London, said that London’s character Wolf Larsen in his novel, The Sea Wolf, was based, at least in part, on “Wolf” O’Malley.
O’Brien would earn his nickname “Dynamite” as mate of the steamer Umatilla. During a storm, a safe stored in the same hold as a shipment of dynamite broke free and threatened to crush and possibly detonate the dynamite. O’Brien and others in the crew tossed mattresses between the safe and the dynamite until they succeeded in securing the safe, saving the ship from possible explosion and earning O’Brien the nickname “Dynamite.”
O’Brien spent the bulk of his career in the Pacific in sail and steam. He battled typhoons and pirates in the Far East and carried miners struck with gold fever to the Klondike, including a young Jack London. He sailed as master for Matson Lines and where in his younger days, he faced down unruly sailors, now he fought the seaman’s union. In later years while captain of the Buford, the ship would be chartered by silent screen star Buster Keaton. The ship served as the set for one of Keaton’s biggest hits, the movie, The Navigator. O’Brien served as technical consultant.
What makes the story of “Dynamite” Johnny O’Brien engaging is the the complexity of his character. He was perfectly capable of dealing with the often brutal world of the late nineteenth century sailing ship, where he guaranteeing disciple and order on shipboard with his fists, a belaying pin, a knife or a revolver as the situation demanded. O’Brien ran afoul of the law on charges of beating a sailor. He was also found guilty of smuggling opium to Hawaii. Despite his rougher side, O’Brien was also at ease in the more polite society of shipowners, politicians and minor royalty. He was introduced to the King of Hawaii and romanced a Hawaiian princess. As portrayed in the book, he seemed able to navigate both the higher and lower strata of society as surely as he could navigate across the Pacific.
Powers tells a great story. My only qualms about the book is the way he tells it. Mr. Powers does not have a good grasp of the the rigging or layout of sailing ships. As the book is the account of a ship’s captain this gets distracting at the very least.
The book opens with a scene where Johnny is ordered to “clew up the fore-royal” on the “square-rigged tall-sail ship”, the Marlborough. As Powers describes the climb aloft, it is immediately clear that he doesn’t have a clear idea of how one reaches the royal yard. Describing the mast as a “pole” and apparently confusing “yardarms” with “yards” and “mooring lines” with “gaskets” it all gets very jumbled. After telling us in the second paragraph that the Marlborough is square rigged, only six paragraphs later on the second page he refers to her as a schooner, a fore and aft rigged vessel. Likewise, Powers says that the mate and the crew lived in the fo’c’sle on the Marlborough. While this may be true it seems highly unlikely. What I presume are gales or storms are described as “windstorms”, the helmsman or quartermaster is invariably referred to as the “wheelman,” and on and on. The phrase “storm holocaust” also had me scratching my head.
Am I being too picky? Many, perhaps most, readers can’t tell a fore-royal from speckled finch, but for sailing aficionados, the sloppy and confused language can be annoying and confusing. It detracts from the story and makes me less willing to trust the narrator.
These qualms aside, Tales of the Seven Seas: The Escapades of Captain Dynamite Johnny O’Brien, is fascinating portrait of a colorful captain in a last days of sail and the early days of steam. Very entertaining.