All Hands on Deck

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 Southern California, where they would be filming. Enter a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs who stepped up for the task, including Will Sofrin, at the time a 21-year-old wooden boat builder and yacht racer, who joined as the ship's carpenter.