C.S. Forester vs. Patrick O'Brian?

So where do you stand? Are you a fan of Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey?

I've seen quite a difference in views on these two fictional characters, each with their own set of novels from the great wars at sea between Britain and France at the end of the 18th century and start of the 19th. 

Of the two I first read C.S. Forester, in particular the Puffin Hornblower Goes to Sea which includes the best stories from Mr Midshipman Hornblower and Lieutenant Hornblower. But I then read the whole set, and loved them.

Over the years I've tried to find an equal, starting with a couple of Alexander Kent's books and then the Patrick O'Brian books.

Recently I thought it would be interesting to try a re-read. I had a look at various sites online that compared C.S. Forester vs. Patrick O'Brian, and there seemed to be a balance in support of O'Brian's books because of the quality of the writing. Would I agree with that?

I started with the C. S. Forester books, beginning with Mr Midshipman Hornblower and quickly making my way through the series all the way to the end. It was an enjoyable romp. Forester has an easy writing style and well structured plots that combine to create stories that kept me engaged. 

There were a couple of less good ones. I'm not that keen on Atropos, Lord H and W'Indies H, but they were still readable.

So then with much anticipation I turned to O'Brian. My initial reaction on Master and Commander was "isn't the writing so much better!" - richer, more detailed, complicated characters.

But then... I got stuck. The story meandered, slowed, reversed. In the end I never finished the project, never getting to book 2.

I also remembered why I've never got beyond The Far Side of the World. There is this scene in that book (spoiler alert) when Maturin falls overboard and Aubrey jumps in after him. 

!!!

I remember the golden rule of person-overboard drill is don't jump in as it makes a bad situation worse. Also, wouldn't that be abandoning Aubrey's position as captain, a court-martiable offence? Then there's an episode involving Amazonian Polynesian women or something....

Anyhow, it sort of broke the spell for me. Also, I checked on Wikipedia (the source of the image above) and read how there were doubts about O'Brian's sailing experience - or rather lack of - in real life.

Initially I'd thought this would be a close run thing, but in the end it was an easy decide. If I was to take one book from either of these series to a desert island I'd chose one of the Hornblower series, in particular my favourite, Hornblower and the Hotspur.

What do you think? 

Which book from which series is your favourite and why?

Book Review: The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley

Weather is always with us, every day, where ever we are. You'd have thought that this would mean there is nothing left for us to learn about it, but in this brilliant book I discovered that is wrong. There is much more to weather than simply clicking on an app.

Previously Tristan Gooley has written a series of books about Natural Navigation and How to Read Water (as reviewed here) and his latest is called The Secret World of Weather (UK cover above, it is different in the US).

Full disclosure Tristan's a friend of mine, but that really makes no difference to this review, for this was a fascinating read.

The book looks at the relationship between the local, such as hills, valley, rivers, plants and buildings and the weather, how they interact, changing it.

A simple example comes from the sail Tristan and I did to the Arctic Circle: we spotted the clouds above the Faroes Islands before we saw the islands themselves, until all of a sudden we were there:

This contained many examples of these, from eddies around buildings, to birds rising on thermals, to the different types of rain, to the secret laws, to the tree fan, to canopy breeze, to the wind bulge, to finding coastlines from clouds to..... so many new ideas, and then integrated into a framework.

I kept wanting to try out what I've read by looking at the sky, trying to read the clues. This is a book to come back to, to observe the natural world and then re-read the relevant sections, to learn to connect what you see with what is happening, to know what to look for.

I found myself peering at the sky, checking out the commas, the mares' tails that come down from cirrus clouds, thinking myself into the layers of the atmosphere, reading the sky as I'd read the book.

Strongly recommended!

Book Review: A short history of seafaring by Brian Lavery

This book does what it says on the tin: give a short history of seafaring. It's broken down into age, such as:

1. The first ocean sailors
2. The age of exploration
3. etc.

and then within each section are a couple of pages of topics within that age, such as (for the first):

• Exploring the Pacific
• Seafaring in the Mediterranean
• etc.

