Yachting
books fall into various categories. There is the embellished
and neatly decorated log, a simple and honest travelogue
of passages made and places visited. There is the technical
account, embellished with nautical know-how, charts and
diagrams at every turn. There is the semi-mystical account
a la Moitessier which seeks to capture the transcendental
essence of the bluewater experience.
Finally.
there is the rumbustious yarning factional style of
an author like Tristan Jones. Then there is this book.
At first glance it falls firmly into the Tristan Jones
camp - but the book merits more than that first glance,
and the reader is soon drawn into a yachting narrative
like no other this reviewer has ever read.
Realisation
gradually dawns as we read the first chapter that the
voyage is already well under way, with Lanzarote somewhere
on the starboard bow. The author muses and meanders,
and although we do eventually find out where this boat
is headed we are never sure where the whimsy of the
skipper may take us.
To educate while entertaining he includes copious (and
interesting) footnotes at the end of every chapter.
Once ashore forget provisioning, vaselining eggs or
haggling for fruit . . . it's off to a bar, a poker
school with some dubious waterfront characters, and
an all night session ending in the world's funniest
dinghy disaster . . . there aren't many yachting books
I've laughed out loud at.
A
second stop in the Canaries to drop off one of the poker
school proves interesting . . . the author's insight
into character and his descriptive powers produce scenes
with a depth rarely found in travel writing, all enhanced
meantime by the typically Welsh, almost poetical use
of language.
The structure of the prose, like the structure of the
book, is a constant source of surprise, a literary journey
matching the nautical one. And so off to that particular
creek. Exactly what happens, why the Atlantic crossing
is somewhat unusual and how he manages to get graphic
sex into the narrative I shall leave you to discover
for yourselves.
Nick
Bowles www.bluemoment.com
