BOOK REVIEWS

THE LESSER ANTILLES - The RCC Pilotage Foundation and SHOM, edited by Oz Robinson. Published by Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson at £29.95. 245 pages with many photographs, plans and chartlets.

Another excellent addition to the RCC series of large format cruising guides for the North Atlantic, The Lesser Antilles is a detailed pilot to the Caribbean islands from Grenada to the Virgin Islands via Barbados, arranged to suit a cruise northwards through the islands following a crossing from Europe. It contains plenty of large, shaded plans of harbours and anchorages and also had many very useful monochrome photos annotated for pilotage.

This pilot fills a yawning gap between Chris Doyle's brief and chatty cruising guides and Don Street's rambling epics. Its detail is more than adequate for ordinary cruising and yet it covers a wide area in a single volume. To achieve this, however, the text is rather terse, describing palm fringed anchorages in a style reminiscent of sailing directions for the Bristol Channel. This is certainly in part due to its being a translation, although heavily reworked, of a French Hydrographic Office pilot for the area.

What gives life to what would otherwise be a rather dusty tome is the attractive layout of the book, and particularly Anne Hammick's stunning colour photographs which convey the beauty of the area in a way the very practical and matter of fact text does not.* The Lesser Antilles will therefore appeal to those dreaming of a cruise in the Caribbean as well as to the practical yachtsman.

TJB

HEAVY WEATHER SAILING - K Adlard Coles, revised by Peter Bruce (4th edition). Published by Adlard Coles Nautical at £30.00. 411 pages with many charts, diagrams and b/w photographs.

Peter Bruce has updated the classic by the late Adlard Coles, first published in 1967 and last revised by him in 1980. The fourth edition contains anecdotal evidence from the several heavy storms of the last decade which, together with hull and rig development since 1980, give a useful update of experience and consequent thinking on heavy weather handling.

The chapter on Yacht Design has been rewritten by Olin Stephens and now contains much theoretical information of more interest to the designer than to owners who are mostly concerned with handling their chosen boat. On the other hand the chapter on multihulls, now by John Shuttleworth, whilst also containing a lot of theoretical information, expresses it in such a way as to make it immediate and relevant to the multihull owner or those contemplating a multihull for offshore sailing.

The chapter on Meteorology by Alan Watts now contains a useful detailed analysis of the 1979 Fastnet gale and there is an excellent new chapter by Andrew Claughton on The Stability of Yachts in Large Breaking Waves which gives honest, straightforward advice in the most readable fashion.

However the two new chapters on Clothing and Seasickness add very little to our knowledge of heavy weather sailing. By including such marginally relevant material the book is attempting to become all things to all readers, a tendency which has doubtless contributed to its price. At £30.00 I was hoping for a much greater revision of both style and content. Instead we have at least half the original text, some of which is getting dated, and few new photographs or plates, none in colour. This is not to decry the excellence of the earlier publication, but to attract new readership it required more new and relevant material and a more attractive presentation.

CAV

A GUIDE TO SMALL BOAT RADIO - Mike Harris. Published by Adlard Coles Nautical at £12.99. 164 pages with b/w photos and line drawings.

Many of us who sail do so to get away from the telephone and communications in general. Others may wish to retain links with business associates or family and friends. This book is quite definitely aimed at the latter category.

Mike Harris is an experienced offshore sailor who currently lives afloat in Gibraltar. He is a licensed amateur radio operator (his call sign is G0 HOC) as well as being a computer boffin and self-confessed astro navigation fanatic. He used both his practical and theoretical knowledge to produce this simplified but detailed and highly readable guide to all modes of communication. Although the title is addressed to the Small Boat sailor, his ideas and suggestions are just as relevant to any craft at sea.

In a concise and clear way he discusses all aspects of radio. If you wish you can skip the theory (but he does restrict this to the absolute essentials). Licensing requirements are dealt with, covering all aspects from the first Restricted (VHF only) RT Certificate to the Full Ship Radio Licence and on to the separate subject of Amateur Radio.

There is much good practical advice on the selection of equipment, paying attention to battery supplies, charging arrangements and antenna systems. If your interest extends to the more esoteric then you can read on about `data modes' and the transmission of weatherfax and RTTY.

There is a wealth of information in this book, presented in a perfectly readable manner and aimed at the practical sailor. The theory is there if you want it but I suspect most of us will be more than happy with the practical considerations. I wish this book had been available when I was in the planning stage of an Atlantic crossing! It would have saved many hours of searching for information from a variety of sources.

MPG

NORTH AFRICA - compiled by Hans van Rijn for the RCC Pilotage Foundation. Published by Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson at £32.50. 188 A4 pages full of colour photographs and plans.

