Dag Pike draws on his experience as merchant navy captain, fast boat navigator and boat safety tester for RNLI lifeboats to focus on a wide range of disasters at sea.
 
He compiles a wide range of accounts of yachts, motorboats and commercial vessels running into difficulty as a result of poor navigation, fog, miscalculation, human error, weather conditions etc and analyses in a readable and entertaining fashion what caused the disaster, what went wrong, how it was dealt with and the lessons learned from it. 
 
Examples range from the Fastnet disaster, powerboat races, boats run down in the Channel, to trawlers pulled under by submarines, ferry accidents and tanker and cargo ship disasters.
 
The incidents include grounding, collision, fire, sinking, ice and storms, and each chapter has an example from the Marine Accident Investigation Bureau who monitor incidents at sea.
 
This book is a fascinating read for all who go afloat either for business or pleasure, and for anyone interested in just why disasters happen at sea.