Customer Reviews

Rounding The Horn: Being The Story Of Williwaws And Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries And Naked Natives--a Deck's-eye View Of Cape Horn

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This is the account of the author's trip to Cape Horn and the surrounding archipelago. Murphy weaves in to this account the history of the Cape Horn region, including some of the experiences of the many sailing ships which rounded the Horn and the interactions between natives and Europeans in the region.

The historical segments of this book are quite good, although far more information on Magellan and Drake is given than is needed to tell the history of Cape Horn. But by and large, the historical parts of this book work quite well and are satisfying to the reader. Much less interesting is Murphy's account of his wanderings through the archipelago. His 21st century experience is dull and uninteresting when juxtaposed against the rich history of Cape Horn.

In spite of this shortcoming, the book is certainly worth a read by those who are interested in learning more about this intriguing part of the world.

I recently bought this book because it caught my eye in a bookstore. I have long been a fan of geography and I also love the sea lore surrounding Cape Horn. The Cape is the stuff legends are made of! I (like most people) have only been exposed to Cape Horn from history books and various movies such as "The Bounty" and "Master and Commander" but this book fills in all the gaps. This book is a fun and entertaining read. Mr. Murphy tells of trip he made to Cape Horn to explore the region with several companions but he also spends a great deal of time discussing the history of the area. He tells the reader about the famous explorations of Magellan, Drake, Darwin and many others who experienced the wrath of the Horn. This book would be great for anyone wanting a fun summer read - plus anyone wanting to know more about one of the neatest places on Earth - Cape Horn.

I picked up this book only because my children had returned from a visit to the Antarctic Peninsula and Ushuaia, Argentina. I listened to their stories and I looked at their photographs. I surfed the web, chatted with friends who had been stationed there, and read Kim Stanley Robinson's book Antarctica (another good read). Rounding the Horn was a book I spotted in an airport bookstore that I thought my kids might be interested in.

They weren't.

So I read the book.

Rounding the Horn is not a tale about Antarctica, although you will learn more about this continent, particularly the weather patterns associated with Cape Horn. It is a book about sailing in uncharted waters and troubled seas. It is a story of the destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures. You will be surprised at the number of famous explorers who challenged the Horn to ease access to the riches on the other side of the world. Charles Darwin himself visited, and was shaped, by his experiences in Tierra del Fuego.

This book was supposed to give the reader a greater understanding of the discovery (by the western world) of this area, of the dangers associated with crossing the Horn, of the natural and human history of the area, and how it affects a visitor's soul. It is about geography, physical and human. It is a travelogue. I think every reader will pick up on these issues, more or less. To me, it seemed that Dallas Murphy was trying to do too much with this book. There wasn't enough there to understand the native Yahgan people and their destruction. The maps, intended to keep the reader oriented with all the inlets and islands and bays, started blending in to one another, looking the same. And I did have some difficulty with Murphy emphasizing, and reemphasizing, the risk he was taking in sailing these waters but, with his modern boat and equipment, that risk really never was evident. I think he needed to live on one of the islands for a month or two, or three.

Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to travelers intending to visit this part of the world. They need to supplement it with a good regional natural history text. Now if I could only get my kids to read it...

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but was pleasantly surprised to find it quite a good read. I am very glad that the author didn't dwell too much on his personal voyage as it was somewhat uneventful. While interesting and informative, I did not buy the book with the expectation it would be a travelogue; and it's not.

Instead, the book is rich with insightful and entertaining descriptions of the early explorer's encounters with the climate, topography and indigenous people of that time. Covering everything from the earliest Spanish explorers to the present day territorial conflicts, he also includes wrongheaded missionaries and intriguing eyewitness accounts from clipper ship and windjammer voyages.

The history of the Yaghan natives such as the "adopted" Jemmy Button and "Fuegia Basket" was wonderfully detailed for the small amount of time spent on them. The author is a keen observer of things many of us would overlook or fail to appreciate properly. This book is definitely a page turner, as the author expertly seques from his present situations to wonderfully told sea stories.

Anyone who enjoys arcane history and anything to do with sailing or ocean adventures should enjoy this tremendously. Highly recommended.

This is a hard book to categorize, as it is equal parts geography, history, meteorology, and oceanography. Although none of these parts was exceptional, they added up to a very engaging survey of the southernmost part of South America.

The narrative alternates between the author's own short expedition through Tierra del Fuego and accounts of discovery, exploration, and feats of seafaring. Thankfully, the author doesn't try to overdramatize his own trip and as a result creates a nice contrast between his peaceful exploration of the area and the tumultuous history of natives, explorers and missionaries. I always feel that the danger of a book like this is that the author tries to take center stage and tell "his story," but that doesn't happen here. Instead, the author shares enough of his knowledge about Cape Horn and seafaring that the reader understands why he is so fascinated by seeing these places in person. The overall sense of balance to the book, and the wealth of information about an undernoticed area of the world, made this a very satisfying read.

