A Speck on the Sea : Epic Voyages in the Most Improbable Vessels

Rating:
Summary: Improbable Voyages, Enthralling Adventures
Review:
By Bill Marsano. William Longyard has assembled a truly delightful collection of nearly six dozen stories of voyages in really deep water by people in ridiculously small--and sometimes just plain ridiculous--boats. Buy it pronto, put it on your nightstand; promise yourself you won't read more than one story per night. OK? (Of course you can always start over.)

There is, apparently, no profile that fits these people. Some are desperate, such as the Englishmen held as slavery in Algeria: They made a daring escape in a folding boat they built themselves. (In 1644!) Some are godful folk determined to spread the Holy Word. Some seek fame and others seek love; a few hope to make great heaps of money as profitable novelties. Others have had their adventure gene cross wires with their crackpot gene (an alarming number of them begin with absolutely nautical experience whatsoever). Doesn't matter: Their stories are wonderful and hair-raising.

Their craft are various. There's a Jeep and a succession of boats designed to take the record for Atlantic crossing by the world's smallest boat. There are kayaks, canoes, undecked sloops, a mold plug and a pair of water-walking pontoons. There are rowboats, of course, and my only (and very minor) complaint is that Longyard doesn't include the best sardonic nautical quotation I've ever run into: When a couple of British ex-soldiers finally completed their transoceanic row, a reporter asked how they felt at having "beaten the Atlantic Ocean." To which one of them replied, "We didn't beat the Atlantic. It let us go."

Longyard makes up for this with his chapter on Capt. Franz Romer, who kleppered the Atlantic in the 1920s--first man to do it. All these years we've been allowed to believe he took a stock Klepper off the rack, but that is apparently far from the truth.

Every reader will have his own favorite amongst these stories; mine is that of Paul Strogis. A Latvian on the run from the Russian army (which wanted to draft him) and the German police (who feared he was a dangerous socialist, or worse), he traveled widely, working his passage, and fetched up in Australia, there to slowly starve as he pined for love until it struck him that he must emigtrate to the U.S., 9000 miles away, in a boat of his own devising.

So he set about to learn everything he needed to know to build, sail and navigate a boat from books in the public library. He built his own sextant from scrap hacksaw blades. And then God bless him he set off.

There are lots of black-and-white pix here; they're nice and grainy--just vague enough to inspire more madcap dreaming.--Bill Marsano's adventures in his Feathercraft folding kayak have been pretty bloody demure but still sufficient to scare him silly.




Rating:
Summary: Inspirational, yet cautious
Review: For anyone desiring to leave it all behind for foreign lands in a boat less that thirty feet long, this is a MUST READ. It presents a long chronological set of stories, carefully researched by the author, of the miraculous and foolish in small boat passage making. Seventy voyages are examined, with many of them intertwined as the sailors were inspired by yet other sailors to take on the world and themselves. A great appendix is also included, with research sources, and practical advice on what it would mean today to take on such a voyage. Highly recommended, and well written.


Rating:
Summary: Finally a book for small boat sailors!
Review: If you sail in a small boat or paddle a kayak you MUST read this fascinating book. Although it is about the history of small boat voyaging there is a ton of practical information for small boaters that will make them better, safer, sailors. I've read through this book several times and each time I learn more that I can apply to my own sailing skills. I have read many maritime travelogues before and thought I knew most of the great small boat skippers, but I was surprised at how many voyagers I hadn't heard about before and how detailed the author was in his research about even the ones I thought I knew. This is a fun book that reads quickly, but leaves you wanting more. The voyages described are told with expertise, humor, and in such a way that one story leads into the next. You find yourself turning the pages to find out 'what happened next'. I liked the story about the Latvian sailor who sailed from Sydney to Los Angeles during the Depression using a homemade sextant he built out of old hacksaw blades. His boat had a leak in it when he started but somehow he managed to cross the Pacific Ocean in it anyway. I also like how the author corrected some long standing misconceptions about some famous sailors like John Voss, Franz Romer, and Robert Manry. I heartily recommend this book to new or old sailors.

Rating:
Summary: Finally a book for small boat sailors!
Review: If you sail in a small boat or paddle a kayak you MUST read this fascinating book. Although it is about the history of small boat voyaging there is a ton of practical information for small boaters that will make them better, safer, sailors. I've read through this book several times and each time I learn more that I can apply to my own sailing skills. I have read many maritime travelogues before and thought I knew most of the great small boat skippers, but I was surprised at how many voyagers I hadn't heard about before and how detailed the author was in his research about even the ones I thought I knew. This is a fun book that reads quickly, but leaves you wanting more. The voyages described are told with expertise, humor, and in such a way that one story leads into the next. You find yourself turning the pages to find out 'what happened next'. I liked the story about the Latvian sailor who sailed from Sydney to Los Angeles during the Depression using a homemade sextant he built out of old hacksaw blades. His boat had a leak in it when he started but somehow he managed to cross the Pacific Ocean in it anyway. I also like how the author corrected some long standing misconceptions about some famous sailors like John Voss, Franz Romer, and Robert Manry. I heartily recommend this book to new or old sailors.

Rating:
Summary: Scholarly and inspirational
Review: What a great collection of true adventures occurring in small boats! Not only is this book extremely well researched, but it is also entertaining and inspirational. A Speck on the Sea chronicals the history of small boat sailing - and rowing and rafting and a few more bizarre methods of transportation - over the past several hundred years. The voyages described are various: phenomenal or silly; intentional or accidental; successful or tragic. But all are fascinating tales that make one realize the capacity of humans to overcome odds (or not, as the case may be). My personal favorite stories include William Okeley's secret escape from Algerian slavery in a folding rowboat, Poon Lim's 133-day escape from a sunken ship in a life raft, and Robert Manry's escape from Ohioan suburbia by crossing the Atlantic in a small sailboat. My compliments to Mr. Longyard for, although I am not a sailor myself, these stories have all but convinced me to attempt a small-boat ocean crossing myself. This is a book to treasure.