I'd be surprised if you know all about all these topics - I certainly learnt a lot. The bite sized approach means its a good book to dip into and put down. Sometimes it was frustrating that the page limit per topic resulted in missed details or limited the description to that from a single observer. Also, the maps  / charts for each ocean were slotted into specific ages but contained events from all ages which was a bit distracting.

But overall enjoyed it and would be happy to recommend it.

Book Review: The Way to the Sea by Caroline Crampton

I've previously reviewed "Estuary" by Rachel Lichtenstein and had what is best described as a mixed response. One of the problems about that book was Lichenstein clearly didn't actually like being out on the water, which was a bit of a handicap given the subject involved. There was also a relaxed attitude to historical facts which I found frustrating.

But the Thames Estuary is a topic that clearly deserves a book, and in "The Way to the Sea" Caroline Crampton has nailed it. For one thing, Crampton is totally at ease out on the waters that she has been sailing in the family yacht since she was a little girl.

The book is also a story of her family and her parents arrival by yacht to London, first mooring in St. Katharine Dock. Many of my favourite topics are covered, from Bazalgette's sewers and the wonders of the Crossness Pumping Station to the London Stones and the Dickensian landscape around them.

There were even some odd coincidences, such as how her parents have sailed a Contessa 32 and sailed up to the Arctic Circle.

Well written and illustrated, flowing smoothly as the river it describes, this is highly recommended read for anyone interested in the Thames, its environment and history, from the source to the invisible and undefinable point where it is transformed into the sea.

Book Review: The Seabird's Cry by Adam Nicolson

If you are interested in seabirds then I can not recommend Adam Nicolson's The Seabird's Cry highly enough. It is fascinating, researched with many details and shows a great depth of understanding while remaining poetic, not dry. It combines scientific analysis with a passion for the environment.

Each chapter describes a different seabird, including:

• Fulmar
• Puffin
• Kittiwake
• Gull
• Guillemot
• Cormorant and Shag
• Shearwater
• Gannet
• Great Auk and its cousin Razorbill
• Albatross

A key concept is that of Umwelt, which means "surrounding world" and is about how each animal lives in its own world, driven by its needs, skills and environment.

At first I was thinking to write about each bird, folding down corners of pages of interest. But there were too many amazing moments and the edge of the book is now full of gaps. To pick just a few, flicking through at random:

• How gulls can turn into sociopathic cannibal superkillers
• How the fishing patterns of kittwakes follow the phases of the moon
• How puffins can dive up to 220 feet over two minutes
• How albatrosses tack their way around the southern oceans
• How boobies are traumatised to turn psychopath and even rapists
• How shearwaters fly between 10,000 to 20,000 miles a year by understanding the trade winds and knowing their location by its smell
• ...

The final chapter, named the Seabird's Cry, is about how we humans are destroying our planet, with global warming, loss of habitat, depletion of fish stocks and endless plastic waste. It is a call to action to help protect these incredible animals.

Full of details and personal experience, maps of routes of seabirds gathered using GPS trackers,
this is an brilliant book, a masterpiece even.

The Vikings: Their Life

If you want to learn about Viking life, not just the myth, then what's the best way to do it?

I'd argue not to see exhibitions like the one at the British Museum (as described earlier) but rather read this book.

Vinland by George Mackay Brown is a classic and sums up for me what life must have been like in Orkney around the time of the first millennium, of sailing with the Vikings to Iceland, Greenland, Vinland and Norway. Of the transition from fighters to farmers, from Norse gods to Christianity.

And the life story from boyhood to old age of Ranald Sigmundson.

I also got a glimpse of the Viking's beliefs when in Greenland. Surrounded by emptiness we were watched by a raven, and seeing that familiar bird so far from civilisation was rather spooky.

I really could understand how the Vikings could have believed they were sent by the gods, for what other reason could there be for seeing it in such a remote place?

