Sailing Alone Around the World

This book amazed me, as it has amazed many other readers lavishing it with four or five stars. For a book published in 1900 it is incredibly readable - to the point where I am left wondering if it has been tidied up in an edit to modernise (my edition is 1948, so my modernise I mean modernise by 50 years!

In short, Slocum takes us through his process of refurbishing a hundred year old sloop found in a farmers paddock in Fairhaven, near Boston, pretty much replacing every element, modifying and improving as he went. She was 36'9'' long, 14'2'' wide and 4'2'' deep in the hold, and she retained the name of the original sloop - Spray. Fully refitted and set up for fishing, Slocum spent a season, and was not a success, but set upon the idea of a solo journey around the world. The appeal of this was that it had not been done before - and his ship was perfectly suited to this task. He refitted her for this solo journey, he set off.

The route he follows (landfalls only, not those he merely passes by) - USA, Azores, Gibraltar, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Samoa, Australia, Cocos Keeling Isl, Mauritius, South Africa, St Helena, Ascension Isl, Grenada, Antigua, USA. He departs Boston on 24 April 1895 and returns a little over three years later, on 27 June 1898.

Under financial constraint, Slocum had a modest selection of equipment. He was obviously a skilled man, as the things he did spend money on, were very efficient - his stove for example, or the old clock he used for navigation. The books is based on his ships log, which he quotes a few times, but obviously inspired his book. The writing is spirited, but comes across as authentic, and written with some humour (like the time he capsized the dory and ‘forgot that he couldn't swim', or the goat he brought aboard for company, that ate his map), yet still records all the people he meets and places he visits, picking some pertinent facts to share from the exotic locations. I also chuckled each time he referred to himself as ‘the crew' when on land.

There is plenty of excitement - but for such a long journey I think Slocum does really well to shorten the long legs where there isn't a lot happening - he can skip over a months travel in a sentence, or a long ocean crossing in a half page, so that there is no real loss of momentum with the narrative. He also does well to limit his use of too much nautical jargon - there is some, but I found it written in a way that is the word was unknown it didn't really effect the sentence. Overall the language wasn't archaic at all (as noted above, in my edition anyway).

Highly recommended - nothing not to like about this classic adventure tale.
5 stars.