Customer Reviews

Flotsam and Jetsam: The Collected Adventures, Opinions, and Wisdom from a Life Spent Messing About in Boats

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If you're already familiar with Robb White, you've probably already ordered your own copy of this book. If not, you've been missing one of the great story tellers, boat builders, and naturalists of the modern era.

I first came across White's writing in the pages of Messing About in Boats, a then-bimonthly journal devoted to small boats and, well, messing about. Almost every issue had one or two essays by a man whom I at first took to be some old opinionated Georgia cracker, but whom I later realized was a very wise and educated man- even as he tried to hide that fact. His essays covered an incredibly wide range of topics- the best woods for boat building, how to cook a turtle, repairing 1930s marine engines, people he'd met, growing up in rural Georgia, the natural history of the woodpecker- Robb was interested in everything he observed, and he went through life with his eyes wide open.

Robb was one of those rare people who spent his entire life doing exactly what he wanted to. He was, at times, a logger (of his own trees), a river towboat mechanic, a middle school teacher, and a grad student in marine biology. Most importantly, he was a builder of small boats his entire life, and built and designed a number of small, lightweight, elegant craft than were responsible for his reputation in the world of wooden boats.

He was opinionated, but behind his opinions were usually solid facts. He hated fiberglass boats- he called it "frozen snot"- plywood, air conditioning, and a thousand other artifacts of the modern world. But he was no Luddite. He was famous for his ability to restore old outboards, and he came up with a novel way to use epoxy to encapsulate wooden boats, using methods contrary to what everyone else believed was the right way to do it.

I have a stack of copies of Messing About In Boats that I've saved all these years largely to keep all those great Robb White essays around. Now, with the publication of this book, I can carry them around with me, too.

This is not so much a book as it is a series of conversations. Robb succeeds in communicating with the reader by eliciting a sense of familiarity and intimacy which is inescapable.

If you have a storyteller in your life, then you have some sense of what it's like to have sat with Robb, or to sit with his words now. If you don't have a resident storyteller, then you must buy this book.

Some folks have said that Robb is irreverent. There are two good responses to that: 1) His reverence for life sets that idea on its ear. 2) To the degree that Robb does not "revere" social status or the acquisition of useless artifacts, then irreverence is a fair description.

This is a fine collection of stories which Robb's family has enjoyed over the past many decades, and for which I'm grateful.

I'm sure that Jane had a purpose in assembling the stories in some order, but my confession is that half the fun of the past six hours of reading has been to flip from back to front to middle, and to find Robb repeating himself when I'd go to a particular story for a second or third time.

Robb lived more in his 64 years than most "modern" folk can imagine. When Bailey tells readers about her first horse, she is telling us about herself, her brother and their long lineage of giving, making and sharing.

Read this book and you will meet unbridled joy.

Share this book and you will give someone else the gift of joy.

It's easy to believe that only the artists and creators among us can live with the exquisite simplicity and precise abandon that lies within these pages. That is not true.

Set the book down. Go outside and do something that is true to who you were before your sophistication misled you. Go inside and throw away at least one idea which holds you back. Get wet. Get dirty. Get up early, or stay up late. Do both.

Break a rule, and take a friend along. Robb brought us this far, and the rest is up to us, isn't it?

As people pass through the world they often leave a bit of themselves behind...floating on the waves so to speak. The flotsam & jetsam of Robb White's life can give us a vision of a better home, community, nation, and world. With an unbiased respect for competence and civility and disdain for ignorance (especially self imposed) and rudeness he reveals his veiw of a life well lived. This self deprecating collection of stories will entertain and challenge you to be a better person.

Robb White was an extraordinary man, who lived through extrordinary times in an extrordinary place. We are the recipients of his thoughtfulness and insights. In this book are some marvelous stories, and more. His message transends that of storyteller, at which he is excellent, and gives us a vision of responsible grounded living that is appropriate for our times. Living within our means, using well the resources at our disposal, and reveling in our natural curiosity can lead us to fulfilling lives without the excesses of consumption and waste that are a hallmark of our excessive culture. In short a conservationist in his most basic form. Thanks to him and his family for getting this book published for our entertainment. We are impoverished by his passing.

