The DCA Journal Dinghy Cruising regularly features excellent book reviews, written by Members or the Editor himself. Here are a selection for you to enjoy:
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Still Waters by DCA Member, Chris Crowther Review by Keith Muscott in DC 208
These still waters certainly run deep. When Sally Beckett returns from a three-month backpacking break taken to forget a failed love affair and an unsatisfying job in the City, she finds that a grandfather she never knew she had has died in suspicious circumstances and bequeathed her a Broads boatyard and a rambling old house. Grandfather Charles was found by Broads Navigation Ranger and ex-Met detective Jack Fellows, floating face down in a reed bed after he had fallen from his beautiful old yacht Ace of Hearts. Fallen or pushed? The police prefer the second possibility and Sally is their main suspect. Sally is propelled into a murky Broads waterworld which you, dear reader, will not have met on holiday there. It includes a satisfyingly long list of more or less suspicious characters... Read on... |
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Land on my right by Ron Pattenden
Review by Ted Jones, followed by a letter from the author, in DC 208 Here’s a book we can all read and enjoy since it’s about a solo dinghy sail round Britain ... wait for it ................. in a Laser dinghy ! At first I thought it must be a well-supported venture with rescue boats bobbing around, engines throbbing, and crews at the ready to pull the author from the drink and help him return his capsized boat to the upright. But I was completely wrong. It was very much an individual effort to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Charity. Was he brave, lucky, foolhardy or just plain stupid? Everyone will have their own take on this but reserve your judgment until you’ve read the book. Read on... |
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Bucking the Tide by David Buckman Review by Keith Muscott in DC 208
On Kimball Island, Penobscot Bay, the backfiring engine of a lobster fisherman’s 1950-something truck drew the author into a closer inspection: no doors, no exhaust muffler, no fenders, one headlight, big holes in the floor – it was used for short trips between home and the dockside and was totally outside the law, like most of the island’s vehicles. ‘You’d be surprised by how many car parts you can do without,’ the driver called out cheerily, as he drove away in a cloud of smoke. This anecdote could stand as a motif for the author’s six-season cruise up the Atlantic coast of North America, from Narragansett Bay to the Canadian border and the notorious Bay of Fundy, location of the world’s biggest tides. The book’s subtitle includes the words, ‘making do in a $400 yacht’ and David Buckman eschews inessential equipment as much as he does redundant yachty attitudes. Read on... |
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Iain Oughtred: A Life in Wooden Boats by Nic Compton
Review by Nick Watt in DC 209 This book examines an unusual individual. Oughtred was one of a small group of designers and boatbuilders who pioneered the clinker approach to plywood boatbuilding during the 1970s and 80s. His designs borrow heavily from traditional craft, which he studied closely. Compton makes clear, however, that Oughtred's expertise has not been attained without significant personal sacrifice. He is portrayed as an uncomfortable loner who has often felt at odds with many elements of his upbringing and his native Australia. He has a wonderful designer's eye and a clear sense of purpose, couple with an almost inhuman amount of determination and focus. He has lived most of his life in close to abject poverty, still eschews computer-assisted design and is perhaps more of an artist than a naval architect in his outlook. Read on... |
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Swin, Swale & Swatchway The Lost Classic of Victorian Cruising by H. Lewis Jones
Review by Keith Muscott in DC 225 THE LAST DECADE OF THE 19TH CENTURY saw many young middle class British men – and eventually women – joining the myriad of professional sailors, fishermen and longshoremen on the waters around our coasts, often to their irritation, or to be exploited by them financially, or to be genuinely helped by them: frequently a mixture of all these, as the events in this book sometimes show. In the 1890s tales of amateur sailing enjoyed a surge of popularity which was to return to Britain at regular intervals over the years, as in the 1960s when sailing came within the grasp of all and even crossing the oceans under sail or oar became a common dream. H. Lewis Jones and his sailing companion C.B. Lockwood, with Dr C.E. Shelly on occasion, were typical of those 19th century enthusiasts – young high-spirited graduates, who in their case were medical men. Read on... |
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Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin Review by Len Wingfield in DC 240 IN RECENT YEARS we have been satiated with stories of Franklin’s attempt to find the Northwest Passage, TV pictures of mummified crewmen and so on. However Palin, past President of the Royal Geographical Society, has written a book that revived my keen interest. It covers the story of the Erebus and her sister ship Terror, from their building to the discovery of their wrecks and the latest evidence suggesting reasons for the disastrous ending of Franklin’s expedition. Read on... |
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Timecruiser by Chris Crowther
Review by Keith Muscott in DC 240 ‘Taleweaver’ is Chris Crowther, just as ‘Tusitala’, the teller of tales, was Robert Louis Stevenson. Unlike RLS, Chris is an exhelicopter and aircraft pilot, DCA member, passenger boat skipper, and an ardent lover of the Norfolk Broads, which leads him to write mystery fiction that is rooted therein. Timecruiser is aimed at a younger readership than his other books. The back cover reads: ‘A run-down boatyard, a strange boat and three youngsters left alone on board with a warning not to touch anything. But Max had to show off... “Leave it alone, Max!” warned Jenny. But it was too late...’ (I like him already.) The infernal machine suddenly fires up with ‘an ear-splitting whine and a teeth-chattering vibration, while a blue mist seemed to envelope the whole boat...’ And we’re off. Read on... |
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The Riddle: Illuminating the Story Behind the Riddle of the Sands
by Maldwyn Drummond Review by Keith Muscott in DC 233 Shortly after the war, in 1951, Drummond found himself in his 5-tonner Runa VII tied up to a salvage crane in Boulogne Harbour and reading The Riddle of the Sands for the first time. When he finished the novel he suggested to his crew that they might sail along the coast too and investigate – cautiously – the islands and harbours of the German Friesian estuaries. He didn't have to ask twice. So began years of obsessive research into Victorian Corinthian yachting, pre-WWI politics and all things 'Riddle'. The result is this book. Read on... |
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One Summer's Grace by Libby Purves;
One Wild Song and The Last Man Across the Atlantic by Paul Heiney Review by Simon Rippon in DC 237 One Summer’s Grace, The Last Man Across the Atlantic and One Wild Song are three very different books in style and content, but I have chosen to review them as a trilogy because of their common background, rooted as they are in family, seamanship and voyaging. All subjects close to the hearts of DCA members. Read on... |
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Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meaning by Jonathan Raban
Review by Len Wingfield in DC 233 This is an account of a difficult and hazardous single-handed voyage by a famous travel writer who took to sailing rather late in life. Raban’s 1,000 mile Seattle to Juneau cruise partly followed the famous exploratory voyage of Captain Vancouver, and his account digresses into the history of that voyage and the life of the coastal Indians and many related environmental and political issues. It is also partly autobiographical. Raban’s boat was a fine seaworthy 35-foot wooden ketch which he had used as a floating cottage as well as a serious seagoing cruiser. It carried a massive library of sailing and general literature, but Raban says very little about the boat itself. Read on... |
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