The Way of a Ship
A Square-Rigger Voyage in the Last Days of Sail
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
Benjamin Lundy crossed oceans under sail in the late nineteenth century and over one hundred years later Derek Lundy, his great-great nephew, has re-created that journey. In The Way of a Ship he places Benjamin on board the Beara Head with a community of fellow seamen as they perform the exhausting and dangerous work of sailing a square-rigger across the Atlantic and round Cape Horn.
Derek Lundy adorns his story of an extraordinary journey with a profound knowledge of the sea and sailing, and reminds us that the ocean voyage under sail is an overarching metaphor for life itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lundy (Godforsaken Sea), an experienced amateur sailor, offers a gale-force recreation of a late 19th-century square-rigger voyage. He begins by introducing his Irish-Canadian great-great-uncle, sailor Benjamin Lundy. Since little information about Benjamin was available, the author combines the few facts with what he learned about life on square-riggers from maritime museums to fabricate an imaginary voyage and a fictitious ship, the Beara Head. Benjamin sets off on the Beara Head in 1885 amid "the smoky mist and watery sun of a Liverpool spring day." While charting the ship's course (around Cape Horn to Valparaiso and on to San Francisco), the author shares details of ship construction, food, equipment and the routine tasks of those onboard. He depicts the romance and tranquil beauty of square-riggers, along with the intense physical challenges the exhausted, sleep-deprived seamen deal with. Under "the black, boiling clouds of the storm," they wrestle with the topsail: "The fight to control the sail becomes nightmarish toil without end." Musical sea chants pitch and roll with gusto throughout this adventure tale, along with Lundy's personal sailing experiences, plus literary references from Conrad, Melville and others. Convincing dialogue crests on rippling waves of fiction, yet readers will surface with a strong sense of seagoing history, a knowledge of the specialized skills involved in keeping square-riggers afloat and a respect not only for the fierce power of the elements but also for Lundy's considerable talent as a writer. Photos, map. should target interested readers.
