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Meet The Crew
Spoiler Alert:
This page is intended for people who have already read For Those In Peril On
The Sea, and may contain information that spoils your enjoyment of the story
if you have not done so yet.
Rob MacGregor: Rob is the narrator of the novel. He
is a thirty-nine year old academic dropout who never really achieved what he
wanted to. Disenchanted with his life, when he's offered redundancy, he
takes it, cashes in all his assets and starts to sail around the world. He ends up
in Cape Town with damaged boat and takes a delivery job to earn enough money to
get it repaired. The delivery job turns out to be a bit of a nightmare and he
really doesn't get on with the other people on the trip. When they reach their
destination, they find the world has changed and he is stuck with these
people whether he likes it or not. While some people have suggested that Rob is
based on the author, he denies this. Although he has worked as an academic, he
is not as washed up as Rob. Rather, Rob is a composite of certain aspects of
many people he has worked with over the years. While Rob's surname is not
provided in the book, he does have one. It gives him a nearly-famous name, one
that is close enough to Rob Roy MacGregor, the famous Scottish outlaw (Liam
Neeson played him in the 1990s film based on his life) for people to confuse the
two, much to his annoyance. One of the reasons Rob
dropped out of academia is that he didn't like making decisions that affected
other people's futures. This makes it all the more ironic that he is left in
charge of a boat full of people after Bill dies. This
responsibility weighs heavily upon him throughout the book, but eventually he
learns to accept it.
Bill Davidson: As with Rob, Bill's surname is never
provided in the book, but in the original sketch for this character, he had the
surname Davidson. Bill is an experienced sailor and is everybody's best hope of
surviving what happens to them. He is the type of person you would always want
in charge if you were there when something went wrong. Bill is an amalgamation
of a variety of yacht captains the author has sailed with over the years.
In this time, he's been in some tricky situations (including one where the boat
he was on ended up being blown onto the shore in a gale), and it has always been
the captain that gets them through it in one piece. This is very much the
captain's role, to make those decisions that have to be made and to make sure
that they are right. Bill's loss dramatically changes the dynamic on the
catamaran and thrusts Rob into a position he is very uncomfortable with. Yet
without this, the whole narrative of the book would have been too
straight-forward and too easy. Sometimes it takes a bit of adversity to make a
story better, even if it meant Bill had to die.
Jon:
Jon was originally John, but that just didn't seem right. Dropping the ‘h' gave
a more archetypical American feel to his name. It was
originally the author's girlfriend who suggested he should be a college dropout,
and this role worked well. Tweaking this story so that he was a rich kid dropout
provided a source of conflict with CJ (another rich kid, but this time a British
one). Jon is twenty-four and the author admits that he is very much based on
himself at that age. Many older people will recognise this type of person, the
type who is young and confident, and thinks he knows how to solve all the
world's problems if only people would listen to him. When you're young you
think you know it all, it's only once you get older that you realise things are
more complicated. Jon learns this throughout the story and eventually grows into
someone Rob can rely on. For some reason, Jon never had a surname even in the
original notes on the character.
CJ: CJ is the only
individual character who's surname is given in
the book. This is because CJ is a shortening for Camilla Jamieson. At nineteen
and having had a privileged upbringing, CJ is inexperienced with the world. Her
gap year is meant to be providing her with this experience. When she meets Bill
on a charter boat before the start of the novel, he takes her under his wing.
There is the suggestion that Bill treats her as the daughter he never had, or
possibly even grand-daughter. CJ is the character that grows the most throughout
the book and was also the one that gave the author the most problems. Being a
middle-aged male, he readily admits he had problems accurately portraying a
teenage girl. CJ is loosely based on a type of girl that he has encountered
often throughout his life, often when they are taking their first steps into the
world on their own. Quite frequently, this is the first time they find that not
only do they have to work for the respect of others, but that they are not
always treated nicely, even if they deserve it. Both Jon and Rob take CJ for
granted at first, but in the end both come to respect her. CJ and Jon eventually
get together, but only after Jon grows up enough to stop despising her and
start treating her like a real person. This is change is portrayed in the book
when Jon shifts from calling her Cammy, which annoys her, to calling her CJ as
she prefers.
Jack: Jack is, in many ways, a replacement for Bill,
but he differs from Bill in his relationship to Rob. On the catamaran, Rob is
second in command to Bill, but Jack treats Rob as an equal since by the time
they meet Rob has become the captain of the catamaran. The relationship between Jack and Rob
represents a shift within Rob's character, changing him from a follower to a
leader. While he resists this change at first, he grows into it by the end of
the book. While Jack is not based on any specific individual, he is easily recognisable in many communities. He is the one that everyone looks up to even
though he doesn't ever try to place himself in this position. This is the main
characteristic that separates him from David. David demands that people obey
him, while Jack earns their trust and respect.
David: David is another character that never had a
surname even within the original notes for the novel. He is also one of the
characters that changed the most from the original drafts of the novel. He
started off as a completely unlikeable sociopath that was way too two
dimensional. However, in the final novel his character was changed quite
substantially. By providing David with a bit more of a back-story than
originally planned and in making him a bit more enigmatic, he became more
three dimensional. In addition, in many ways David is the Cassandra of the
story. He is the only one who sees the real reason as to why living on boats is
not a viable long term survival option, its just that he has a very poor way of
persuading people to share his point of view. It also happens that he has it
slightly wrong, something that Rob realises on his own by the end of the book.
Andrew: Andrew is the only local Abaconian (as people
from the Abacos are known – it is also the name of the local newspaper) in the
book. He provides Rob and the others with an introduction to life in Abacos,
including where to fish for tuna. He has a pathological fear of sharks which
leads to him making a snap decision on a dock that results in Jon's death. While
it is never clearly stated in the book, it could be inferred that he is black
(as pictured here),
making him part of the ethnic majority in the Abacos. However, this may not be
the case and the author was specifically ambiguous on this issue.
Dan, Kathy And The McGann Family: Dan and his family
are, in many ways, your typical sailing family. They have young kids that are
happy to mix with new people in new environments. As with many such cases, the
situation starts to unravel when the oldest kid starts moving towards their
teenage years. This is the time they start to need a stable social group and
other kids their own age to mix with. In the changed world of For Those In
Peril On The Sea, this leads to Jeff sneaking out one night to see one of
the only girls left of a similar age, and from there, to the death of his family. This
is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences. Small actions and
decisions can have big unexpected consequences, especially when there are
infected around. On a side note, the McGann's boat is the only one where the
name is mentioned within the book, all others are described either by their type
(such as the catamaran) or their make (such as David's Morgan Out Island). This
name is that of the yacht the author lived on in his later years in the Abacos.
Mike and Jimmy: Mike and Jimmy remain relatively
undeveloped characters. Their age is provided along with a
rough description. Beyond that little information is provided about them. As a
reader, you know that they have been through hell before they meet up with the
crew of the catamaran but they remain fairly enigmatic throughout the book.
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