Book description
A cruise was once the trip of a lifetime: a byword for refinement,
luxury, romance, the millionaire lifestyle but no longer. Boats are
bigger and brasher, and every year more and more people of all ages and
walks of life are clambering aboard to join the party. But are they
safe? Out at sea, there are no police. Many cruise ships fly flags of
convenience, sailing in murky legal waters. Reports of disappearances,
disease, death and debauchery are becoming alarmingly frequent. Can you
be sure your dream holiday, or your ship, won't end up on the rocks?
Gwyn Topham, travel editor of Guardian Unlimited, talks to crew and
passengers in Australia and around the world to find out what really
happens on the high seas. In tales spanning ships from the Fairstar to
the QM2, he discovers pirates and pollution, missing persons and
mutinies, colourful captains and crew, and passengers whose antics would
make your hair curl. You cannot afford to get aboard until you have read
Overboard: the stories cruise lines don't want told. Gwyn Topham has
been travel editor of Guardian Unlimited for five years and recently
worked as a news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He wrote this
book while in Sydney, watching the ships go by. He now lives in London.
