Customer Reviews

Logs of the Dead Pirates Society: A Schooner Adventure Around Buzzards Bay

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For anyone interested in Buzzard's Bay, Massachuesetts, whether a cruiser or landlubber, this is a must read. Peffer, and his crew explore the bay of today and yesteryear aboard a traditional sailing schooner. The historical perspectives of the bay were interesting, but even more engaging were his tales of the daily life of he and his crew of "dead pirates"(actually high school students seeing the bay for the first time), and the characters they meet on their adventures. In the final chapter Peffer manages to draw together beautifully his personal and historical exploration with the lives of his student crew. Stir it up!

Buzzards Bay is a pocket of salt water on the southern Massachusetts coast line. Logs Of The Dead Pirates Society: A Schooner Adventure Around Buzzards Bay is an absorbing account of a routine cruise on Buzzards Bay that became a rite of passage and a deeply personal quest for Captain Randall Peffer. He ruminates on the bay's history, and presents unusually keen and articulate insights on the bay's islands, coves, towns and townspeople. Part travelog, part biography, part regional history, Logs Of The Dead Pirates Society is the memorable, engaging, highly recommended account of the schooner Sarah Abbot, her crew of high school students studying marine biology, and Captain Randall S. Peffer.

Like the previous reviewer I grew up sailing on Buzzards Bay and attended Tabor Academy where I participated in their life changing sail training program. The experiences during those years had such a profound impact on me, that when I grew up I became the executive director of the American Sail Training Association (2001-2006). I still live and sail on Buzzards Bay and from these combined perspectives I can say that this is one of my favorite books of all time. I recently purchased 10 copies for a youth maritime education program that I created and manage.

Part sail training essay and part cruising guide, Peffer, a prep school English professor and travel journalist, uses his immense writing talent to capture the essence and spirit of sail training.

Anyone interested in learning about sail training and/or the history of Buzzards Bay should read this book.

Having not only sailed in this area for years (a Tabor Academy grad), but also a native-born son of Buzzards Bay, I can say that much of this book is nothing more than self-indulgent rubbish! It amazes me that after several years of sailing student crews around in this yacht (and no, it is not 'a fishing schooner,' or anything like it!) that the author has so little to say about his student crew. After all, the whole PURPOSE of these cruises is supposed to be about young men and women and THEIR personal development, not so some self-satisfied 'yachtie' can get a free ride for the Summer! The commentary about such places as Naushon Island are also offensive, especially considering the generous nature of the Forbes family in even allowing the author and his students to land on the private island at all, let alone opening it up to all and sundry (Ted Kennedy himself has been summarily chucked off the island in the past for trespass!). No doubt the author would welcome a bunch of vagrants fetching up on his front lawn to camp for the Summer too! A quick look across the Sound and the over-priced tourist horrors of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket should be reason enough to celebrate the isolation and pristine nature of the Elizabeth Islands generally, and Naushon in particular! Apparently the author has 'agonies of conscience' in just about every other harbor he has fetched up at as well, and it makes me wonder, why doesn't he just give up sailing, join some sort of monastery somewhere and leave the rest of us alone?