Taking Terrapin Home: A Love Affair With a Small Catamaran [Paperback]

Mathew J. Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2010

An exciting account of crossing the Atlantic in a small sailboat by Mathew Wilson, a noted lecturer who used his adventure as the subject for this, his first book. Terrapin's route took her across the English Channel, through France to the Mediterranean before turning to cross the Atlantic. Taking Terrapin Home is a look at one of the great sailing routes of antiquity through fresh eyes, a cruising guide for anyone thinking of taking the same trip, and checklist for anyone who wants to fit out a boat properly. There are no heroics. This is not a survival manual. This is a good story.

Product Details

• Paperback: 234 pages
• Publisher: Paradise Cay Publications (January 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939837242
• ISBN-13: 978-0939837243
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,570,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Big Egos and Small Catamarans, August 19, 2000

By 

bryan freeman (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Terrapin Home: A Love Affair With a Small Catamaran (Paperback)

Interested in catamarans, cruising, outfitting and crossing the sea? If you are do not buy this book. This smallish tome is long on ego and little on hard information. We do learn that our boorish captain has a baron in his bloodlines, that he is a divemaster, an amateur anthropologist, has relatives at Cambridge and seems to jump from London and back again seemingly at will and from anywhere. We also know that to sail with him is not fun(ask the poor couple who endured his company on one leg of the journey only to flee port as soon as they arrived). I have never heard such a littany of failures at sea or just plain miserable passages since Herb Payson's Blown Away. Unlike Payson, the skipper here is humorless and of little interest. As for sailing insights, you won't find much of value here. This unfortunate yachtie never talks of his boat's abilities relative to other craft(monohulls) when faced with difficult or uncomfortable circumstances. Our inadequate admiral is all too puffed-up with himself and his new-age anti-smoking, anti-population, anti-crew attitudes to properly attend to a simple shore power problem or understand that when you kill a dolphin fish it dies and it loses its color along with its life. Some ecologist our unfortunately named "captain".

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars He should have stayed home, December 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (new zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Terrapin Home: A Love Affair With a Small Catamaran (Paperback)

This book is the biggest load of rubbish that I have read about a small boat voyage. His insistance on fancy gadgets is an insult to the great sailors of yesteryear like Moitessier and Tangvald etc. He did not seem to enjoy the voyage either and his endless bitching and moaning about the motor makes me wonder why he didn't biff the bloddy thing overboard along with the rest of his other "essential" electronic gadgets. I mean to say, a sail boat is for sailing! And his "essential" list is an absolute joke. If you want to read a book about real small boat voyagers who did it without all the fancy equipment I give you three authors: Shane Acton, Peter Tangvald and Bernard Moitessier.

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrapin should have returned home with someone else, December 29, 2011

By 

Bend - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Terrapin Home: A Love Affair With a Small Catamaran (Paperback)

This book is described as a "look at one of the great sailing routes of the world through fresh eyes" it is not a fresh look at anything. this man bemoans every aspect of offshore sailing. Mathew Wilson appears to have an extreemly narrow set of conditions to which he would potentially be happy with, anything outside of this is met with his disdain, his dissapointment and myopic negativity. There is only one thing worse than sailing in beautiful waters and on a capable boat and complaining every step of the way; that is publishing a book on how much you hated the experience. I wasted thirty dollars and some hours of my spare time.

As for using the word "cogent" like it is some literary sword cutting your way through the uneducated to impress the learned, I suggest using it only once, might have more impact that way.

As for your vessel needing repairs from time to time, well that is boating...you just deal with it.

Poor book.