Michael J Lacey

Full Circle is Michael J. Lacey's memoirs of his time as a merchant mariner in the British Shaw, Saville, and Albion Line of merchants ships in the 1960s. He recounts his voyages and port visits, mostly in Australia and New Zealand (the primary liner routes he sailed on). It's an interesting look at the merchant world in the time frame of general cargo loading and planning, before containerization took over. I enjoyed it overall.

My biggest criticism would be it tends to be repetitive; the format for most chapters is board a ship, sail to the Antipodes, pull into to various ports there and offload and onload cargo, and then sail back with some more port visits in Europe to offload. Since it's mostly reconstructed off his letters home, there's a limited scope of information available on the ships themselves, and especially his fellow officers. I found myself wanting more discussion on these items and changes in the shipping industry itself than was in the book.

Also, having spent some time at sea myself, I had not trouble following along with all the terminology, but if I was a pollywog, I could see having some difficulties with some of it.… (más)