Book Review: Narrow Dog To Carcassonne by Terry Darlington

Like Estuary (reviewed earlier) I sort of enjoyed this book, but there were significant qualifications.

This book tells how the author, his wife Monica and dog Jim took their narrow boat Phyllis May down the English canal system from Stone to the Thames, across the Channel, through the French, Belgium and then French again canal systems all the way to Carcassonne.

It's described (as can be seen from the cover above) with words like "classic" and "comic" on the lines (I guess) of Three Men in a Boat or Bill Bryson's travel books, and some reviews are 5 star raves.

But I had a few issues. The word "comic" was one as I didn't really find it that funny. Recently I've been re-watching some old episodes of Cheers and each one has a proper laugh-out-loud moment:



Now Cheers is funny, this book less so. All too often it reverts to Daily Mail stereotypes of aren't the French odd, do lets remember the war, bash the EU and complain about not getting beer in pint glasses.

Then there's the writing style: this should be an easy read, yet too often it isn't, with prose like poetry (or poetry like prose), fantasies and at one point switching to the current tense.

Take one story about low flying fighter planes: the first description had them just 6 inches above the Rhone. This sounds like bar-room tall story, exaggeration, but then a second time round it changes to them and their boat being attacked by fighter-bombers - are the tall stories getting taller? - before a fuller description comes out, namely that they were fire-fighting planes picking up water.

Ok, so the author has to create tension but this just makes following what is going on harder.

My recommendation is if you're interested, maybe a canal boat owner, then try out the first couple of paragraphs or maybe even chapters and see how much you enjoy the viewpoint and writing style.

Book Review: Arthur Ransome under sail by Roger Wardale

Arthur Ransome's love of sailing can be read in every line of his Swallows and Amazon's series of books that went on to inspire many sailors.

In real life he spent a lot of his time afloat in a variety of boats, as described in this book. And there were quite a few of them, including Swallow, Racundra, Nancy Blackett, Lottie Blossom, Peter Duck and Selina King.

The voyages on Racundra he wrote up in two books, the first and third cruises of that yacht, which alas I discovered were all too boring.

This book has the advantages that a) it summarises those cruising recollections (i.e. its author, Roger Wardale, read those books so we don't have to) and b) it points out similarities between events in Arthur Ransome's life that might have been re-used in his stories.

For example:

• The safety in sailing offshore in Racundra was similar to John's predicament in We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea
• Ransome and Evgenia were helped to sail by Captain Sehmel, who was to become Peter Duck (both had sailed on the Thermopylae)
• Going ashore on deserted islands in the Baltics was a bit like Titty and Bill going ashore in Peter Duck
• The great frost of 1895, when Ransome was in the Lake District as a child, was re-imagined in Winter Holiday
• Ransome also met the Norwegian polar explorer Nansen while in Riga
• The yacht Goblin from We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea was a faithful copy of Ransome's Nancy Blackett
• Research for that book included a trip by Ransome over to Holland
• Sailing friends of Ransome on the East Coast had a yacht called Lapwing...which was included in Secret Water
• Ransome also explored The Naze aka the secret water when living at Pin Mill (which was the Swallows base for two stories)
• He also went sailing with friends on the Norfolk Broads, which were used in the stories of the Coots

And that's to say nothing of the countless connections with Ransome's life to the Lake District sailing stories.

I also learnt how Ransome was instrumental in forming the Cruising Association, where I've been for a couple of really interesting talks with good food.

The first half of the book was the best for me, the second had two flaws:

1. It didn't make so much sense to me to describe retrospective literary connections i.e. when Ransome's sailing reflected his books (rather than his books coming from his experiences)
2. Ransome kept on commissioning yachts and after a while it becomes yet another boat project

All in all, though, a very good read for anyone with an interest in finding out more about Arthur Ransome, the man behind some of our favourite children's books.

