I loved the premise for this; Off The Deep End scrutinises the effects of the sea on mental health- whether that be to seamen, navigators, or modern day sailors. Nic Compton manages to include a vast number of conditions that could negatively impact mental health, as well as covering a broad timescale from the dawn of ships, to the explorations of 'uncharted waters' and beyond.

The early chapters are easily the best. I loved the explanations on the optical illusions known as 'Fata Morgana' and how this may have led sailors to interpret the phenomenon as The Flying Dutchman - leading to superstitions and religious fervor. From this point we are then introduced to Darwin, and his doomed captain and navigator aboard the Beagle, with suicide and madness. Then we jump to shipwrecks, whales with grudges, and cannibalism. It was certainly interesting - and after reading I can certainly see why seamen have such a high proportion of mental illness rates. It would seem everything is set against them - including even the rations and living quarters!

Everything is well researched and goes into some detail about various voyages and navigational terms. I appreciated this to some respect, as it's clear the author has spent a great deal of time carefully getting all the facts to help construct his arguments, but it also made the text heavy going at some points. It wasn't a light read, and I found myself dipping in and out of it in between other books. The text, as you might imagine, is also quite dark at times. There don't seem to be many happy endings for sailors.

I didn't enjoy the more contemporary chapters as interesting. I'm a history nerd at heart, and these just didn't hold my attention as much. Because of this, I found myself wishing there were more chapters on British naval history, and the stigmas attached to sailors of this time rather than now. However, I do understand that it's an important subject to broach, as the struggle against mental illness continues. I'm all for raising awareness.

An interesting topic.

In Off the Deep End: A History of Madness at Sea, Nic Compton poses a myriad of question about what exactly it is about the environment of the sea, that leads to such a high level of mental illness amongst the people who have traversed it. The study travels time and location to bring together the stories of perhaps millions of people who have been negatively affected by the waves since the time records began, moving almost like the waves in a way that makes all the experiences join together to create one deafening, tragic roar. In this way, despite it being an academic text, it manages to jump from country to country and century to century without it coming off as jarring, and instead being addictive and compelling.
But that does not mean it is an easy read, for it tells an horrendous history of how the world has treated people with mental illnesses, and how they have been viewed by society - bringing attention to toxic attitude of the navy and its desire to bury its overwhelmingly high number of poor mental health. As well as the conditions of people travelling on ships in recent centuries, with a truly horrific example being the treatment of slaves on the boats traversing the Middle Passage: 1.8 million of them are thought to have died during the journey from Africa to the ’New World'. Which is a fact that makes my stomach turn.
In Off the Deep: A History of Madness at Sea, readers will find a shocking and sickening tale; one that needs to be written, and needs to be read, if only to understand more about the human mind and to learn from the horrific lengths people went to, in order to make it out alive. It is also incredibly important in the conversation about PTSD, both to understand its sometimes-devastating consequences and to get more people talking about it and break the taboo that many people still feel in contemporary society.

This is a decent enough read but feels a little scattershot in its approach. The author does an admirable job of linking together the various anecdotes and examples of sailors descending into madness. Some of the text is less digestible, there are overlong discussions about mental health hospitals and facilities being built by the navy and the admission numbers. A relevant area of discussion but quite dry. I did enjoy this book for the bizarre stories of folly and madness displayed by sailors over the ages. A worthwhile distraction.