John MacGregor's books on canoe-touring were a huge hit in Victorian England, and led thousands of his contemporaries (most famously Robert Louis Stevenson) to take up canoeing. He also did a lot to popularise small-boat sail cruising with this 1867 account of a cruise in the English Channel in a little 21ft yawl, which he had had specially designed to be sailed by one person.

By the standards of modern sailing boats the Rob Roy looks rather awkward and impractical — the tiny cabin which is only usable when not under way; the very short cockpit that seems to have been designed to cause maximum backache; the outdoor galley; the undersized sails and heavy double-skinned hull; the single fixed keel that causes problems in tidal harbours.MacGregor didn't invent small-boat sailing, of course: several times during his voyage he mentions meeting other sailors who've completed long voyages in small craft (including three men who sailed a rubber liferaft across the Atlantic to drum up business for its American manufacturer). But MacGregor and his designer chum clearly put a lot of thought into it, and you can see him working out improvements all through the voyage (things like more efficient stoves, binnacle lights that don't blow out, quick-release cleats for the jib-sheet ...).

Apart from its interest as a document in the development of sailing as a middle-class recreation, the book is also great fun to read. MacGregor was clearly very much in the Victorian tradition of the muscular Christian and practical philanthropist. Whenever he gets the chance, he dishes out copies of the New Testament and Pilgrim's Progress to fishermen, dock-workers and the crews of the ships he meets. In between his thoughts on binnacles and cookery at sea, we're more than likely to get a short reflection on Science vs. Religion, the reasons for the poverty problem in England, the weaknesses of Roman Catholic doctrine, etc. More reflective than George Borrow, more sane than his imitator E.E. Middleton, but a true Victorian down to the top-hat he keeps in the fore-peak for "state occasions". ( )