Note that Roger Wardale is a bit of a Ransome expert and there are two other books that might be of interest:

• In Search of Swallows and Amazons: Arthur Ransome's Lakeland (focusing on the Lake District, as described here)
• Arthur Ransom on the Broads (as reviewed here)

Updated: Racundra (as per here) or Recundra (as per front page)?

Book Review: The History of the Port of London by Peter Stone

This book describes itself as "The History of the Port of London" and it does just what it says on the tin. I was a bit worried it might be dry but was pleasantly surprised as it's both informative and well written. As someone with living in London and by the Thames it was a subject I was really interested in and I learnt a lot.

From the very early days of the Romans the port of London grew slowly at first and then faster in medieval times, exporting first wool then cloth to the low countries. Very early on, London became a place where boats would arrive with sailors from countries far away, a mix of cultures and ideas that continues to this day.

It was then to explode with the Empire, docks dedicated to destinations such as far off India (for the East India Company) and more and more docks built, mile after mile, along with warehouses for storage.

The port of London became a city within a city, where thousands worked behind tall walls that protect the valuable wares within, sometimes in import duty limbo. But in the 20th Century competition drove some docks to bankruptcy and they merged together to form the Port of London Authority (PLA) in December 1908.

The PLA "inherited almost 3,000 acres of estate" with 32 miles of quays as well as 17 London County Council passenger piers and the Thames from Teddington to the estuary.

It reached its peak in the 1930s where around 100,000 men either worked there or were dependent upon its operations which accounted for 38% of the UK's trade. In a typical year there'd be:

• 50,000 ocean going ships arriving
• 15,000 round trips in coasters
• 250 tugs working
• 10,000 lighters
• 1,000 sailing barges.

The port survived the blitz, just, but was to be swept away by the container revolution. A theme through-out the final century was continual battles between dock owners and works, between starvation wages (literally) and insolvency.

Now the docks have gone - or at least from London, though not the Thames, for there are still the docks down Tilbury way. It's hard to imagine how it would have been in its peak, though this photo (from here) gives an idea:

You'd need a good imagination to visualise this now as these docks were Canary Wharf, so this area is now all banks and beyond there is the O2 Arena.

An invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the subject.

Book Review: Wild Signs and Star Paths by Tristan Gooley

The latest book by my Arctic sailing friend, the Natural Navigator Tristan Gooley is called Wild Signs and Star Paths with sub-title The Keys to our Lost Sixth Sense.

What does that mean, you might be wondering? It does sound rather "mystical"....but is that in a good way?

I must admit I didn't get it at first... it seemed more guidance on how to read nature by looking at the shape of trees, but then a light-bulb went off and I suddenly it clicked in a just brilliant way.

This book about synergy and thought, how we think about nature and how our ancestors thought about nature, about how the brain works and how nature works. A tree can't be considered in isolation, it is part of a system, it influences the system, it is a sign as to the environment, which is then an indicator of what else to look for.

It's full of good science, about how neurons work and the difference between our brain's neural net when working in unconscious (or fast) mode and how that compares and compliments the conscious or algorithmic (slow) mode. There's more, considering how micro-climates and soil types drive species that can be found and the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals. It also connects to anthropology and how cultures connected strongly to nature retain and transfer their knowledge, including stories and myths.

It is at times lyrical, with beautiful writing about the relationships within environments and connections to our deep past.

Strongly recommended!



Full disclosure: as noted Tristan is a friend but the copy I read was a present from a family member, not provided by the publisher

Book Review: Arthur Ransome on the Broads

Previously I reviewed Ransome's "Radundra's First Cruise" and alas found it seriously boring.

It was a bit like having to listen to someone's holiday story about this great taverna where the owner was such a character and would give them free retsina .... you really had to be there otherwise it was all a bit switch off.

But Arthur Ransome on the Broads by Roger Wardale I rather enjoyed. Partly because it was short, summarising the numerous visits rather than describing each tack, but mostly as it gave an insight into the character and ways of the Broads in the 1930s and how the books came to be written.

