The Hollow Sea

In 1909, the crack Blue Anchor liner, the Waratah, sinks without trace, or survivors, off the coast of South Africa during a raging storm.

Half a century later in 1967, the Gemsbok, a Viscount airliner of South African Airways disappears in exactly the same place.

To some it is merely an uncanny mystery. To others a tragedy. But for one it has become an obsession to find out what happened. Ian Fairlie, captain of the weather ship Walvis Bay-whose father was the pilot of the Gemsbok and whose grandfather was the first officer of the Waratah-has sworn that he will resolve the mystery. In the face of both official opposition and gale swept seas, at the risk of his career and of his very life, Ian sets himself to unravel the secret of what had happened to the other Fairlies while avoiding the same fate that had trapped them.