A maritime adventure memoir that follows a crew of misfits hired by Hollywood to sail an 18th-century warship 5,000 miles for the making of a beloved blockbuster film,
“An unbelievable ride . . . Will Sofrin has lived the real experiences and survived to tell the tale.”—Dan Shotz, Emmy Award-winning producer of Black Sails
In the late 1990s, Patrick O’Brian’s multimillion-copy-selling historical novel series—the Aubrey–Maturin series, which was set during the Napoleonic Wars—seemed destined for film. With Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin, the production only needed a ship that could stand in for Lucky Jack’s HMS Surprise, with historical accuracy paramount. The filmmakers found the Rose, a replica of an 18th-century ship that would work perfectly. Only there was one problem: the Rose was in Newport, Rhode Island, not in South
