The Annotated Sailing Alone Around the World

Price: £14.95 

Joshua Slocum's ‘Sailing alone around the world’ probably needs no introduction to the majority of sailors but, if you have not read it, here is an unabridged version with the great benefit of annotations.  I must confess I do not like annotations in general as they often interfere with the flow of the narrative but in this case I did not find them distracting.  I will not presume to comment on the original text -suffice to say it is completely absorbing.

   The annotations seem to fall into three groups. The first is what might be called ‘sailing terms’ which are superfluous to sailing people but would be a great help to landlubbers. Some of these are repeated - such as the explanation of reefing - which is a trifle annoying. The second group, and far the larger, might be called ‘factual / historical’ and are really very interesting. These include details of ships or personages encountered by Slocum on his voyage and explanations of some of his prose. The third group comprise the annotator's comments on aspects of Slocum's character or behaviour which could well be omitted as the reader can make up his own mind.

  There are also sidebars headed ‘In The News’ which give snippets of news items from the time Slocum was voyaging in the 1890s but bear in mind that this is an American book so most refer to the USA although, because Britain was the dominant nautical power at the time, quite a few refer to British items. Also some of the terms used are American. It is a softback of 200 pages but unfortunately, the line drawings are poorly reproduced and the few small chartlets are almost unreadable.

     This book is then eminently suitable for those without a great knowledge of the sea but has some interesting information for devotees of Slocum, enhancing what is a fascinating read.

 Norman Tricks