Deep-Sea Detectives: Maritime Mysteries and Forensic Science

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

Mysteries of the sea have existed for centuries, and despite of modern
technology ships still sink, planes drop from the sky into the ocean,
and submarines fail to surface. Investigations follow, results are
published (although not always in the case of naval vessels),
recommendations are issued, and, presumably, safety is improved.

Although aircraft and submarines make the headlines when tragedy
strikes, most of the disasters in Peter Limburg’s book involved ships
that vanished far from the public eye. Only the sailors’ families,
fellow seamen, shipbuilders, shipowners, insurance companies, and
maritime safety agencies seemed to take much interest in their
disappearance. To this list should be added companies that specialize in
underwater technology. They have developed machines whose astonishing
sophistication has solved a growing number of unexplained sinkings. Some
submersibles are mini-submarines, while others are small unmanned
devices that sweep the ocean floor and send information back to the
surface vessel.

Limburg limits himself to mysteries from the past 40 years, a period of
great scientific advances in underwater investigative apparatus and
procedures. Complex though the inventions are, he succeeds in describing
them in terms that laypeople can understand. Limburg also includes the
human element, with accounts of the expertise of submersible operators,
the skills of search-and-rescue teams, and the struggles of crewmen to
save themselves when their ships are sinking. He ably relates the
incompetence, intrigues, and sometimes criminality that have led to some
sinkings. Of special significance to Canadians are the crash of
Swissair’s Flight 111 off Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, and the
less-publicized sinking of the bulk carrier Flare off Newfoundland, both
in 1998.

Deep-Sea Detectives is carefully researched and well written. It held
this reviewer’s interest on every page.