Learn and Grow | Author Interviews | Book Summaries | Book lists | Summaries | Author Interviews | Shop Nonfiction books | Booklists | Non-fiction books | Book Reviews | Best Business Books | Best Management Books | Best Leadership Books | Best Business Strategy Books | Best Finance Books | Best Investment Books | Best History Books | Best World History Books | Best China History Books | Best India History Books | Best British India Books | Best American History Books | Best Science Books | Best Technology Books | Best Slavery Books | Best Economics Books | Best Macroeconomics Books | Best Health Books | Best Medicine History Books | Best Travel Books | Book Events | Author Events | Virtual Book Launch | Latest nonfiction books | Upcoming nonfiction books | Best University Presses | Harvard University Press | Yale University Press | Stanford University Press | Columbia University Press | Oxford University Press | Cambridge University Press | Chicago University Press | Pulitzer Prize | Recommended Books | Readara Book Experts | Readara Booklists | Readara Book summaries | Best Author Interviews | Best Nobel Prize Winners Books | Connect with Book Editors | Book Designers | Book Printers | Book Cover Designers | Best Book Agents List | Book PR and Marketing Agencies List | Book Wholesalers List Nonfiction books | Booklists | Non-fiction books | Book Reviews | Best Business Books | Best Management Books | Best Leadership Books | Best Business Strategy Books | Best Finance Books | Best Investment Books | Best History Books | Best World History Books | Best China History Books | Best India History Books | Best British India Books | Best American History Books | Best Science Books | Best Technology Books | Best Slavery Books | Best Economics Books | Best Macroeconomics Books | Best Health Books | Best Medicine History Books | Best Travel Books | Book Events | Author Events | Virtual Book Launch | Latest nonfiction books | Upcoming nonfiction books | Best University Presses | Harvard University Press | Yale University Press | Stanford University Press | Columbia University Press | Oxford University Press | Cambridge University Press | Chicago University Press | Pulitzer Prize | Recommended Books | Readara Book Experts | Readara Booklists | Readara Book summaries | Best Author Interviews | Best Nobel Prize Winners Books | Connect with Book Editors | Book Designers | Book Printers | Book Cover Designers | Best Book Agents List | Book PR and Marketing Agencies List | Book Wholesalers List | Book lists, Summaries, Author Interviews, Shop

Expedite your nonfiction book discovery process with Readara interviews, summaries and recommendations, Broaden your knowledge and gain insights from leading experts and scholars

In-depth, hour-long interviews with notable nonfiction authors, Gain new perspectives and ideas from the writer’s expertise and research, Valuable resource for readers and researchers

Optimize your book discovery process, Four-to eight-page summaries prepared by subject matter experts, Quickly review the book’s central messages and range of content

Books are handpicked covering a wide range of important categories and topics, Selected authors are subject experts, field professionals, or distinguished academics

Our editorial team includes books offering insights, unique views and researched-narratives in categories, Trade shows and book fairs, Book signings and in person author talks,Webinars and online events

Connect with editors and designers,Discover PR & marketing services providers, Source printers and related service providers

The Colombo Bay

The Colombo Bay

0Arrow Icon
Rate this book Arrow Icon

Key Metrics

  • Richard Pollak
  • Simon & Schuster
  • Paperback
  • 9781416568100
  • 9 X 6 X 0.62 inches
  • 0.9 pounds
  • Transportation > Ships & Shipbuilding - General
  • English
$0
List Price:
$0
Save:
$0 ($%)
Format:
Paperback
Shipping
$4
Ships from:
-
Estimated Arrival:
Dec 18 -Dec 20
Available Copies:
10+ Copies
Ready To Buy:
Add to Cart
Secure Icon Secure Transaction
Sold By:
Readara.com
Add to My Wishlist

Book Description

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 ship's voyage and of the sailors who daily risk their lives to deliver six million containers a year to United States ports alone. Inside these twenty-foot and forty-foot steel boxes are the thousands of imports -- from chinos and Game Boys to garlic and frozen shrimp -- without which North America's consumer society would collapse.

To explore this little-known and dangerous universe of modern seafaring, Richard Pollak joined the Colombo Bay in Hong Kong and over the next five weeks sailed with her and her 3,500 containers across the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. En route, this mammoth vessel called at Singapore and Colombo, passed through the Suez Canal (toll: $250,000), then put in at Malta and Halifax before tangling with Hurricane Karen on the two-day run to New York. 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. It is a world where families desperate to get to the United States or Europe pay thousands of dollars to the Chinese Snakeheads and other criminal gangs, who secrete these wretched migrants in stifling containers; after a week or more at sea these stowaways arrive in the Promised Land either starving or dead.

Pollak sailed on September 13, 2001, into a changed world, on one of 7,000 container ships whose millions of uninspected boxes suddenly had become potential Trojan horses in which terrorists could transport weapons of mass destruction into the heart of the United States.

Throughout his riveting narrative, Pollak interweaves the insights of Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad, whose masterful portrayals of seafaring make the voyage of the Colombo Bay a dramatic reminder of what a hard and rarely reported life merchant seamen have always led out on the unhooped oceans of this planet.

The Colombo Bay

Videos

No Videos

Community reviews

Write a Review

No Community reviews