"The last voyage of the gypsum freighter SS Novadoc as she sailed from the Annapolis Basin into a raging nor'east storm in the Bay of Fundy on March 3, 1947. Loaded with 4,000 tons of Nova Scotia gypsum, she foundered about 25 miles off of Portland, Maine, taking all 24 crew members, 13 of them Nova Scotians, to their deaths. The story is told through the eyes and memories of those who lost family members on the Novadoc--the brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren, and friends of the young Nova Scotia men, many of them war veterans, and the two women who perished in the tragedy. The book tells of the seafaring life of Novadoc's captain, Allan J. Vallis, OBE, an experienced merchant mariner and war veteran who unwittingly took the vessel into a hurricane-force storm. A critical look at the formal inquiry into the sinking and the report that deemed the loss "an act of God." The author questions discrepancies in compensation paid to the families of the 24 crew members who died with the ship. The history of Paterson Shipping, the Ontario company that owned Novadoc, and Senator Norman Paterson, the wealthy Winnipeg grain merchant who founded the company in 1926. A moving and factual account of a 1940s tragedy at sea, as well as a tribute to the memory of the men and women who died on the ill-fated Novadoc. Blain Henshaw is a journalist, broadcaster, auctioneer, songwriter, and performer. Born and raised in Nova Scotia, he has written for newspapers and magazines and was producer and writer of several television documentaries while employed with the Atlantic Television System. He now lives in Halifax and is a broadcaster at Seaside-FM community radio in Eastern Passage. All Hands Lost is his first book."--Provided by publisher.