I remember reading this over 20 years ago, and was aware that it had something of a cult following amongst cruising sailors. After mentioning it to some of my sister's friends who read Clive Cussler (who I've never read), I thought I'd pick up a copy and see how well it stood a re-read. I was fully expecting it to be dated and trashy and I'm glad to say it was neither of those. Scott takes a simple premise - revenge for the death of a loved one - and weaves a suspenseful tale of love and adventure as the hero, Peter Hardin, pursues the worlds biggest supertanker across the shipping lanes from Britain to the Persian Gulf. It's very much a mans world (written in 1978) but the female characters are characters, not decoration. The strongest character is the sea, and as an amateur sailor myself I could find little to fault in the descriptions of boats (I've made some long passages in a 56' Swan and other cruising boats since I first read this), sailing and of the power of the sea. It may get a little technical for non-sailors, but I found it a thrilling adventure story. ( )

The Shipkiller by Justin Scott
Originally published in 1978, The Shipkiller is the story of Peter Hardin, a physician, inventor and skilled seaman, who sets out to destroy the largest ship in the world, a gigantic oil tanker named Leviathan. Hardin and his wife Carolyn were sailing in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores when the Leviathan came out of a cloud bank and barreled into their ketch Siren, destroying it, before they had a chance to maneuver out of its way. Carolyn died, and Peter Hardin washed up unconscious on the coast of Cornwall, England. The legal entanglements of ship ownership, the law of the sea and insurance regulations leave Hardin with no options for redressing the wrong done to him but revenge, and he sets out to accomplish this with a single-minded determination.
This novel is definitely one for readers who love the sea and sailing. The technical jargon used for both the Leviathan and Hardin's small sailing vessels was a bit beyond my understanding. At the same time, since this book came out over thirty years ago, the advances in technology, especially in communications, make for some humorous situations. I especially enjoyed the scene where Hardin needs to make a phone call from his hospital bed in England to his lawyer in New York, and the nurse brings him a phone with an extra long cord to make the call.
Scott brings every tense scene to life, whether it is in a seedy bar outside a US Army base in Germany, where Hardin goes to buy a weapon, or on the bridge of the Leviathan, where her captain rules his men with a ruthlessness matched only by his skill and knowledge of his ship and the sea. Along with the massiveness of the Leviathan, the characters in this novel are larger than life, and this story of a man's fight against a man-made object more frightening than the sea itself make for great reading. ( )