The Colombo Bay
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.22 (694 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1416568107 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 260 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 0000-00-00 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
--John Moe. After all, a quick glance around your living room probably reveals numerous items imported from overseas and container ships are how they got to you. But that inactivity, coupled with the constant possibility of palpable danger, provides an accurate depiction of life aboard a container ship. He finds the accommodations more civilized than one might expect from such a utilitarian craft and a crew that, while they are used to the hardships of nautical life, are real people trying to cope with a profession that keeps them from their families for months at a time. In 2001, after securing passage as an observer aboard a massive container ship bound from Hong Kong to New York via the Suez Canal, Pollak was just about to begin his journey when the 9/11 attacks struck, throwing the world into tremendous uncertainty. Pollak cho
Enjoyed the shipping, could use less politics The portions of the book that are focused on the container ships and shipping are very good and interesting. Unfortunately the author decided to sprinkle political commentary that has little or nothing to do with commercial shipping throughout the book .Don't know if it is appropriate to blame the author or his editor for these shortcomings. It is still a worthwhile read, but with a tigher focus on the claimed subject it could have been a excellent book.. Robert I. Hedges said Adventures in Shipping. Richard Pollak's new book is a gripping tale of the sea mostly worthy of Conrad and Melville. Pollak rode on the 'Colombo Bay', a modern containerized freighter owned by P&O Nedlloyd, the second biggest shipping concern in the world for a five week voyage halfway around the world. Starting the day after the 9/11 attacks in Hong Kong, and eventually traveling the long way around the world back to his home in New York, Pollak tells readers of the drudgery and excitement that go hand in hand on one of these mammoth vessels.During. "A Modern High Seas Adventure" according to Rob Hardy. Richard Pollak, a writer with no previous nautical bent, got interested in the marine shipping business for no particular reason except curiosity. A friend became a vice president at P & O Nedlloyd which has a fleet of container ships sailing all over the world, and Pollak asked to book passage in one of them. He left for Hong Kong to board The _Colombo Bay_ carrying a landlubber's baggage including books by Conrad and Melville, CDs of music by Rossini and by Sondheim, and the sort of innocence we all had on 10 September 2001.
Here is the story of the ship's unheralded twenty-four-man company; of the unflappable British captain, Peter Davies, a veteran of four decades at sea; of Federico Castrojas, who like the rest of the hard-working Filipino crew must daily confront the loneliness of being away from his family for nine months at a stretch; of Simon Westall, the twenty-one-year-old third mate, who reveals what it is like to be gay in the broad-shouldered world of the merchant service.It is a world where pirates in the Malacca Strait sneak up behind ships at night in fast power boats, then clamber aboard and either rob the unarmed sailors at gunpoint and escape into the dark or throw the crew into the sea and hijack the ship, plundering her cargo and sometimes repainting her and setting out to do business under another name and flag. In the face of killer storms, fires, piracy, and terrorism, container ships the length of city blocks and more than a dozen stories high carry 90 percent of the worlds trade. This is an account of one s