I'm nearly finished with a book The Way of a Ship by Derck Lindy. An interesting if a bit tedious (Could use a good Editor) account of the state of sailing ships in the transition from sail to steam. It is written following the voyage from Liverpool to Valparaiso in Chile, through the eyes of a young neophyte sign on to a four masted iron coal carrier. That part is fiction. Much of the book is documentation of events of the sailing age on and off the vessels. The descriptions of the Cape Horn rounding are chilling, even in the Summer in Florida. Rx: Worth the time if you have it and you have a thing for square riggers and the tribulations of the crews to handle those ships. Anyone out there?
