FARMINGTON – W.H. Bunting, author of “Sea Struck,” will present a slide show presentation and book signing at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 27, at Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers.
Of particular interest to local readers is that Walter Mallett, the uncle of distinguished Farmington historian Richard Mallett, is a central figure of the book. Mallett was the captain of the ship whose voyage Carlton Allen, one of the Sea Struck’s three journal keepers, recorded. Mallett was renowned both as a seaman and a crew manager who made that difficult task appear easy. His wife, Kate, accompanied him on all but three of his many voyages, and is also a prominent figure in the book. Mallett sailed around the southern tip of South America about 40 times.
The book, “Sea Struck,” is about the final decades of American square-rigged sail, as recorded in firsthand accounts of voyages made by three well-born young men.
The book contains plenty of adventure, men overboard, a cargo of “Chinese passengers” discipline that bordered on brutality, and exotic Far East ports. Yet the book’s interwoven stories demonstrate the web of connections in the New England maritime community.
The public is welcome.
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