1810. A French naval officer and a young female passenger en route to Senegal find love during the horrific ‘Medusa’ shipwreck tragedy. (3 part Series plus Novel).

SYNOPSIS:

As with the telling of “Titanic”, this is a story about how a disaster, which should not be possible, did happen. In this case, how a flagship of the post Napoleonic Royal French Navy, a ship bearing precise orders and hundreds of passengers, ran itself up onto a sandbank off the Saharan coast. Not only had the ship’s captain been forewarned and specifically ordered to avoid this large, well-known obstacle, but it was a clear day, a calm sea, and the signs they were about to run aground were unmistakable.

The “Medusa” carried with it not only hundreds of passengers, soldiers and crew, it was for the most part ably manned by a contingent of seasoned officers, and their mission was of the utmost importance – to oversee the handover of the English colony of Senegal to the French government. The vessel therefore bore all the necessities for this venture, including a fortune in gold coin. Furthermore, the “Medusa” was the leading vessel in a fleet of four ships, all manned by seasoned captains, and all well aware of the dangers of the Aguin sandbank and the necessity to avoid it.

The events following the ship’s grounding rank among the greatest blunders in maritime history. The “Medusa” was by no means wrecked. It was harmlessly aground on a bed of mud and sand. So what possessed its captain to order the making of a giant raft, and to then load150 passengers onto that raft, and to then subsequently abandon them?

Why did the raft, which could have been equipped with food, water and materials of all kinds, depart with little more than a few barrels of wine? The terrible fate that awaited those drifting on the raft included drunken sword battles during terrible storms at night, starvation, thirst, shark attacks, and eventual cannibalism.

Our story begins with an English woman who has traveled to the Louvre in Paris. She is investigating her ancestral lineage - a passenger on the ill-fated Medusa and one of its few survivors, Charlotte Picard. In the process of uncovering the story of her ancestor, she studies Géricault's giant painting, “The Raft of the 'Medusa'”, and through this fascination meets Marcel Savigny, a museum curator, and also a descendant of one of the “Medusa” survivors. Through him, the English woman learns the true story behind Charlotte Picard, and her passionate and tragic romance with one of the ship’s most gallant young officers, Lieutenant Espiaux.

As with the telling of “Titanic”, almost all of the incredible incidents which took place are historical fact.

(Further markets for “The Raft”, aside from traditional English speaking audiences, are the French, French Canadian and African markets.)

THE RAFT