Amazing Sailing Stories

Title: Amazing Sailing Stories – True Adventures from the High Seas

Author: Dick Durham

Publisher: Wiley Nautical, 2011 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-470-97803-0

Pages: 257

The title of this book may appear to be a departure from the policy of this blog to rarely review fiction. It is not that I have any innate dislike to fiction. On the contrary, good fiction is like medicine to the distressed heart and a tranquilizer to the troubled mind. Why I avoid fiction for the purposes of review is that a critical examination of a fictional work presupposes a fine grasp of human emotions which guided the author to bring out a fine volume. As the necessary skills are sorely lacking, I generally stay clear of fiction. I read them often, but not attempt to present them in this blog. And no, even though the word ‘stories’ do appear in the title, this is not a work of fiction. This volume brings out a compendium of sailing stories collected from various sources spanning a time that stretches to two and a half centuries. Dick Durham served on the last working Thames barge before writing for national newspapers and sailing magazines. He is a news editor at Yachting Monthly and has travelled the globe in search of the best sailing stories. The present title is an anthology of sixty stories categorized into eight broad topics like human error, storm, rescue, tragedy, adventure and the like. Each story is claimed to be based on a real life incident and narrates a strange incident encountered by sailors. The stage is the whole world, as the demarkations of land-based principalities are invisible in the ocean and people who manage to save their skins from death in a shipwreck seldom care for the boundaries.

The book’s cover boldly announces that the author’s style is powerful and poetic. But I beg to differ on this count. The person who wrote this line has either not read the book nor read poetry in his life. It takes the deepest ignorance of literary conventions to compare the style of Durham to poetry. If anything, the author’s style resembles that of a police record most of the time. I have a strong suspicion that he has copied some of the stories, or at least parts of it, from a crime record. So unappealing, uninteresting, unimaginative and plain boring is the narrative. The author must not be forgiven for wasting an opportunity to bring good sailing stories to the attention of the world. The seas attract youngsters and old people alike and many opt for the life of a sailor, inspired by books they read about seafaring. Without even a trace of imagination or impressive writing skill, Durham takes a bunch of stories from an impressive biography and throws it towards the reader. It is better to duck the tirade, but those unfortunate enough to have grabbed a copy is sentenced to plough wearily through the muck.

The book is prepared with an experienced reader in mind. You need to possess a more than glancing idea of how a ship works, what are the components of it, how life goes on in the sea, what are the conventions observed by seamen and some of the port regulations too. Else, how can you account for the barrage of sailing terms which appear like Greek of Chinese to most of the readers? Words like gall main sail, stay sail, mizzen rigging, luff slides, hawse pipe, spade rudder, bolt-on keel, fife-rail and jigger rigging don’t light a bulb for any poor reader. The author has not even bothered to compile a glossary of nautical terms for the general reader. The expressions listed above is only a small sample from the litany of such technical terms. The lay man is kept agape as Durham proceeds to list out his story (‘narrate’ would be a much sympathetic term). To borrow a concept from the theme of the book, reading this would be tougher than some of the experiences recounted on its pages! The gods would indeed have mercy on the poor souls who completed it – for the harsh suffering they had had to endure. To be fair, a touch of humour is displayed on one or two stories, but these are few and far between. They may be compared to lighthouses along the course of a sea voyage. I also seem to be allured by the charms of the sea!

The book is to be avoided at any cost. It is not worth reading.

Rating: 1 Star