Both Coot Club and The Big Six came from his holidays there and you can see the elements emerge, the different types of boats: punts, dinghies, racing yachts, wherries, motor cruisers, motor tugs.... all were there in the diaries and came alive in the stories. Tom's father was a GP and Ransome was to have not one but three medical emergencies on his trip, namely bang to head, appendicitis and hernia so did indeed get to know the local doctor well. There were missed telegrams, storms in Broads, fish caught, falling in (a lot), Horning, bird watching, eel catching, pirate flags, racing....

The backgrounds to the books were especially interesting - such as how The Big Six was almost called The Death and Glories, which to be honest would have worked a lot better as The Big Six needs a certain amount of explaining now.

There were some intriguing insights into Ransome's relationship to his wife Evgena, who seemed somewhere between formidable, domineering even, summoning him with a sharp blow on her whistle!

There was a mysterious reference to how they "turned out to watch the eclipse of the sun" during the 1939 trip which I'm struggling to match with astronomical references - any suggestions?

Overall a useful reference for those interested in Ransome's sailing and writing without having to go through all the original sources.

Books of the Blue Funnel Line - Updated

 

Previously I've done a post describing books about the Blue Funnel Line but since then I've read quite a few more so thought I'd give an update.

For those wanting to know more about the Blue Funnel Line there is a reasonable range of books on this topic, including those in the photos above and below. I've only reviewed a handful of them, though more might follow in the future.

Company Histories

Three of these books are histories, that set out to record what happened in the company over specific times, and each achieves its goal:

• Blue Funnel, A history of Alfred Hold & Company of Liverpool, 1865 - 1914 by Francis E. Hyde
• A Merchant Fleet in War, Alfred Holt & Co 1939 - 1945, by Captain S. W. Roskill
• The Blue Funnel Legend, A History of the Ocean Steam Ship Company 1865 - 1973, by Malcom Falkus
• The Blue Funnel Line, issued by Alfred Holt & Company, 1938

Travelogues and Life on Board

These are highly readable descriptions of life on-board a Blue Funnel ship as it travels between Liverpool and the Far East. The first three are particularly of note: the first one is disguised but apparently is S.S. Polyphemus in 1907 and the second an amalgam of several voyages on similar vessels in the 1960s. The third is the description of what is indeed a remarkable life, the first female marine engineer:

• The Surgeon's Log: Impressions of the Far East by J. Johnston Abraham
• Blue Funnel: Voyage East by Richard Woodman
• The Remarkable Life of Victoria Drummond, Marine Engineer by Baroness Strange
• Those In Peril - a Blue Funnel Story, by Ian Cook
• Memoirs of a Blue Funnel Midshipman by Tom Effeny
• East with the Blue Funnel by Neil R. Beattie

Reference Books

Finally there are reference books with lists of ships often with photos:

• Blue Funnel Line, A Photographic History by Ian Collard
• Ships in Focus: The Blue Funnel Line by John Clarkson, Bill Harvey and Roy Fenton (below)
• Ships of the Blue Funnel Line by H. M. Le Fleming
• Merchant Fleets 6: Blue Funnel Line, by Duncan Haws
• Blue Funnel & Glen Lines Bulletin: Centenary Edition 1865 - 1965
• The Blue Funnel Line: A Portrait in Photographs & Old Picture Post Postcards by Terry Moore

Let me know if there are any others out there I should be collecting or if you'd like more detailed reviews.

Book Review: Estuary by Rachel Lichtenstein

I mostly liked this book a lot, but there was a definite qualification involved.

Estuary by Rachel Lichtenstein, describes the Thames Estuary and has sub-title "Out from London to the Sea" and that is indeed the scope. It's well written and often captures the edge-land mood of these flat landscapes.

There is of course some debate about what exactly is meant by the Thames Estuary. Wikipedia gives a range of start points, some as far inland as Teddington (which seems unlikely), but Gravesend sounds plausible (though not definitive). There is a similar confusion about the end point, but maybe that is appropriate as this is where land meets sea under a sky that reaches from horizon to horizon.

