Terrible things happening at sea

@elkiedee I found Star of the Sea so emotional and haunting that I can't bring myself to read Redemption Falls 😕

I'm giving a shout out to HMS Ulysses if you want fiction. Alastair Maclean served on the Arctic convoys in WWII and this is a great book.

Do you know that Star of the Sea (which I loved too),* has a sequel, Redemption Falls*? I still have to read my copy but I think it's set in the US.

@Darrara Star of the Sea has stayed with me since I read it about fifteen years ago. Such a powerful book.
Off track for you OP but others might like Down to the Sea in Ships by Horatio Clare. It's a non fiction account of his time as a writer in residence for Maersk and is about container shipping. Rather surprisingly it is gripping.

Bookmarking to read and perhaps reply later.

Sons of the Waves by Stephen Taylor.
First hand accounts and biographies of the rare literate ordinary sailors who found themselves in adventures all over the world. No captains, no officers - just the raw experiences of (mostly young) jack tars.

The White Ship by Charles Spencer - a true story from British history, about a disaster that ended up creating a civil war.

The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger. Gripping.

These
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101029.The_Floating_Brothel

https://www.qbd.com.au/batavia/peter-fitzsimons/9781864711349/

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/395798/sweet-water-and-bitter-by-sian-rees/9781845951177

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Voyages-Discoveries-Penguin-Classics-Richard/dp/0140430733

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/299596.Das_Boot

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20262502-the-moor-s-account

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sealwomans-Gift-extraordinary-century-Iceland/dp/147363895X

I've read in the Heart of the Sea. Was a great read.

I quite liked Das Boot, but IMO Sharks And Little Fish is better. Interestingly there is a character who may possibly be based on the author of Das Boot -- a journalist who is sent aboard the U-boat to chronicle the trip and completely fails to cope with the experience.

Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood isn’t exactly about the sea or that historical but you might like it anyway.

Thanks for the recommendation- I’ll give it a go. I’m always interested in books about the war at sea.

Have you read Das Boot? That’s the battle of the Atlantic seen from the perspective of a patrol by a German U boat, but you do need to be careful on which translation you get. My son bought one that seemed to be more translated to American English and it didn’t seem quite right.

If you like The Cruel Sea then it would be interesting to see what you think of Sharks And Little Fish. It's also based on the author's experiences, in this case on minesweepers and U-boats.

Monserrat's style and his characters feel a bit dated to me. Ott's writing is still really vivid and fresh, and it's a surprisingly modern book in terms of its characters' attitudes to the war in general.

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson is a great book -about Captain Robert Fitzroy

Calling The Cruel Sea quite good is like calling the Pope a bit Catholic- it’s a great book in my opinion. Nicholas Monserrat served on corvettes in the battle of the Atlantic and the book reflects his experiences. He also wrote a really good novel called The Master Mariner, about a young sailor, Matthew Lawe, who was cursed by an act of cowardice during the Spanish Armada battles to wander the seas until they ran dry. Matthew sails with Henry Hudson, is a pirate on the Spanish Main, a Newfoundland cod fisherman, sails with James Cooke and Horatio Nelson. you learn a lot about the history of the time as well as the sea. Unfortunately Monserrat died before he could complete book 2, he left a series of notes though so you could see how he planned the ending. Thoroughly recommended.

A niche thread that I’m delighted to have joined

In Hazard by Richard Hughes is a great novel based on the true story of a ship caught in an Atlantic hurricane.

Sink The Bismarck! by CS Forester is a very gripping account of the pursuit of a German battleship in WW2.

If you want to include the horrors of war under terrible things happening at sea then The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Montserrat is quite good, but Sharks And Little Fish by Wolfgang Ott is much better. It is absolutely brutal though.

Agree! Scary, fascinating brilliant story. I loved this book
Totally recommended

This is very interesting book, if you want a series of short true stories about things going wrong at sea there are a couple of books called Total Loss (the latest one has some new stories) in which yachties tell their stories of how they lost their yachts due to a variety of reasons.

I would also recommend The last grain race by Eric Newby - he sailed on board Moshulu, one of the last square riggers to race back from Australia in the 1930’s. She doesn’t sink but Newby does have a great knack for describing his fellow sailors and there is a great description of a force 11 storm in the roaring forties.

Fastnet, Force 10 by John Rousmaniere

Oh I’m glad you liked Madhouse @ApocalypseNowt

I also love this kind of topic! I really enjoyed Sons of the Waves: The Common Seaman in the Heroic Age of Sail by Stephen Taylor. I’m also a massive fan of true tales of shipwrecks and the Caliban Shore about the wreck and fate of the Grosvenor castaways also by Stephen Taylor had me hooked. Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King made me quite emotional, what those castaways went through.