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BEST ENDEAVOURS: INSIDE THE WORLD OF MARINE SALVAGE. By Tony Redding. Bradford on Avon, England: The ABR Co., 2004. Pp. viii/256. GBP 27.50. ISBN: 1-904050-09-3.
Everyone loves a good adventure story, especially one with brave heroes facing overwhelming adversity but nevertheless triumphing over the villains in the end. Although not all of them are triumphs, the 150 stories in this oversized volume are still good adventures. The heroes are the salvage masters and their teams who work so hard in the aftermath of a maritime casualty to save life and property and (particularly in recent years) to prevent environmental damage. This casting of the hero's role should be no surprise, for Best Endeavours was commissioned by the International Salvage Union (the organization that represents most of the world's marine salvors) to commemorate its fiftieth general meeting.1 Casting the villain was less obvious. Not every story has a villain. For those that do, their identities vary. In one story, the villain might be a cargo owner that fails to identify a hazardous cargo, in another the shipowner that endangers the lives of the crew to save money on maintenance, or even the car salesman that masquerades as a qualified pilot (and watches helplessly when the ship that has retained him runs aground). The forces of nature are...