BOOKS & VIDEOS SHORT TAKES that two great tide-races made ahead, one very close to the point of land and one farther offshore. Between the two.., went the Spray with close-reefed sails." ALONE AROUND THE WORLD After discovering an and fighting off Fuegan cannibals, Spray cleared the (AND VOYAGE OF THE L RDADE) western end of the Strait and entered the Pacific, where '+majestic" seas were run- ning before a northwest gale like none other By Slocum encountered. With tattered sails, he had no choice but to run south, hoping to Edited and with commentary by Waiter Magnes Tel(er. t 958,382 pp, Colher Books (paperback) Macmillan Publishing Co, NY book. He cast off from in April, find an opening among the many of 1895, a dollar and a half in his pocket but the before being blown all spirits mast-high. After dallying at Nova the way around to the Falklands. Through Reviewed by David A. Brooks Scotia, he left for good, sailing east for the worst of it, Slocum found his little ship . He intended to pass through the "wholesome and noble." With a lee shore Suez Canal and the Red Sea, thence across closing, on a wild night, he made for a EVERY OCEANOGRAPHER'S book- the Indian and Pacific Oceans, finally to desolate channel, where he found himself shelf should be graced with a few good sea arrange a land-borne shortcut across the boxed in by tumultuous breakers on all stories, to maintain touch with reality. Isthmus of Panama. But Mediterranean sides. All night he '"wore round, but finding Tucked in among the Conrad and Melville pirates intervened, and seemingly without broken water there also, threw her head volumes, perhaps snuggled up to an illus- a second thought, Slocum crossed the At- again offshore." Finally he found a lee, and trated Coleridge, should be a well-thumbed lantic a second time, pointing Spray's long in the morning saw it was Fury Island that copy of Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone bowsprit southwest for . Bue- had nearly claimed him. But by good luck Around the World." Few books send forth nos Aires, and Horn. Magellan's way Slocum found himself in Cockbum Chan- such a tangy breeze of salt air. would win. nel, leading back to the midsection of the Slocum was a hard-bitten Yankee who It seems unlikely that one man in a , which he thankfully re- spent most of his life afloat and as little of homemade boat sized for coastal cruising entered and passed through a second time. it as possible on dry land. In his early years, should take on ocean crossings, let alone a Thus Slocum and the Spray circumnavi- Slocum skippered sailing merchant ves- . Slocum was chided by a gated what surely must be the most fright- sels, culminating with the fine lofty ship disbelieving public as well as by seasoned ful and boisterous piece of rock-strewn Northern Li,~hts, 1800 tons, of which he sailors who saw no way to sleep and steer ocean anywhere. Slocum finally emerged was master and part owner; but "Sailing simultaneously. But the Spray was an ex- into the Pacific Ocean on April 13, 1896, Alone" tells of a different tack. Despondent cellent self-steerer, and with helm lashed, more than two months after entering the and down on his luck, Slocum was high and the vessel tended herself beautifully: Slocum Strait:" +Hurrah for the Spray.t" I shouted to dry in New York in 1892, marooned by the had little to do during long legs of his the seals, sea-gulls, and penguins." advent of steam. At age 42, when most of voyage except read, sleep and advance his The book spins many such graphic his ilk were drying their pinfeathers, Slocum dead-reckoning. And well he did that, ar- scenes. An evening with this book leaves was offered his last vessel by an old seacap- riving smack-on at the island Nukahiva, in one wondering what has happened to the tain friend, who warned, "She wants some the Marquesas, after a forty-three day pas- unparalleled individualism so modestly repairs." Her name was Spray, and she lay sage running down the trades from Juan revealed in Slocum's character. This is the moldering in a pasture near the Acushnet Fernandez Island in the eastern Pacific. quintessential story of Yankee self-reli- River. After such an ordeal, most sailors would ance, a classic of the genre. It so inspired Undaunted, Slocum rebuilt the Spray in gladly spend a few days ashore, but Captain readers of its day that complete plans for the thirteen months, fashioning keelson and Slocum, hardly sea-weary, stood off for Spray were published in Rudder magazine ribs from sturdy pasture oaks and spars Samoa, which he also raised dead ahead in the 1920s. Many subsequent versions of from New Hampshire spruce. When fin- twenty-nine days later. the vessel were built, and some are still ished, she was a nine-ton sloop, 36-feet But it is not just the tranquil passages sailing today, demonstrating the sea-kindly long, with a fashionably enormous boom that make this a great book. Slocum' s mettle virtues that Slocum described so eloquently. and gaff. The builder pronounced her "fit to and Spray's timbers were severely tested The book also contains a second story, smash ice." During the construction, a dream by towering waves, wild gales, and the "The Voyage of the Liberdade," describing materialized as the chips flew, and Slocum . Most of the book is given to a passage home from with Slocum, decided to sail his new vessel around the riveting descriptions of harrowing events, his wife, and two small children--in an- world singlehanded, a feat at that time none more terrifying than those surround- other homemade boat. The story of the unattempted, and--some thought--fool- ing the Great Horn. With foreboding pres- "Liberdade" predates "'Sailing Alone" and hardy. ence, Slocum describes his entrance to the is not quite up to the standards of the latter, Slocum secured the half-hearted sup- Strait of Magellan: '+the scene was again although Slocum's emerging style and port of a publisher for a serialized adven- real and gloomy; the wind, northeast, and knowledge of the sea are eminently clear. I ture narrative, which eventually led to the blowing a gale, sent feather-white spume highly recommend this little book when along the coast; such a sea ran as would there is no alternative to crowding on can- David A. Brooks, Texas A&M University. College swamp an ill-appointed ship .... I observed vas on a stormy night. Station, TX, 77843.

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