The writer covers a lot of ground - including literally - from Southend Pier to pirate radio stations to Sealand to fishing folk to their families to musicians, artists, poets, writers, sailors, divers, historians....

Some of it seemed familiar and it turned out for good reason. Lichtenstein was one of the organisers of the Estuary Festival I went to back in 2016 - indeed some of the installations I saw were described in this book. Plus I've explored places she describes when searching for the London Stones.

There was also this short film which I described as "very arty" and that is both the strength and weakness of this book. It's a strength because she clearly knows about this field and has lots of interesting ideas. It's a weakness as sometimes you have to get the facts right.

Take the case of her describing the estuary during World War 2: on the 22nd November 1939 German's machine-gunned Southend Pier and after that "doodlebugs roared constantly overhead". Err... no, there were no doodblebugs aka V1s until 1944.

Or towards the end of the war when she says that commanders were told "where they would land at Normandy during the Battle of Dunkirk". Again, these are two completely different events: the Little Ships and D-Day might both involve boats but there are separate in many ways, not the least years apart and different direction of forces.

I suppose if you're an artist with an interest in oral history then what matters is narrative (not necessarily non-fiction), emotion and feelings. But it means that readers can disconnect from the text a bit as it forces you to keep asking if something really happened.

It didn't help that she doesn't seem at ease at sea, partly because of a sailing accident, but her fancies are too quick to turn wind howling through the rigging and the squeak of the timbers of an old sailing barge into ghosts hearing in those sounds "a woman's scream and the dreadful noise of children sobbing".

She is more at home on land than on water, and her sympathies are for the women of the fishing community rather than the men who die all too regularly doing their job. She reminds us of her local connections but to the sailors on the estuary itself she is a stranger.

There are plenty of photos but badly reproduced and without any titles so it is often hard to tell what they are and when they were taken.

It would have been better to call this book not "Estuary" but "The people of the Estuary" for that is what interests the author and on that level it could be considered a success.

Book Review: Swallows, Amazons and Coots: A Reading of Arthur Ransome by Julian Lovelock

I got this for Christmas and finished it within 2 days. But then I am a bit of a S&A buff.

This book looks at the series of novels by Arthur Ransome about those Swallows, Amazons and Coots from a more analytical viewpoint. It goes in depth into the background, considering how Ransome's own life is revealed (or not) in the books and how it connects or differs from the society in which he lived and times during which they were written, namely 1930 to 1947.

Those years, like Ransome's life, were packed with events and historic changes. Lovelock considers  how both England (in particular, rather than Britain) and Ransome related to women and the colonies, the differences and similarities, and how that affects how we read it today.

The book is structured as one chapter for each of the 12 books, starting with Swallows and Amazons and ending with Great Northern? with diversions as themes are picked up and analysed.

I found it fascinating though I didn't always agree with Lovelock, and looking at the reviews online can see there are others that disagreed with him. I have so many thoughts jotted down that I'm going to have to post them separately on another occasion.

An interesting buy to anyone who loves the books as much as I do, and there's even a foreword by Sophie Neville - a great pleasure as always to hear from this expert on all things related to S&A.

Book Review: Sailing in Grandfather's Wake by Ian Tew

I initially had the wrong idea about this book. For some reason my expectation was that given the author was someone's grandson he must be young, but it turned out if anything he was older than the grandfather in question.

The author sailed round the world in the years 1998 - 2000 while the grandfather did his half-circumnavigation just before the start of the Second World War in 1938-39. Indeed, it was the start of the war that cut the voyage short in New Zealand.

It was an enjoyable read though not without flaws. The book is part written by Ian Tew and part the diary of his aunt who was crew of the first voyage. It must be said that the earlier writing is a lot better and the later rather full of exclamation marks.

