Product Description

At the age of 18, Eric Newby signed on as an apprentice on the four-masted sailing ship Moshulu of the Erikson line for the round trip from Europe to Australia and back, outwards by way of the Cape of Good Hope and round Cape Horn. This was to be an historic voyage, a dramatic personal adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54354 in Books
• Published on: 1995-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 251 pages

Customer Reviews

Greatest non-fiction sea adventure ever?
Being an avid sailor myself, i approached this book with apprehension. However as soon i had finsihed the first chapter than was i drawn into eric's world. This book is as much a tribute to then endurance of man, as it is to the timeless square rigged tall ships and the crew that bravely man them. So engaging is the narrative that often you can taste the salt air and hear the sails fill with wind and feel the water about your ankles, and once again the crew lives. Finally a book you wish would never finish Hilarious, frightening and saddening in turns it's description of day to day life on the last great sailing ships is over all uplifting; i would recommend this book to both land lubbers and sailors alike.

a record of life 'aboard' at the end of commercial sailing
This book and 'Learning the ropes' mean so much to me. As you will notice I am no writer or scholar. I read 'A Travellers Life' when I picked up on the story of the 'Last Grain Race'. I am no reader either but I could not put the book down. In fact just before the end I started again beacuse I didnot want to finish it! The romance for land lubbers of ships under sail is enhanced by the hard reality of life aboard. Who could climb the main mast - higher than Nelsons Column?. The only hint of the 'other' romance by the way was conjured up by mentioning his mothers friend - a picture in my mind! Sincere thanks to you Eric Newby. Man has sailed and written of it for centuries but I have only read one like yours. It will always mean a lot to me and if I have children I will read it to them - until they know it!

The last hurrah of the world's greatest sailing ships
Eric Newby, still in his teens in the early part of 1939, signs on as crew on one of the last great clipper ships making the grain run from Europe to Australia and back. This book chronicles, in hilarious fashion, the adventurous and sometimes perilous journey, from his first climb of the 198 foot mainmast while docked in Belfast, through the Roaring Forties with the giant waves threatening to poop the ship, and so to Australia. Cooped up with a cabin full of Scandinavians united only by their dislike of Englishmen, Mr Newby survives and eventually thrives thanks in no small part, we must conclude, to his sense of humour. Through the standard English modesty about such things, it is easy to appreciate just how difficult Mr Newby had it and how well he rose to the occasion.