This pair wants to get their hands on a 600-cabin cruise ship and park it off the coast of El Segundo, Calif.

FORBES: C++ Faring Lads

Then, in 1960, a notebook was found containing another Essex narrative, parallel with Owen Chase's, written by Thomas Nickerson, cabin boy on the ship and a crew member of Chase's castaway boat.

ECONOMIST: The cannibalism of the sea

The cubby-like library, windowless as it is in the back of the condo, is nicknamed the "ship's cabin" and is full of teak.

WSJ: Sailing the Wide Miami Sky

Melville senior died when the boy was 13, leaving his family in genteel poverty, from which, seven years later, in 1839, the young Melville escaped as cabin boy on a merchant ship bound for Liverpool.

ECONOMIST: American writers