Here's a marvelous book by a fellow forum member so advanced in age as to remember with entire recall his voyages to the south seas in the mid 1970s aboard a Cal 2-30.
Mike Jacker is a natural storyteller with the (now) extraordinary attributes of attention to detail, research and confirmation, documentation and explanation, and acknowledgement of joy, worry and the uncertainties of travel by small sailboat over vast distances--distances for which few have a ready analog. The Pacific is big and the scale, at five knots, is pure Bill Bryson.
It was a time of kerosene lamps and gas engines and celestial navigation. The skills required to get from here to there were many, especially in a world of shoals and reefs. But the memoir is more than recollection, it's an evocation and an education -- required reading not just for how it was then, but for how it will be leaving the dock tomorrow even with GPS and a satellite phone. The universe is the same as Mike found it, although it's much easier today to yell for help.
I read this before my own recent offshore cruise, and was struck by what Jacker and I share. I grew up with sextants and kerosene and unreliable engines, or no engine at all. Sailing is better now, in the way science makes things better, and AIS alone relieves crews of one nerve-wracking element in the approach to shipping lanes. But the need for experience--and I mean experience gained by reading and planning and humility--is the same.
I was particularly riveted by his approach to Diamond Head and the anticipation of the famous channel between Oahu and Molokai, which often gets worked up in strong trades. It is a wild ride wing and wing, crews are tired, and the landfall rises in the form of a gigantic headland. I approached in 35 knots, with gusts to 40 -- and altered course so as not to go through that alone at night. Mike also experienced the unexpected. Whcih I think must be what offshore sailing is all about--the unexpected.
Good book, with color photographs to envy. Sailing authors who can report and evoke equally well are rare. This joins the classics of the literature.
Oops, already did this. Oh well.
https://ericsonyachts.org/ie/threads/mike-jackers-new-book-forum-member-joliba.18954/
Mike Jacker is a natural storyteller with the (now) extraordinary attributes of attention to detail, research and confirmation, documentation and explanation, and acknowledgement of joy, worry and the uncertainties of travel by small sailboat over vast distances--distances for which few have a ready analog. The Pacific is big and the scale, at five knots, is pure Bill Bryson.
It was a time of kerosene lamps and gas engines and celestial navigation. The skills required to get from here to there were many, especially in a world of shoals and reefs. But the memoir is more than recollection, it's an evocation and an education -- required reading not just for how it was then, but for how it will be leaving the dock tomorrow even with GPS and a satellite phone. The universe is the same as Mike found it, although it's much easier today to yell for help.
I read this before my own recent offshore cruise, and was struck by what Jacker and I share. I grew up with sextants and kerosene and unreliable engines, or no engine at all. Sailing is better now, in the way science makes things better, and AIS alone relieves crews of one nerve-wracking element in the approach to shipping lanes. But the need for experience--and I mean experience gained by reading and planning and humility--is the same.
I was particularly riveted by his approach to Diamond Head and the anticipation of the famous channel between Oahu and Molokai, which often gets worked up in strong trades. It is a wild ride wing and wing, crews are tired, and the landfall rises in the form of a gigantic headland. I approached in 35 knots, with gusts to 40 -- and altered course so as not to go through that alone at night. Mike also experienced the unexpected. Whcih I think must be what offshore sailing is all about--the unexpected.
Good book, with color photographs to envy. Sailing authors who can report and evoke equally well are rare. This joins the classics of the literature.
Oops, already did this. Oh well.
https://ericsonyachts.org/ie/threads/mike-jackers-new-book-forum-member-joliba.18954/