Sea Change: alone across the Atlantic in a wooden boat

Publisher: Profile Books,1999 £ 12.99

Peter Nichols is steeped in the lore of the sea. His enthusiasm is fired by many of the great adventurers: Hiscock, Slocum, Moitessier among others. Their adventures fill the shelves of the 27 footer which is all that is left of his marriage to J. - with her diaries for five of the turbulent years they spent together.

This very readable account of his journey from the UK to sell Toad in Maine is, on the one hand, a very matter of fact tale: his voyage from Falmouth to Fayal, his brief stay there, and the the journey on towards America. On the other, the story is interspersed with philosophy, memories often prompted by reading the diaries, and references to the famous accounts. Occasionally we wonder whether we are in the present or not. Some days short of his landfall, the wooden hull begins to leak more than he can handle, and in a remarkably calm way he calls for help, is picked up by a huge American container ship and completes his journey in some luxury.

We are left wondering, as he goes off to stay with a cousin, with little more than the clothes he stands up in, whether he has achieved what he set out to do: “ to meet my true self, and am hoping to find an improved version”. How will he explain the scuttling of their marital home and only asset to the ex-wife expecting her share of the proceeds? - MJD

Page prepared 13 April 1999