Marine salvage has a long history. It extends back to the classical world, when the divers of Ancient Greece were rewarded with a share of cargoes recovered from wrecks. Today, the fundamentals of marine salvage are unchanged. The salvor is rewarded in relation to the value of property recovered. In the 21st Century, however, salvage has a new focus: pollution prevention.
Best Endeavours, published in the 50th Anniversary year of the International Salvage Union, offers a unique insight into the challenging and often dangerous business of salvage.
The book has accounts of over 100 salvage operations. It includes vivid narrative from the Salvage Masters in the front line. There are the battles to perform salvage on ships hit by missiles during the 1980s “Supertanker War” involving Iran and Iraq, desperate struggles to save ships thought to be beyond saving and cases involving work at remote locations and in extreme conditions.
Best Endeavours is not a salvage textbook. Instead, it explores the human qualities which make salvage possible, even when the odds are heavily stacked against success.
The book examines the influence of luck in salvage situations and explains how ingenuity and lateral thinking have brought many crippled ships and their cargoes to safety in hostile circumstances.
The text is supported by over 150 stunning photographs conveying the drama and hazards of working at the edge of the possible. The coverage of the subject is comprehensive. Best Endeavours paints a picture of the demanding nature of the task faced by those dealing with the aftermath of marine collisions, groundings, fires, explosions and spills.