Rounding the Horn; Ian Chaston; Pentland Press, 1999; ISBN 1-85821-655-9; £13.95; CA 15548

There is a confidence that drives through the pages as the author takes on Cape Horn single-handed having set out from Canada with a full crew. A stop in San Diego for further fitting out of gear problems necessitates a good decision to divert into Acapulco. The onward journey round Cape Horn to the Falklands is undertaken alone and this passage is well written in log form, giving a good insight into the mind of the lone sailor.

The actual rounding is something of an anti-climax as all goes pretty easily, but in the voyage up to that point and after there are sufficient matters of maintenance, repair and sailing conditions to whet the appetite of others contemplating such a voyage. On reaching the Falklands, however, the trip back to the Thames is abandoned and this tends to leave the reader looking for more. One gets the feeling that the author too would have liked to extend the voyage to make a longer and better account. There is a short section on the author’s views of navigation and astronomy, which are quite difficult to understand and deserve expansion.

This is a modest book of 125 pages with sparse photographs of only moderate quality. –GBT

Page prepared 22 September 1999

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