Indeed the first voyage seemed to have numerous advantages, including:
- a more beautiful yacht, 30 foot gaff yawl called Caplin
- more sympathetic crew and master in Commander Graham and his daughter Marguerite plus Dopey the ship's cat (the author admits he's quick tempered and not the easiest person to get along with)
- more unspoilt locations, before the times of ubiquitous development and no doubt plastic in the oceans

If you read blogs or vlogs of those doing circumnavigations you'll know the sort of thing they encounter. Things break and they have to wait for replacement parts, there's confusions and tensions about paper work not being right, locations are idyllic apart from those that are over-developed, crews get sea-sick and argue....

An addition to the circumnavigator's bookcase rather than a classic like Hiscock's Around the World in Wanderer III or Liza Copeland's Just Cruising.

Book and Talk Review: The Frozen Frontier by Jane Maufe

The amazing Tanya Tagaq and Nanook of the North concert made me want to head north again. Alas no plans for such a trip at the moment but a good excuse to post about this book and talk.

Back in April there was a talk at Arthur Beale by Jane Maufe about how she and David Scott Cowper went through the North West passage not just once but twice in Polar Bound (above).

It was a fascinating talk and I should have blogged about it at the time but got distracted. However that gave me the opportunity to read the book, The Frozen Frontier, and then do a review of both together.

One of the high spots was Jane Maufe herself. You have to have an understanding of British class symbolism, but it was important for her to wear a pearl necklace even when surrounded ice and she had that clipped English my grandmother spoke in. She was also the four times great niece of Sir John Franklin so had the right pedigree.

She joined David Scott Cowper who is someone I'd been aware of without fully acknowledging his achievements. He took a backseat during talk and let her take the attention, which apparently is in character for both. At the back of the book was his list of achievements and I was pretty blown away - you can read some of them here. I looked for his personal web site and couldn't find one, which again seems in character. One of those quiet chaps that just goes off and does stuff without fuss.

For those with an interest in relationships, my advice is read the book as it was sweetly told there. For those with an interest in Arctic sailing read on here.

The boat was staggering well constructed, built around a Gardner engine, pretty indestructible and prepared to over-winter with plenty of stores (I mentally compared this to Jimmy Cornell's approach).

Their first traverse of the NW passage was in 2012 in which they took the most northerly route, through the McClure Strait. It was a race to be the first private vessel to get through, with strong competition from Belzebub II, a Hallberg-Rassy boat from Sweden. But Polar Bound got through first, leaving Belzebub II with the consolation prize to be the first sailing yacht. Then on through the Bering Strait to leave the boat over winter in the Alaskan Inside Passage. In 2013 they were back, taking a more southerly route, aiming for the Hecla/Fury straits.

There and back they'd encounter the usual high Arctic experiences: whales, seals, polar bears, Inuit, ice bergs, storms and fog. They also met up with Bob Shepton, who'd I met at at boat show a few years ago.

A remarkable story from two equally remarkable people.

Book review: "A Race Too Far" by Chris Eakin

Of all offshore sailing races, none can compare to the 1968 Golden Globe. To this day it fascinates and is the subject of this great book by Chris Eakin, A Race Too Far.

Its a story that has everything: the place in the record books for the first single handed sail around the world, the battle with the elements, boats that literally fell apart in storms, a great victory, a broken man cheating and lying.... so much drama, so many great characters.

And its been the subject of a series of books, from participants like Robin Knox-Johnston's A World of My Own and Bernard Moitessier's The Long Way to writers like Peter Nichols's A Voyage for Madmen.

At the London Boat Show I met Chris Eakin and picked up a copy of his book, A Race Too Far.

I did wonder what more there was to say about this race, and it turns out quite a bit. For the story didn't end when Knox-Johnston stepped ashore: the participants and their families still live under the shadow of the events of 1968/69.

I really enjoyed this book and its very well written and researched. He tracks down the survivors of the race and some close relatives to competitors for their reflections and memories. These were not always easy given the inevitable damage that comes from the suicide of Crowhurst, the inexplicable death of Tetley and the abandonment of his family by Moitessier.

