The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail

From the best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific.

"Lovers of dad books rejoice! Here is the historical nautical book of the summer." --BookRiot, Best New Nonfiction Releases of June 2026

With supplies dwindling, the eleven surviving crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs, and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, tribal wars, and dashed hopes, award-winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor's doomed voyage, the years of perilous captivity, and the delicate negotiations and fraught naval rescue mission that followed.

Illustrated by more than 100 images and maps, The Wreck of the Mentor is at once a powerful story of survival and a revealing window into the great Age of Sail a time when maritime ambition collided with local sovereignty, and when the outcome of one voyage rippled across oceans and empires.

Eric Jay Dolin is the best-selling author of numerous works in maritime history, including Left for Dead; Black Flags, Blue Waters; and Leviathan. His books have won many awards including the John Lyman Award for U.S. Maritime History; Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award; National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in American History Book Award; and the Samuel Eliot Morison Book Award for Naval Literature; and he was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. He now lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his family.