Although it is difficult to assess a pilot book covering an area one does not know, it proved even more difficult tracking down an OCC member who had cruised the North African coast between the Straits of Gibraltar and Tunisia. Malta, which also features in this book, is obviously more popular. Which only goes to prove, as they say, how badly such a pilot was needed.

Whilst having to take the technical accuracy of North Africa on trust, it is written with undoubted authority and packed with the kind of detail that speaks of painstaking on-the-spot research. It is no surprise to learn from the Foreword that Hans van Rijn and his wife spent two seasons exploring the area, `venturing into ports where existing information was sketchy or misleading (to say nothing of harbours which had not appeared in European publications) and exploring the traditions of an unfamiliar region.' Their efforts have added measurably to published cruising knowledge.

The many port and harbour plans are well up to Imray's usual professional standards, with the sole caveat that some still lack a proper latitude/longitude scale. This may be unimportant in everyday use, but it does present complications when making corrections from Notices to Mariners and other sources where positions are given in these terms.

Hans van Rijn's colour photographs are superb, ranging from bird's eye views of harbours to a moodily lit study of an Arab mausoleum. They, as much as the text, will entice more yachtsmen to consider cruising the North African coast - and it is hard to imagine that anyone will do so without this volume aboard.

AH

SOUTHERN OCEAN CRUISING HANDBOOK - Sally and Jerome Poncet. Published by the authors, and available from them at Beaver Island, Falkland Islands at £3.50 + postage (£3.00 airmail, £1.00 surface mail); or from Bluntisham Books, Oak House, East Street, Huntingdon PE17 3LS, UK at inclusive. Complimentary copies are available to yachts visiting the Falkland Islands on their way south. 60 A5 pages with many hand-drawn chartlets.

Despite its name, the Southern Ocean Cruising Handbook is not a cruising guide. Rather it is a guide to the ecology and wildlife of an area encompassing Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, the subantarctic islands of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as the Antarctic continent itself. The emphasis is on `how to avoid damaging this beautiful but fragile region'.

There is also the political aspect - there are currently few constraints on yachts, and if this state is to continue it can only be due to the responsible co-operation of the yachtsmen themselves. Violation of protected areas, however unintentional, or interference with the work of the scientific bases could change the situation rapidly, to the detriment of future visitors.

Some basic facts regarding equipment, stores, conservation, garbage disposal, documents and books are followed by a detailed area-by-area breakdown covering local restrictions, unusual flora and fauna plus the occasional historical note. Nearly fifty small plans and chartlets complement the text. The final section lists those yachts known to have voyaged in the Southern Ocean (though at a glance several OCC members are missing). Obviously the call of the high latitudes is not a modern phenomenon.

While the market for the Southern Ocean Cruising Handbook will inevitably be small, it is certain to become `essential reading' for those heading south - or even dreaming of it. A French edition is also in preparation.

As a final bonus, the cover photo by Ben Osborne of the authors' Damien II in King George VI Sound is truly spectacular.

AH

THE COCHIN CONNECTION - Brian and Alison Milgate. Published by Chatto & Windus Ltd at £10.95.

Well worth reading for several reasons:

1. The suspense is so gripping that the reader will not be able to put it down;

2. It events are true;

3. It is a warning to all those cruising near ports which are used for drug smuggling, not only in India but also in Colombia etc.

The Milgates were headed from Darwin towards Plymouth via Sri Lanka and Suez. En route from Galle to Aden a gale threw their yacht Tiger Rag on her beam ends, bending the rudder shaft and shattering the steering quadrant. A jury rudder got them to Cochin on the south-west tip of India where they met the owner of a ketch undergoing a refit, and Brian (a marine surveyor) agreed to oversee the work while her owner brought new steering gear for Tiger Rag out from England. When Brian and Alison found out that their `benefactor' was one of the leaders of a drug smuggling ring which organised shipments from Cochin to New Jersey their real troubles began.

First Tiger Rag was impounded by the local authorities on the basis that they were connected with the ketch's owner, and when they escaped in an attempt to reach higher authority in Bombay they were shot at and imprisoned. On two occasions they were lucky to discover that drugs had been planted aboard just before `arranged' Customs searches, and their adventures over the next eighteen months, ranging from India, Sri Lanka and Australia to the United States, would make a TV series.

Being a lawyer as well as a yachtsman I know that many countries have draconian laws regarding yachts suspected to be involved in drug trafficking. I also know that cruising people consider their yacht their most prized possession, and to have it impounded or even confiscated would be a nightmare. The persistence and determination of the Milgates to recover Tiger Rag, despite numerous attempts on their lives and after testifying against the drug ring to the DEA in New York, is remarkable and courageous, and the climax - the race to re-launch Tiger Rag before she can be lifted by crane and taken to the police compound - hair-raising stuff.

Reads like a novel - but it really happened.

JM

* Thank you, Tim, for that unsolicited testimonial!