Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I recall the thrill and deep emotion that came over me in 1967 when I saw TV coverage of England welcoming home Francis Chichester (soon to be "Sir Francis") from his "singlehander" circumnavigation of the planet. (I still tear up thinking about it.) I am not especially Anglophilic, but the man and the moment epitomized for this American all that is great and good about England and her people, even if the British Empire ain't what it used to be (which is very likely a good thing).
Alas, almost four decades later, I didn't find Chichester's memoir of the voyage an especially engaging read. "British understatement" is an understatement. One can admire the man's restraint in not overdramatizing the more perilous episodes of the voyage -- capsizing off Australia, rounding the Horn, etc. -- but the drama that certainly did accompany this maritime feat is hardly there at all. Nor is there a strong sense of the emotional and physical toll on a 65-year-old man (however fit) of operating a 53-foot sailing vessel 'round the clock, alone, for 226 days, snatching sleep a few hours at a time. Much of the routine is ... well, routine, and it begins to run together after a few chapters.
Chichester's mostly matter-of-fact recounting of the voyage is full of details about sails, masts, booms, navigation and other nautical equipment and tasks, details that are likely going to leave most 'lubbers (such as myself) a bit glassy-eyed. Find yourself a sailor's glossary, because there's none in this account. Although the book contains boat diagrams and a sail plan, keeping track of the genoas, staysails, and jibs becomes stultifying. There is also several pages' discourse on supplies and foodstuffs one would want for a long ocean voyage. (Take plenty of fresh eggs, but paint them with beeswax before stowage!)
In an epilogue, J.R.L. Anderson, himself no slouch of a sailor, and a more polished writer, succeeds in putting Chichester's achievement in perspective. "He has succeeded in making dreams come true, his own private dreams, and the dreams that most men have from time to time ... He has lived not alone his dreams, but ours too." Only occasionally does Sir Francis himself grant us such a personal insight, before returning to his litany of sail-setting, navigating, and trying to eat and sleep on the rolling sea in a boat heeled over 20 or 30 degrees.
All in all, a great man, a great feat, a disappointing book. If you are a yachtsman, or want to be, or if you are planning your own nautical sojourn, you may find this book more informative and entertaining than I did. Perhaps "British understatement" is what this volume is really about, after all.
Click Here to see more reviews about:
Gipsy Moth Circles the WorldThe Sailor's Classics library introduces a new generation of readers to the best books ever written about small boats under sail
When 65-year-old Francis Chichester set sail on his solitary eastward journey around the world in 1966, many believed he wouldn't return alive. But when the old man returned nine months later, he had made history's fastest circumnavigation.
Click here for more information about Gipsy Moth Circles the World
