3 Review(s)

A memorable tale of adventure on the turbulent seas of the Great Southern and Atlantic oceans--on one of the most historic voyages of our time--finds its way into paperback. This is William F. Stark's engrossing memoir of the last leg of the Grain Race, and the Pamir's rounding of fearsome Cape Horn--the storm-tossed tip of South America just 600 miles from Antarctica--the veritable Mount Everest of sailing. In 1949, the crew of thirty-four sailors from around the world experienced the shipboard life of the seventeenth century on a four-masted vessel that carried hundreds of acres of sail. In 128 days the Pamir journeyed 16,000 miles from Port Victoria, Australia, to Falmouth, England, through the world's stormiest seas, as Stark worked on decks awash with huge swells, and scrambled up ice-coated rigging to manhandle sails on masts that were up to twenty stories high.Contrasting romance with the realities of life at sea, and poignantly evoking the love affair he left behind to join the Pamir, while punctuating his tale with illuminating photos, maps, and details of maritime history, Stark has written a thrilling book that climaxes the fabled era begun by Cape Horn merchant sailors more than three centuries ago.