David Paul Collins was born with a thirst for adventure. As a teenager, he set out to go to sea on his own, working aboard merchant ships sailing under African, Asian and Central American flags and later, on American ships as a member of the National Maritime Union.
SHANGHAIED is a fictionalized memoir based on his experiences on a Liberian freighter and the dangerous ways of life at sea in the 1950s. The fictional protagonist, fifteen-year-old Jack Sligo, is looking for a summer job when he is shanghaied on an African freighter. By the time September school bells rang, Jack had learned lessons that would never have been taught at St. Peter’s Central Catholic High School.
Unbeknownst to Jack, the ship’s bo’sun, Manor Nelson, a Cayman Islander, protected him from members of the crew who would have made Caribbean pirates seem like drawing room gentlemen.
