The book is more or less free of yacht club jargon, which is a relief, and it has the required amount of decorative history, and images as lovely as a moonlit lagoon of ice. But at its heart is something austere and surprising, like a secular pilgrimage, a change of heart. — Michael Pye
It isn't easy to be an adventurer these days, when most of the globe has been explored to death. But British-born sailor Hordern makes a fascinating go of it in this jaunty reminiscence. He traveled solo from New Zealand to Chile and back again in a 28-foot boat, over 18 months in the late 1990s. He narrates a gripping tale of coping with huge storms, coming face-to-face with monster U.S. warships and dealing with the loneliness of being out on the water for weeks at a time, with nothing but the BBC World Service to keep him company. Hordern's passion for sailing is obvious, and he intersperses his own stories with those of Columbus, Magellan and other professional adventurers of the past. In fact, the author keeps bumping into history along the way, such as the islands that inspired Robinson Crusoe and the South Pacific haunts where Paul Gauguin escaped to. Although it lacks the life-or-death ferocity of some recent adventure tales, Hordern's book charts a determined course of its own, describing in detail the strange daily business of a life at sea. Maps, photos. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
What began as a proposed six-month circular sail around the South Pacific, from New Zealand to Chile and back, ended as an interrupted 18-month voyage for first-time author Hordern. He embellishes his tale with other accounts, ranging from early Pacific adventurers Alvaro de Medana y Neya and Pedor Fernandez de Quiros in the late 1500s to the ill-fated whaler SS Essex in 1819. Hordern uses laconic, emotionless prose to recount his own journey in a 28' boat; storms at sea are dispassionately described, as are the many difficulties of solo sailing. Still, this is an interesting read, distinguished from most books in this genre by its perspective-best described in Hordern's own words: "I suspect that even at sea, I am still a drifter. The idea that on the ocean I determined my own course, made landfalls of my own choosing, was partly an illusion. Flotsam could have made the voyages I have made." Three maps and a section of color photographs are included, along with sources for historical information. Recommended for libraries with large sailing collections.-Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
A British-born newcomer describes his pleasant, single-handed sailing mooch across an unequalled expanse of water, the Southern Ocean between New Zealand and South America. Hordern’s remarkably unsentimental about his 28-footer, rather small for so formidable an ocean, and he’s unspooked by the legendary weather regularly dished out in such latitudes. Not that Hordern is smug or stupid; he simply finds himself an inextricable thread woven into the history of sailing the South Pacific: "bound up with Greek cosmologers, medieval mapmakers, poets, and whalers." His equipment is simple and efficient, he likes what he is doing, he trusts the auguries. He won't ignore a storm warning, but what really raises the hair on his neck is reading that a set of reefs or shoals are doubtfully positioned on his chart, perhaps phantoms altogether; though Davis Land, Sophie Christiansen Shoal, and Emily Rock have been spotted numerous times, they’ve failed to be spotted an equal number. While he appreciates GPS as part of the routine when he gets his noon fix, he’s more impressed by how he has become a sea creature in his own right. "You have an agility, a set of physical skills, that aren't needed on land," he comments. Through it all, Hordern is a master of deadpan: "I made landfall on the coast of Chilean Patagonia in mid December, after a six-week passage." Falling overboard during a squall is a worthy little story, but more fascinating to Hordern is an event "easy to describe . . . not easy to explain"; when he got to Easter Island after some serious sailing, he scooted on past. Similarly, within hailing distance of New Zealand on his return, Hordern turned his boat around and sailed aimlessly forthree days, finally landing in Fiji. He confides to a friend that he thinks it was a nervous breakdown. Whatever the reason, readers of his engaging narrative will be happy to spend a few more days in his company. (8-page color photo insert)
Hordern writes vividly about the rhythms and sighs of life afloat, and about a landscape composed not of immovable objects but of ever-shifting wind and water.”
- Daily Telegraph
“As well as an enthralling adventure, the book chronicles an inner journey of self-discovery. Hordern captures the thrill, romance, and anxieties of ocean sailing...a highly readable book by a gifted new writer. Don’t miss it.”
- Yachting magazine
“Not unlike Conrad, Hordern demonstrates that a sense of superfluousness often felt by the adventurous modern traveler can be-at great personal risk-transmuted into a kind of physical essentialism by excluding the rest of humanity and testing oneself, against oneself, in extremis.”
- Times Literary Supplement
“Full of humor and historical insight, this book has the toughness of the classic survivor. It’s the next best thing to actually going yourself.”
- Global Adventure