SIGHTINGS reunites
SKIP ALLAN
'Imp' and her predecessor, 'Improbable', round the Fastnet on this cake, made by Skip Allan.
ognize the name, Sally-Christine Rogers is the wife of Randy Repass, founder of West Marine. This book is about their voyage to and around the South Seas with their three children aboard the Wylie 65 cat ketch Convergence. Although the custom-built vessel is more high-end than most cruising boats out there, Rogers' splendid presentation and down-to-earth style (with frequent homages to her seafaring father) ranks this as one of the best cruising books we've ever seen. Of particular note, it is presented in 'magazine style'. That is, rather than page after page of text with a few fuzzy photos here and there, every spread in Convergence comes alive with excellent photography. If we had to be stuck on a desert island with only one book to read, this would be an excellent choice. Go get a copy! (Available in February at West Marine.) The Captain and Mr. Shrode (Tony Johnson, $16.95) — Longtime Latitude readers may recognize the names Tony Johnson and Terry Shrode, whose 2001-2003 circum- If you enjoy photographic artistry, check out navigation on the 1972 Ericson Martin-Raget's new collection. 39 Maverick was chronicled in frequent installments in Changes in Latitudes. What we really liked about those articles, and this book, was that it was not a tale of rich guys with glitzy boats and unlimited funds, or minimalists in wooden boats with no engine, or groups of young hard bodies racing high-tech machines. It was just two regular guys approaching retirement age and, on a budget, setting out on one last grand adventure while they still could. The other thing we really liked was Johnson's writing, which reminded us a lot of one of our favorite authors, Ernest Gann (whose Song of the Sirens is among our favorite sailing books ever). Like Gann, Johnson can wax philosophical, poetic, pragmatic, and hilarious in a single paragraph. Describing the perennial cruiser issue of overloading the boat with safety stuff, he observes: "The boat has so much safety gear that the extra weight will no doubt prevent us from getting out of harm's way in the first place, thereby assuring its use. And in the interest of full disclosure, it may be relevant to mention that all the gear was installed and will be operated and maintained by amateurs." Our only gripe about this book is the almost total absence of photos. But you can still enjoy them at the guys' website, www.ussmaverick. net. Call Me Captain — Memoir of a Woman At Sea (Susan Scott, $19.99) — "Reports of oil spills, pollution and global warming make many people picture the ocean as one big cesspool of dying creatures choking on six-pack rings," writes author Susan Scott in a sailing memoir with a refreshing twist. The twist is that much of this book refutes that perception, and indeed celebrates her enduring love of the sea and all the creatures that live in it. For nearly three decades, Scott authored a regular marine biology column in the Honolulu StarAdvertiser. When her marriage broke up, she refitted the the couple's older Wauquiez 37, Honu, and sailed it with one young crewman to isolated Palmyra Atoll to work as a volunteer biologist, and later on to Australia. All through this book about discovery and rediscovery, Scott sprinkles little gems about the creatures we've all seen but don't think much about — such as the fact that female pilot whales go through menopause at about age 36, yet continue to have sex with males long afterward. A visit to the boat by a couple of curious female pilot whales "made me feel good," says Scott. "In the world of mammals, we aging women are not alone." Happy reading! — jr January, 2015 •
Latitude 38
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BLOOMSBURY
winter reading — continued
couver, Britsh Columbia. "It felt a bit eerie," said Bill Barton, Imp's jib and spinnaker trimmer, "as just down the street is the home of the late David Allen where our whole mission began on David's first boat, Privateer, then on the Gary Mull-designed Improbable." The Laceys' home was decorated with Imp memorabilia — shirts, foulies, magazine articles and photo albums, and the evening's entertainment included an eight-minute film of Imp's 1977 heroics shot by David Allen's son Peter. "After a few minutes we all felt like it was just yesterday that we beat around the Fastnet Rock in 60+ knots of wind and huge seas at 2:30 in the morning on August 14, 1979. All hell had broken loose, and we would be close friends for life," said Barton, who chronicled Imp's career in his book, The Legend of Imp. — chris