I would recommend this book for those who liked Simon Winchester's Krakatoa, and vice versa.

Great read! Dallas Murphy mixes history with excellent storytelling--incredibly rare. I totally agree with the rave review he got in the Sunday NY Times. You'll enjoy the ride...or should I say, SAIL!

With the wind in its sails, this book glides like a clipper ship. Otherwise, in sailor terminology, it can be the doldrums.
The author took it upon himself to experience firsthand the hardships and rigors of Cape Horn and then interweave these wanderings with its history, flora/fauna, climate and geography.
I found the historical accounts of Magellan, Drake, Darwin and many others in this harsh environment extremely fascinating. Especially gripping and understandably predictable, were the numerous failed attempts of missionaries to establish themselves amongst the indigenous people.
His own meanderings, although descriptive and worthy, are somewhat overplayed and a disappointment after such colorful portrayals of past explorers and events.
Overall a good read of a very unusual and mysterious geographical region.

Murphy, who races one-designs, writes a column for "Offshore" magazine and has penned several novels involving wild characters, was the perfect author for this book about Cape Horn.

As he explains, Cape Horn is a buttressed pyramid of crumbly rock with no other land to the east, none to the west and to the south there is only Antarctica. And, the water in between stirs up chaos when storms roll in from the west. For centuries, Murphy notes, rounding the Horn was the supreme challenge for sailors and ships. That has not changed, as he discovers and vividly informs the reader.

He combines his own intriguing experience in sailing these dangerous waters aboard a 53-foot steel sloop with a crew of fellow adventurers with a recounting of stories involving others who have braved the Horn over the past 500 years. He tells fascinating tales of Magellan, Drake, Darwin and the Beagle, Slocum and others with less familiar names. There are also stories of murdered missionaries, fierce williwaws and storms and the tragic fate of the indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego.

Since the opening of the Panama Canal there has been no need for seafarers to risk the hazards of the Horn and the windjammers are long gone. But, there always will be that sea-struck few who dare to experience "the great and terrible things of the Ocean Sea."

If you're one of those or only an arm-chair adventurer, this book is worth the read.

We are faced with so many books on problems - whether it's Iraq. or a neurotic hero of heroine trying to make the best of a bad situation, or how to make (or save) a buck or any one of a thousand problems which help to sell books - it's a joy to read a book like this where a very literate author sits back and tells us in excellent and descriptive prose a fascinating story about Cape Horn and its environs, its geography, what it's like there, its history, its native people and how it is to sail a small boat in these stormy rockbound deceptive dangerous Patagonian waters.

I don't know how I found it, but I had read a part of it when it was first published and had put it down for some reason. Then, just the other day, I picked it off the shelf and read it. Finished it last night and now I can't wait to tell you to go out and buy it and read it too. It's a delight. You'll freeze in the sleet and wind of Cape Horn weather. You'll be right there with the explorers who found a passage there and then you'll see and feel the worst with the resolute skippers who drove their ships into the teeth of the worst weather in the world to succeed or perish in an attempt at transit. If you're really interested it's got a great bibliography too. Go get it and read it. No kidding. Unless you're some kind of a wimp you'll love it!

This is an absolutely terrific read. I have sailed the ocean, but only the softer parts: downwind in the tropical Pacific. And like all sailors who have done that, I am drawn to the stories of the hard parts of the ocean, and of course Cape Horn is the very hardest. The book recounts a rather tame rounding of the Horn, in nice weather (yes, it does happen), but this account conveys the great beauty and spirit of the place, and what the sea is like there when it's not in a howling storm; and the author had leisure on this trip to visit the places he wanted to write about, and to reflect on them.

But this account is only the skeleton of the book. It's woven into a rich tapestry of the history of Cape Horn sailing, the people of Tierra del Fuego, and the hopelessly idiotic English missionaries who thought they could "improve" the Fuegian Indians. Here is history and tragedy, and the lesson that no encounter between Europeans and indigenous people ever had a positive effect. (The missionaries' actual effect on the Indians was not great - other forces destroyed them.)

In the midst of the book, at its heart, is the most harrowing sea-story I've ever read, of a very bad passage in a windjammer. This story is what ties the whole thing together: the ships, the sailors, the terrible elements, the truth of the place. The author knows the ocean and he knows sailing and sailors, and brings that knowledge straight into his storytelling.