When Robb White died it left a big hole in the lives of those of us that eagerly read his stories in "Messing About in Boats" magazine as well as his book "How to Make a Tin Canoe". We missed his common sense stories about life (and about small boats). But as Bailey White said in the forward "within these pages, you, his readers can now have him back". She is right and we, his followers, are whole again.

This book is full of stories about living and about messing about in boats. It is written by a confident, competent, "down home" man (educated and articulate nevertheless). Buy the book. See the world through the eyes of a man who could see things as they really are and not be too cynnical about it. You'll be glad you did.

What a fabulous book; I stumbled upon it, and so glad I did. I wish the fellow were still around so I could meet him , although in reading the great stories I feel like he's an old buddy. Buy this book; it's a great read, even if you aren't
a boater - full of great insight, humorous observations, and illustrations.

Enough of Robb White Jr. to last several weeks of steady reading.
Mr. White grew up semi-wild in the piney woods and coast of South Geogia and the Florida west coast. He was an active, eccentric child of a similar family. When he was growed, he got and education, taught science a little while, but went back to his first love, building and messin' about in boats.
His father was a noted writer who left the family, moved to Hollywood and scripted James Bond movies and Perry Mason TV episodes.
Robb Jr. had his own adventurous life (his sister is Ms.Bailey White, author and NPR commentator), and you can read all about it in this book. And you should, too. You'll be entranced and enlightened a little by Robb's insights and commentaries (the book is a series of short essays)on boatin', fishin', tugboating, and life adventures in general.

Robb White was a genuine grassroots philosopher with a disarming country-boy style. He died way too soon in 2006, to the shock and regret of his readers, notably in the modest monthly "Messing About in Boats". Robb was a regular in "Messing About" and much of this book was published there earlier. We get new material as well, and we owe his wife Jane and sister Bailey White (quite an author herself) a big "Thanks" for compiling it. In his unique provincial voice, Robb spins tales of Florida's Apalachee Bay and noble longleaf pine woods, his family heritage from turn-of-the-20th-century wealth to more grounded recent years on tugboats, teaching school, and his passion, building exquisite small boats. This is life well lived, far from the "mainstream", sort of "Thoreau With a Family".

I came to know of Robb White thru his article in WoodenBoat describing the building and performance of his version of Atkins' Rescue Minor. It was just what I was looking for but, alas, Robb built it for his own use and never considered making plans available. Reading his "How to Build a Tin Canoe" was very entertaining and got me searching back issues of "Messing About it Boats" for more stories. Thank you Jane White for putting this together. It is a wonderful collection of stories of a life well lived.

This is the perfect book for short reads. Most of the chapters are under 6 pages. A few are only one or two. The stories build on each other but are fine as stand-alone stories. Ideal reading for those ten or fifteen minute bits of free time. A good one to keep in the car (or boat!) and read here and there when time permits. My only regret is that I read it over the winter. Had it been warmer there would be many occasions I'd have put it down and taken the little boat down to the lake. Or better yet, drop anchor and read a chapter or two on the water.

Unfortunately for me, I started my subscription to "Messing About in Boats" only very shortly before Robb passed from this world. Reading the essays MAIB reprinted and scrounging old issues so I could read Robb (and Phil Bolger, also sadly now gone from us here)only made me wish for more. Well, the more is now here! I didn't even wait to purchase it, I got my local library to order it for me the day it was published(and although it does sit in their collection, I can drop in and get it often or just sit and read an old favorite essay). It has been fun to share, especially with those who know his sister and father's writing.
Robb fits very comfortably with the tradition of southern story tellers; so many great ones have never written anything down, so to have Bobb White preserved is, in fact, an important addition to southern lore, not to mention what I think will be and important place in both small boat literature and the Mess'About small boat adventure sub-culture.
Though most of the stories center on south Georgia and the Florida panhandle, My favorites revolve around his adventures with the 26' motor whaleboat he got surplus from the Navy, as opposed to the boats he was so famous for building. He even cruised it off-shore (very carefully) to the Bahamas!
Robb's family and Breakaway Books are to be appreciated for giving us a near complete collection of his best writing. Thank you.