"The usual–that is to say, terrific–McPhee treatment, in which the author surrenders to his subject and conquers it: in this case, the merchant marine of the United States." –The New York Times Book Review
"Remarkably adroit and compelling...the sea seems to be his natural home." –
William Warner, The Washington Post Book World "McPhee makes Captain Paul McHenry Washburn one of the most memorable men of sea literature." –
Stephen Jones, Chicago Tribune "Looking for a Ship is not a treatise on the decline of the American merchant marine, any more than Moby-Dick was meant to be a Journal off Commerce report on the whaling industry...Style is what McPhee is loaded down to the Plimsoll marks in: felicitous phrases, keen observation, the knack of unloading a cargo of information without hitting the reader on the head with a jumbo boom." –
Richard F. Shepard, The New York Times