Dear reader, I have a confession. Although I love reading about ships, the ocean, the great lakes, life at sea, lighthouses, and everything related to these topics, I cannot swim, and am in fact terrified of deep water and being on boats of all shapes and sizes. Quite the contradiction, isn’t it?
But therein lies one of the magical aspects of books! Through them we can live vicariously, we can travel to places we may never reach, we can experience things – like sailing the ocean on ships! – that we may never experience in real life, we are exposed to different cultures, to different time periods both in the past and the future, and the list goes on!
I am sure, dear reader, that one of the reasons you picked up a book this week was to, even if for a moment, escape the everyday of your life, to break up the monotony of another work week. Books are magical, aren’t they? We can read about a failed Antarctic exploration in the middle of summer, the ocean while living in a landlocked state or country, the desert and mountains when we live nowhere near them, etc.
I just finished a non-fiction book where I got to experience sailing on the replica of an eighteenth-century warship. This was one of those non-fiction books where I was amazed people actually experienced this, and got paid for it, no less! Certainly not a situation I will ever find myself in. I may tour a tall ship someday, but I can assure you, if one ever sets sail, I will not be on it!
A maritime adventure memoir that follows a crew of misfits hired to sail an 18th-century warship 5,000 miles to Hollywood
In the late 1990s, Patrick O’Brian’s multimillion-copy-selling historical novel series—the Aubrey–Maturin series, which was set during the Napoleonic Wars—seemed destined for film. With Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin, the production only needed a ship that could stand in for Lucky Jack’s HMS Surprise , with historical accuracy paramount. The filmmakers found the Rose , a replica of an 18th-century ship that would work perfectly. Only there was one problem, the Rose was in Newport, Rhode Island, not in Southern California, where they would be filming. Enter a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs who stepped up for the task, including Will Sofrin, at the time a 21-year-old wooden-boat builder and yacht racer, who joined as the ship’s carpenter.
All Hands on Deck is Sofrin’s memoir of the epic adventure delivering the Rose to Hollywood. It’s a story of reinvention, of hard work on the high seas, of love, and of survival. The Rose was an example of the most cutting-edge technology of her era, but in the 21st century, barely anyone had experience sailing it. The crew effectively went back in time, brought to life the old ways of a forgotten world, and barely lived to tell the tale. Just a few days in, a terrifying hurricane-strength storm nearly sank the Rose, and later, a rogue wave caused a nearly fatal dismasting. And the ups and downs weren’t limited to the waves—with the crew split into factions, making peace between warring camps became necessary, too, as did avoiding pirates and braving the temptations of shore leave. All Hands on Deck is a gripping story of an unforgettable journey and a must-read for fans who adore O’Brian’s novels and the dramatic film adaptation of Master and Commander.
Dear reader, if you would like to read more books that feature tall ships, let me recommend a few for you.
Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr. written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834.
While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles, which affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway) and being something of a non-conformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn on the brig Pilgrim. He returned to Massachusetts two years later aboard the Alert (which left California sooner than the Pilgrim).
He kept a diary throughout the voyage, and after returning he wrote a recognized American classic, Two Years Before the Mast, published in 1840, the same year of his admission to the bar.
Of course this blog post would not be complete unless I recommended the following title!
Ardent, gregarious British naval officer Jack Aubrey is elated to be given his first appointment as commander: the fourteen-gun ship HMS Sophie. Meanwhile—after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel—Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. On a whim, Aubrey invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie’s surgeon. And so begins the legendary friendship that anchors this beloved saga set against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.
As they say in the maritime world, and with my own literary twist, may you have fair winds and following seas on your reading journey, dear reader.
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