In the spring of 1853 the ill-fated William and Mary, an American sailing ship captained by the incompetent Timothy Stinson, departed from England carrying over 200 Dutch, Scotch, Irish and English emigrants, all bound for New Orleans. The voyage was an absolute disaster, replete with illness, bad weather, starvation, a shipwreck, and ultimately the captain's betrayal - in the form of an attempted mass murder.

My guest, Gill Hoffs is an expert on Victorian-era shipwrecks, and she shares details from her book, "The Lost Story of the William and Mary: The Cowardice of Captain Stinson".

She can be found on Twitter @GillHoffs