Nic Compton

There is much of interest as each sea area has a few stories to tell but, sadly, the book gets off to a poor start. The end papers are the same, both captioned "The Sea Areas of the British Isles" and, therefore, not on any map in this book are the sea areas Trafalgar, Fitzroy, Biscay and Southeast Iceland. This is, after all, a book about The Shipping Forecast, not just about the sea areas of the British Isles - one of the maps should have shown all the sea areas.

The author is the son of a naval officer and methinks his father would have raised an eyebrow at his son's poor use of naval lingo! In the chapter Fair Isle, he mentions the sinking of the battleship HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow in 1939 and tells us, correctly, that 833 men and boys died - but a battleship has a ship's company, not a crew as he calls it - the battleship's boats (her whaler, her motor-boats and the admiral's barge) had a crew, but HM Ships have a ship's company. It's a pity that the author could not be bothered to name the German U-Boat that carried out this daring action - it was U-47, commanded by Korvettenkapitän Gunther Prien.

There are plenty of line drawings of ships, boats and maritime equipment but not once does the author give them a caption - sometimes one can guess but often one has no idea. Lazy editing - a pity.

I am glad that I bought only a second-hand copy as I would have been displeased to pay full price for a second-rate book that could easily have been so much better.… (altro)

Compton vertelt in dit boek vele verhalen over gekte op zee. Psychische problemen bij zeevaarders in de tijd van de eerste ontdekkingsreizigers krijgen een plaats naast gevallen van zelfmoord op grote oceaanvaarders en cruiseschepen, en hallucinaties bij solozeilers. Michiel Van Straten voegde daar enkele verhalen over Nederlandse zeevaarders aan toe. Na de verhalen over een gekmakende zee sluit het boek af met een kort overzicht van initiatieven die de helende kracht van de zee en het zeilen willen inzetten bij de begeleiding van moeilijke jongeren of getraumatiseerde soldaten. Veel meer valt over dit boek niet te zeggen maar dat komt mogelijk omdat ik zelf geen zeiler ben. Leuk om tussendoor te lezen.… (altro)