Two years after Titanic came another ship disaster of equal magnitude 'The most comprehensive and impressive account of the investigation of a shipwreck I've ever read. Kevin McMurray has revealed the secrets of the Empress of Ireland in a spellbinding read.' --Clive Cussler, bestselling author of Night Probe! On May 29, 1914, after a collision in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Empress of Ireland sank in minutes, taking 1,012 passengers and crew to their deaths. The disaster shocked the world but then was forgotten with the torpedoing of the Lusitania and the engulfing cataclysm of World War I. Now, in Dark Descent, acclaimed author and diver Kevin McMurray revives the story of this forgotten maritime catastrophe. Dark Descent takes readers down into the frigid depths to explore the controversies of the ship's fatal night and the many attempts to salvage her contents, from the first hardhat diver sent down to recover loved ones to today's 'adrenaline junkies' who risk--and often lose--their lives in pursuit of the perfect descent.
On May 29, 1914, the passenger liner Empress of Ireland was struck by the freighter Storstad and sank in 15 minutes, taking more than 1,000 victims with her. It remains one of the largest losses of life ever in a maritime accident.
At more than a 100 feet deep in the frigid Gulf of St. Lawrence, diving the Empress is like trying to navigate an unfamiliar 60-story building lying on its side at a 45-degree angle, in pitch blackness with only a flashlight. In Dark Descent, Kevin McMurray takes us deep into the bowels of the lost ship, first to relive her tragic death and then to join the divers who have probed the wreck's secrets. It's an adventure from which some divers don't return.