Peter Trawl, the Adventures of a Whaler, by W.H.G. Kingston.
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Peter is a young teenager in a family that suffers a series of
disastrous events. Family money is lost due to the failure of a bank,
not at all uncommon in those days, probably about 1830. They lived in
Portsmouth, where the father was a wherryman, ferrying people out to the
ships. The father meets with an accident, having ferried a passenger to
his ship at anchor outside the harbour, is caught up by freak weather,
which broke up his boat and drowned him. The mother does what she can,
taking commodities out to the ships for the benefit of the sailors, but
trade was bad at that time, and she became ill, and dies as well. Thus
the family were left without any support, until a Mr Gray, a Quaker,
comes on the scene, and takes them under his wing. He is also a
shipowner, and he gives Peter a chance on one of his ships. However,
there are various mishaps with this ship, and Peter and his friend Jim
arrive in Shetland, an archipelago in the far north of Britain, where
Peter discovers that he has relatives. He takes a lift in a ship back
to Portsmouth, as the ship was due to call in at Plymouth, but due to
fair weather passes it by.
The ship is a whaler, and needs to get into the Pacific Ocean, but has a
lot of trouble trying to round the Horn. Eventually they succeed. But
Peter now has a new ambition, to find his long-lost brother Jack who had
gone to sea years before, and never been heard of. By chance he hears
that Jack may be alive. In due course they find Jack, and come home
again with him to Portsmouth, where Mr Gray has kindly looked after the
female members of Peter's family, including his sister Mary.
Of course there are a lot of coincidences in this story, but that's part
of the fun.
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