Griff Rhys-Jones, actor and comic, piles a few friends into his heavily-restored classic sloop and sails from the Thames estuary to St Petersburg, then back to Denmark via the Swedish lakes. There are some good moments of intracrew tension, notably off  the Frisian islands. The eponymous Bob is an amusing retired 1970s street warrior, given to collecting the usual Soviet militaria and debating with the skipper. There is a bracing account of a winter sail in the Kattegat at the end of the story.

It is normal for publishers of notionally popular books like this to edit the raw material into some sort of shape. This does not seem to have happened here.  At 400 pages this is a baggy object, comprehensively unenlightening. White-hot Rhys-Jones fans will love it with all its faults.  Others may feel it is not worth the price of admission. – SLl

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