Romantic Challenge

by Francis Chichester

This is the thrilling story of Chichester's attempt to make the fastest crossing of the Atlantic from Bissau, Portuguese Guinea to San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua-4,000 miles in 20 days. He was 69 when he made this voyage in Gypsy Moth V, and both men and boat were tested to the limits of their endurance.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1900

About the author

Aviator and sailor, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Reviews

[Talbot Hook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of the issue with an approach to this book is in its advertisement. It is portrayed in a Kontiki, Mutiny on the Bounty, Moby Dick sort of way: tons of maritime adventure, speed, chaos, loneliness, and exploration. It has those things, but they make up perhaps 3% of the book. The remaining 97% is like this (chosen at random):

I went on deck and thought that the mizen which I had paid well off was doing no work, so I hardened it in. the heading promptly fell off from 285 degrees to 270 degrees or thereabouts, which threatened to put the wind dead astern. This would at once slow down the speed so I hurriedly reset the mizen as it had been before. If only the wind would increase from 7 to 16 knots. . . . On this morning I fitted a sheave at the end of the mizen boom and passed a rope through it with a narrow sheave at the end of that for outhauling the tops'l sheet to the end of the mizen boom. Also I attached a handy-billy to the outhaul of the boomed sail with a stopper on it so as to outhaul the sail as far as it would go toward the end of the boom.

Now, perhaps this is fascinating to a small subset of nautical-jargon-knowing, yacht-sailing old salts, but I am not part of that population. Yet, should any book aimed at the general public be 97% technical jargon and small tweaks made to one's mode of transportation? The actually, generally interesting stuff in this book (bananas full of a family of tarantulas, the rescue of a sea-turtle, his lovely writing about wind, surf, and stars, and the storm) is at once totally forgettable and unforgettable. I'm not sure which, and we'll let my memory decide. But such escapades and breaks in the technical nautilese are buried under mountains of headings, alterations to sails, and navigational readings (not to mention an obsession with speed over time). This is a book for scholars and amateur sailors, and let no advertisement say otherwise!

[Unit of Raine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very technical tome. I only understood the bare minimal of the details. I did find his style of giving away future events i.e. "I found the aluminum boom to be quite light and manageable. This was to prove to be an erroneous assumption" annoying. The HUGE events that he alludes to end up being described in such dry, British understatement that they are completely lost on a page of sail and heading adjustment.

I was MOST impressed with his navigational skills. He takes for granted that sun and star navigation is a skill that everyone has. Especially in today's GPS/technology laden systems, it would be such a comfort to know that even when the boat is mostly swamped, you could still figure out where you are and where you are going. Seems like magic to me.