As you'd expect Knox-Johnston comes across as the most rooted, (distressingly) normal and supportive of the families of other competitors. He also seems to have moved on the most and least likely to dwell on the past (apart from correcting the niggles that Moitessier might have got their first).

Strongly recommended, a worthy addition to the literature about this great race.

Book Review: Casting Off & Untie the Lines by Emma Bamford

There's more than one way to get that wow! moment in a sailing story.

A traditional example would be Race 4 of the 2003 America's Cup when New Zealand were dismasted, but equally memorable to me was when Josje announced she was leaving SV Delos.

So you don't need an epic-challenge at the heart of book - or indeed pair of books - about sailing to make it readable. It can also be how to decide between two alternative, conflicting paths. Or indeed that most fundamental of questions: what is life all about?

Emma Bamford's two books tell of her conflicting urges between working and living in London and the lure of a cruising lifestyle, sailing blue waters amongst deserted islands.

Of course the dream of cruising as a life of leisure is just that, with the reality one of hard work to get boats seaworthy and savings being drained. One of the impressive things about the Delos crew is how they knuckle down on boat work and have the skills to do a host of repairs themselves.

But one of the downsides to the cruising life Emma would encounter were long months stuck in anchorages while repairs seem to go backwards. Then those idyllic imagined Caribbean islands often turned out to be overrun with cruise ships or quiet enough to drive you crazy.

However London can be a pretty tough place, particularly if you have a job that leaves neither time or energy for anything else - in her case as newly promoted editor of the Independent's "i".

So how to balance out these two alternative lives? Emma tries one then the other (in the first book), then the second follows on directly with two more trials on life on land or water. The writing, from a trained and experienced journalist, flows nicely and is clear and honest about what she was experiencing, the good and the bad.

As you can imagine, the story of a fellow Londoner struggling between the pull of the big smoke and crystal seas was one I could relate to. Its not a "sail into the sunset" story and yet avoids the "tears before bed-time" emotional dramatics of Two in a Boat.

I certainly enjoyed "Casting Off" and "Untie the Lines" -  indeed I read both books back-to-back, finishing in under a week.

Highly recommended for anyone with sail-away urges.

London Boat Show 2017: Emma Bamford & Casting Off

The next author I chatted too was Emma Bamford (above), author of Casting Off and Untie the Lines.

She used to be a journalist writing for The Independent then in her 30s, faced with friends settling down to start families plus feeling there must be more to life than this, she changed direction for crewing yachts sailing in exotic places.

With a number of different boats she sailed from Borneo to Sri Lanka and then on to Oman (in the first book) and later sailed in places like the Caribbean and Texas (second book). She also did some superyacht work. In most cases she found places using resources like Crew Seekers.

It wasn't as huge a switch in lifestyle as that introduction implies - I learnt that she sailed a couple of legs on the Clipper race as journalist including across the Atlantic so had a good grounding.

Full review of the first book to come (its on that stack) but the prologue flew by so looking forward to that one.

London Boat Show 2017: Chris Eakin & A Race Too Far

One of my favourite haunts of the London Boat Show is the book shop where there opportunities to meet the authors, and this year was no exception.

First up was author and journalist Chris Eakin who's written a book called A Race Too Far about the 1968 Golden Globe Race which has also been made into a film, The Mercy, due to be released later this year.

Its a dramatic - and tragic - story and Chris's book tells the story not just of the race but what happened next to each competitor and their families. Full review to come once I've read it.

We had a brief chat about sailing - he sails a 34-foot Hallberg-Rassy and we ended up discussing high latitude sailing, where he has considerable experience, having done the NW passage with none other than Jimmy Cornell.

I mentioned the talk by Cornell I went to at the Cruising Association and how he mentioned he'd become a sterner skipper, saying he can't "afford to be nice all the time". At this Chris gave a wry smile - from what I gather it was a difficult voyage.

We also had a good chat about writing in general and life as a author.

I have quite a stack of books post-Christmas but this one must be high up the pile.