Ernest Gann had a love affair with the sky; he was also infatuated with the sea. The Albatross was a former Dutch training vessel that required a crew of several hardy young windjammers. Her beam was twenty feet, and from stem to stem her length was either 117 feet (jibboom to stem) or 84 feet (waterline), depending whether Gann was paying docking fees or not. The idea was to sail her back across the North Atlantic and on to California with a crew of sail lovers, who had flown themselves to Holland at their own expense. Some were pilots who had never been to sea. The only paid member of the crew was the cook meal preparation at sea being something of a crapshoot.

They set sail and were beset immediately with nerve-racking gremlins: the river pilot, supervising his last harbor exit, managed to spear a police boat with the schooner's jib and the flushing mechanism on the twin heads by the bow had frozen open, dowsing the delicate, unprotected surfaces at a most inconvenient time. And then there was seasickness. Most serious was the failure of the Junkers engine - "a collection of spare parts flying in loose formation" - to start; aside from charging the batteries that provided electricity, it supplied power to the pumps that emptied the bilge and compressed air to turn over the main engine that moved the ship when the wind did not blow - a torture for sailing men. This was not . necessarily a total disaster except that hurricanes were beginning to form for their annual march up the Atlantic.

There are some singular advantages that accrue to those who take to the sea in small ships (A boat is a vessel small enough to be carried by a ship.) The absence of many items considered to be necessities on land, and the impossibility of obtaining them, causes man to lose "the pox of desire and its inevitable scabs of greed. To observe human beings without pressing desire is to rediscover mankind, and it is at times so encouraging that one is not ashamed to walk on two legs."

They arrive in San Francisco after a voyage of some one hundred eighty days. Gann decides to turn the Albatross into a square-rigged ship. He is exceedingly lucky to obtain the services of several older gentlemen who had, in their youth, worked on the few remaining sailing vessels. They were delighted to help rework his ship when they discovered he wanted to remake it into a real sailing ship, rather than a high rise of wet bars. It was not an easy task. The lumberyard foremen fell into fits of hysteria when they learned that a forty-five foot length of lumber eighteen inches by eighteen was required to be turned into one of the yards - a yard is the cross-piece on the mast that holds the sail - claiming such a piece of wood did not exist anymore. Two former yard makers were finally found who happened to have a lathe that would actually turn such a monstrosity and who also had some old friends in the lumber business. Another master carpenter removed all the old metal rails and replaced them with beautiful wood taffrails, completely rebuilding the deck.

Then Gann attempted, as best he could, to train some of the would-be sailors.in the ways of scrambling up the ratlines and shrouds, and· to scramble out on the yards. It must be rather intimidating to leave the relative safety of the mast and walk on a thin foot-rope hanging 3 feet 6 inches below the gradually thinning yards. I get queasy just thinking about the process: "Using his belly as a pad against the yard itself, he will venture ever larger rotations about its. axis, so that when he leans far forward down for a fistful of sail his feet swing up behind him on the foot rope, then swing back again as he straightens and heaves up with both hands." - this synchronized with his comrades also hanging on the yards, and perhaps during a thunderstorm. Gann sailed this anachronism into the -South Pacific, a marvelously peaceful voyage except for a harrowing experience when they were caught by a typhoon with too much sail on. Throughout the voyage Gann reminisces about the many boats and ships he has sailed or owned. Anyone who has loved his books about flying will find this book equally satisfying.
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