You can tell Conrad loves ships, which is enough to make this a pleasant reading. I'm also surprised by how cinematic it feels, it's got a lot of descriptions of action-packed moments, straight out of a modern blockbuster.

As a story it's kind of like being told an unbelievable anecdote by your grandpa. Since it's short it's not long enough that you could regret the reading, even if the story doesn't turn out to be of your liking.