The Hurricane Jumpers: The Escape of HMS Calliope

This is the story of a boy and man in Queen Victoria's Royal Navy in the second part of the nineteenth century. It describes his training, action and becoming a man. It also describes the ship he sailed on, and her miraculous escape from a hurricane at Samoa in 1889 which destroyed four men-of-war, severely damaged two others, and wrecked all the smaller vessels in the port. The ship was the only vessel to escape the harbour. 147 sailors from Germany and America were drowned. The book gives an account of the storm based on eyewitness accounts, some previously unpublished, and also describes the lives of the main players, British, American, German and Samoan, who were involved. It is illustrated with images of the ships involved, some of the people, and the wrecks after the storm.