My new novel, The Shantyman, is now available as a Kindle ebook and will soon be available in print. The book is based on the true story of a most unusual shantyman with a troubled past.
Many years ago, I read Frederick Pease Harlow’s memoir, The Making of a Sailor, or Sea Life Aboard a Yankee Square Rigger. In 1870, Harlow sailed on a medium clipper to Sydney, Australia. He described the new crew coming aboard the ship: “All the crew were sober but one… The man that was drunk, was dead drunk and was hoisted out of the runner’s boat in a sling…” The drunk man’s name was Brooks, who Harlow says was a “well educated man and had been a master of ships, but his appetite for whiskey was his downfall.”
It turns out that Brooks was also a skilled shantyman, who had been trying to make his way home to the United States for years. In every port, he would start to drink and end up shanghied onto a ship bound for distant shores. In Harlow’s memoir, Brooks had finally found himself on a ship bound for New York, where he had family. He intended to give up on the liquor and start his life anew.
Harlow’s Brooks became my Jack Barlow. Continue reading
David Hayes reviews Antoine Vanner’s 
I am very excited about the new releases from 
Seventy years ago today, on January 30, 1945, the German passenger liner 
This May will be the 250th anniversary of the launching of 
New York harbor has lost part of its living history with the passing of Sal Polisi, longtime volunteer and master carver at the South Street Seaport Museum. For three decades, Polisi carved everything from figureheads to wooden signs, using the time honored methods of a master craftsman. All his work was done by hand, without power tools or computers. Beyond his remarkable skills, he also a friendly face at the museum and was well loved by all who knew him. He will be sorely missed.
