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BOOKS 1806 Laurel Crest Madison, Wisconsin 53 705-1065 (608) 238-SAIL FAX (608) 238-7249 Email: tuttlemaritime@charter.net http://tuttlemaritime.com Books about the Sea, Ship & Sailor Catalogue Upon Request 54
of their stories vanished with them beneath the waves. Because of this work, " 103 lives lost" is not just a static term in relation to the wreck, to be tossed out like a home run or strikeout total, when the name City of Columbus is mentioned; it's reflective of honeymoons, heartbreak, and journeys to and from loved ones' arms. The author delves, too, into diving and more recent searches for, and ultimately the discovery of, the location of the wreck site. In true journalistic fashion, Dresser follows the story through the post-incident hearings, along the beaches where the wreckage washed as ho re, and into them useums where artifacts rest today. The book addresses, as well, the growing sensationalism of newspaper reporting in the days leading up to the age of yellow journalism. Shipwrecks naturally and perfectly lent themselves to hyperbole. As the maritime world changed from sail to steam and construction materials changed from wood to iron and then steel, greater numbers of people could be transported in larger and larger ships, and thus greater numbers of lives could be lost in single incidents. The dramatic accounts of the City of Columbus disaster created newspaper fodder for decades into the future ; hence the publication of two books on the topic in the last half century. John GALLUZZO Hull, Massachusetts
Win djamming to Chi na by Gustav Tjgaard (Strategic Book Group, LLC, Durham, CT, 2011, 500pp, illus, notes, gloss, index, ISBN 978-1-60911-542-5; 23.50pb) If you have room on your shelf for just one more book about seafaring in the late great Age of Sail, try this one. It invites comparison with Moby Dick-a long tale rising from a real commercial voyage under sail, told by a master storyteller who is not afraid to discourse at length on any sidetopic of the trade or stretch the truth in the weaving of a good yarn. In the end, we discover a narrator who has set out from the shore a na'ive green hand and returns to it a changed man, and we the readers have changed and evolved along with him. We go with him aloft to the main truck for the first time, stand watch with him, step on the foo tropes aloft in a howling gale. We
come to know the men on board as though they were our own shipmates, even how they look and act and think. The year is 1938, and the ship is the big five-masted schooner Vigilant, hauling timber from Bellingham to China. The author/narrator signs on as a boy of sixteen and comes home a sailor and a man. Now in his eighties, Tjgaard takes us with him back to those days of his youth and adventure. His was one of the very last commercial voyages to be made under sail, but he remembers it with clarity and great attention to detail, conveying the wide-eyed wonder of that boy of sixteen told with the wisdom and humor that comes with age. Windjamming to China could be required reading for any yo ung sal t embarked on a sail-training voyage, whatever the duration. The reader learns through Tjgaard's experiences the harsh realities of life at sea under sail, discovers with him the power and the beauty of the ocean, and finds in these encyclopedic pages a greater understanding of wind, weather, current, sailhandling, and human society in a closed and close environment. As romantic as it all sounds, Tjgaard relates the physical hardship that taxes a man to the limits. Bucko mates attack men physically and without consequence. One man is killed by the "cures" from the captain's medicine chest, another loses a leg by amputation in the foc's'le-turned-operating room. The seco nd mate disappears overboard one night. Can all of it be true? At times you might suspect the overactive imagination of a boy on his first voyage, but it certainly has the ring of observed truth to it. As for those parts that might seem far-fetched-and there are more than a few-don't jump ship too soon . As it is made clear in the ship's arricles, yo u don't draw your pay until the voyage is completely over and have read through to the epilogue. The discerni ng reader will note that this book could have benefited from tighter, more astute editi ng. That point aside, there is a great deal here to interest and entertain , a wealth of insigh t into the detai ls of shipboard life, and passages of great descriptive power and poetic beauty which make this book such a delightful experience. DAVID H!RZEL Pacifica, California
SEA HISTORY 14 1, WINTER 2012- 13
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