Customer Reviews

Island Race: An Improbable Voyage Round - The Coast of Britain (Transaction Large Print Books)

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What a strange little book. Stemming from a BBC TV series script idea, Sandi Toksvig, a comedienne is paired with a student-days friend John McCarthy, an author and journalist who was held captive by Islamic extremists for 5 years in Lebanon, to sail in a wooden cutter around the British Isles. References to the fact that neither of the "intrepid" voyagers had any previous sailing experience puzzled, as the trip was to be undertaken in an eighty odd year old Bristol Pilot Boat, a Gaff Cutter, Hirta, with an eight-foot draft and two novices actually sailing her safely among the rocks of the British coast did indeed, as the subtitle says, seem improbable.

And so it would have been except, as we learn, that one of Britain's most experienced Sailing Instructors and yachtsmen being the owner and Skipper of Hirta went along too, and he was accompanied by another experienced former-owner on board as Mate. Later, with a crew change, the Captain's equally experienced wife and daughter - with several Trans-Atlantic crossings to their credit - come along with our two greenhorns. Oh! ...and a producer, director, cameraman, sound technician .... Intrepid?!

Well at least the book is enjoyably well written, jointly, alternatively and equally by both voyagers, describing their growing competence as sailors as they learn the ropes, the shouted orders meanings and the ways of the sea. Having recently read Professor David Moore's "The Other British Isles" it was a pleasant comparison to read these two voyagers light sketches of many of the same islands and ports that Moore describes with profound history.

The humorous snippets (and we can guess who they are from) are a delight too, we are informed that it is not very seamanlike to stand on the same rope that another is hauling, that if you lean on the hub of the steering wheel you find a type of grease on your jeans `that never comes out' and that the correct way to eat a Cornish Pasty is to hold onto the rib and eat the rest before discarding the now grubby rib!

This book is a pleasant romp around the British coast and a revelation of a deep, firm and mutually enjoyed friendship.