AC26XP
Registered
Finished reading Shadow Divers and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now granted, I have not read many books on wreck-diving and/or the hunt for submerged wrecks, but it immediately seems to me from the accolades it has received and the technical exposition within that it could be what Wolfe's The Right Stuff is to the early space program, what Melville's Moby Dick is to whaling, or what Mason's Chickenhawk is to the Vietnam helicopter war: that definitive novel/biography.
And just like Wolfe's The Right Stuff controversial description and portrayal of Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury astronauts, Shadow Divers "could" also have its fair share of he-said-she-said political revisionist history.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book for what it was (despite controversial character portrayal), a trip to discover and explore a sunken submarine.
Now to my questions (which having zero to do with the politics and character portrayal):
1) Pages 105-112 recount how Steve Feldman had lost his life while on a dive to the sub. The diving death is reported and the Coast Guard orders the dive boat to Manasquan, NJ, but from that point on there is no follow-up in the book concerning the details of the Coast Guard investigation.
Surpringsly, a short 8-days later the dive boat and main characters are heading back out to the sub.
Is this standard SOP for a Coast Guard investigation? Would the Coast Guard suspend Captain and dive boat activities while an investigation was in progress...? Granted, there were several diver deaths connected with exploring the sub, and maybe subsequent investigations and Coast Guard SOP are side-stories and not relevant to the main plot, but I would like to have learned how diver death investigations are carried out.
2) Per the book, during dive seasons '94-'95, Chatterton takes a break from exploring the sub and goes about discovering other wrecks (Norness, Sebastian, S.S. Carolina, Texel). Maybe one or two lines with Shadows Divers gives general description as to how Chatterton specifically knew where to dive for these sunken wrecks.
I like the explanation in Shadows Divers of getting the fisherman's "numbers" that led to finding the lost sub, but there has to be more technical approaches to knowing where to start looking.
Are there any books out there that go into detail as to how these guys know where to start looking? I am not looking for a book on technical wreck-diving, just looking for suggested reading on the details of finding wrecks. Shadow Divers mentions Henry Keatts' Complete Wreck Diving: A Guide to Diving Wrecks, but Amazon and reviews describe it more as a companion piece to a wreck-diving course. I am interested in the "this is the why's and the how's as to why I dropped anchor here" explanations. Unless, Keatts' book has a detailed chapter(s) on the subject.
Happy diving,
AC
Now granted, I have not read many books on wreck-diving and/or the hunt for submerged wrecks, but it immediately seems to me from the accolades it has received and the technical exposition within that it could be what Wolfe's The Right Stuff is to the early space program, what Melville's Moby Dick is to whaling, or what Mason's Chickenhawk is to the Vietnam helicopter war: that definitive novel/biography.
And just like Wolfe's The Right Stuff controversial description and portrayal of Chuck Yeager, and the Mercury astronauts, Shadow Divers "could" also have its fair share of he-said-she-said political revisionist history.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book for what it was (despite controversial character portrayal), a trip to discover and explore a sunken submarine.
Now to my questions (which having zero to do with the politics and character portrayal):
1) Pages 105-112 recount how Steve Feldman had lost his life while on a dive to the sub. The diving death is reported and the Coast Guard orders the dive boat to Manasquan, NJ, but from that point on there is no follow-up in the book concerning the details of the Coast Guard investigation.
Surpringsly, a short 8-days later the dive boat and main characters are heading back out to the sub.
Is this standard SOP for a Coast Guard investigation? Would the Coast Guard suspend Captain and dive boat activities while an investigation was in progress...? Granted, there were several diver deaths connected with exploring the sub, and maybe subsequent investigations and Coast Guard SOP are side-stories and not relevant to the main plot, but I would like to have learned how diver death investigations are carried out.
2) Per the book, during dive seasons '94-'95, Chatterton takes a break from exploring the sub and goes about discovering other wrecks (Norness, Sebastian, S.S. Carolina, Texel). Maybe one or two lines with Shadows Divers gives general description as to how Chatterton specifically knew where to dive for these sunken wrecks.
I like the explanation in Shadows Divers of getting the fisherman's "numbers" that led to finding the lost sub, but there has to be more technical approaches to knowing where to start looking.
Are there any books out there that go into detail as to how these guys know where to start looking? I am not looking for a book on technical wreck-diving, just looking for suggested reading on the details of finding wrecks. Shadow Divers mentions Henry Keatts' Complete Wreck Diving: A Guide to Diving Wrecks, but Amazon and reviews describe it more as a companion piece to a wreck-diving course. I am interested in the "this is the why's and the how's as to why I dropped anchor here" explanations. Unless, Keatts' book has a detailed chapter(s) on the subject.
Happy diving,
AC