Author: Nick Grainger

The Aegre Voyage – Book reviews and video

In this Post: a video of a talk about the voyage and the book and links to new reviews of the book in three leading magazines.

Boat lying on a beach
Julie waits with the newly decked Aegre for the tide to come in on the Scourie beach. May 1973

In September 2023 the Wooden Boat Association of Victoria (Australia) invited me to talk about The Aegre voyage and the book at their monthly meeting, ‘in conversation’ with President Peter Batchelor.

Two men seated talking
Nick Grainger in conversation with Peter Batchelor at the (Victoria, Australia) Wooden Boat Association meeting, September 2023

The VIC WBA meet at the Albert Park Yacht Club in central Melbourne. I joined the club when I first moved to Melbourne with my family thirty years ago. Embarrassingly I distinguished myself on my first visit by capsizing our skittish Oughtred John Dory with my two little girls aboard on Albert Park Lake in full view of the clubroom! But at least we could stand up and walk to the bank that day.

Here’s a link to the WBA Facebook page where you can find the video

Reviews of the book have recently appeared or are about to appear in four noteworthy magazines. Each picks up on a different aspect of the story.

Wooden Boat magazine cover
The Nov/Dec 2023 issue of Wooden Boat has a review of The Aegre book

Wooden Boat magazine’s November/December issue contains a lengthy review of The Voyage of The Aegre book by leading sailing photo/journalist Nic Compton, past Editor of Classic Boat magazine, concluding that…

Not only is this a compelling story, but Nick tells it in a relaxed and chatty style… There’s no doubt in my mind that this book will quickly join the library of classic survival stories, alongside tomes such as Survive the Savage Sea, by Dougal Robertson, and 117 Days Adrift, by Maurice and Maralyn Bailey.

For the review see Wooden Boat magazine.

Practical Boat Owner magazine Editor Katy Stickland also gave the thumbs up to the book, putting it at the top of her list of Christmas reading recommendations on the PBO website.

Magazine logo

Katy commented that this was before modern instruments and GPS, and although the story of their time afloat, including their capsize off Tahiti which left the boat dismasted, is a gripping read about survival at sea, it is the details of the preparation of the boat that many Practical Boat Owner readers will find the most fascinating.

For the full review see PBO Best new sailing book releases to buy this Christmas

Writing in the Dinghy Cruising Association Autumn Journal, Matthew Sullivan concludes his lengthy review by writing:

The Voyage of the Aegre is not only an account of a journey but also a moving tale of two young people growing up together, forging a relationship in extraordinary circumstances, and facing down unimaginably difficult challenges with inspirational courage.

Review of The Voyage of The Aegre
The Voyage of The Aegre reviewed by Matthew Sullivan in the Dinghy Cruising Association Journal, Autumn 2023

You can read the full DCA Journal review here.

On the other side of the world John Macfarlane, a sailing journalist with Boating New Zealand magazine, has written a review of the book for the November issue, but you’ll have to wait till later in October to read that.

Signed copies of the book, The Voyage of The Aegre – From Scotland to the South Seas in a Shetland boat are available from the book website here. It can also be purchased from Boat Books Australia, in the UK from Central Books, the Shetland Times Bookshop and other good bookshops such as Waterstones and Foyles, and in the rest of the world from Amazon.

Capsized!

Writing about the capsize of The Aegre, the drawing depiction of it in the book and how the drawing led to a review of the book in Australia’s Afloat magazine.

In severe conditions, The Aegre was capsized and dismasted about 150 miles southwest of Tahiti.

Boat capsizing
About 4am The Aegre was capsized

A deep sea capsize isn’t something most sailors want to think about, and yet holds some macabre fascination. What happened? Did they survive? Perhaps the reader is thinking it could happen to them one day, and maybe they should pay attention.

For us, it was no Saturday afternoon event on the bay, with a rescue boat nearby, but 04:15 far out in the Pacific, with no possible help in any direction.

I was asleep below, and Julie on watch in the cockpit. The weather had been worsening for 24 hours. By midnight the conditions were extremely bad, but we thought we had had as bad before. We were sailing slowly downwind under our tiny flax jib, slightly across the very large swell, the tops of which were breaking, and rolling forward with a roar, but rarely coming on board, The Aegre lifting to them as she always had, as they swept under the boat.

We changed watch at midnight as I describe in the Prologue to the book. I handed over to Julie, stripped off my wet weather gear, pulled the hatch shut behind me and collapsed on the bunk where I was nearly instantly asleep.

Four hours later it all went wrong.

ooOoo

Writing the story of what happened next, not just in the next hour, but over the next day, and the next, thirty-one days in all before we made it to land, I drew heavily on a diary we kept, writing in pencil in our Nautical Almanac which was the driest paper we could find. I still have it today, though now it’s barely legible.

Handwritten diary after the capsize
A page from the diary we kept after the capsiz

But long ago Julie and I typed out a transcript of it. With this at hand, I could relive it, and tell the story of what we did and how it felt to overcome the initial fear of exhaustion and drowning if the boat rolled again as the storm reached its peak. But then as that crisis slowly passed it was replaced by the fear that without our sextant to navigate with, (lost just after the capsize) we might never find land, while our food and water slowly dwindled.

As I explain in the story, we pieced together all the navigation resources and knowledge we had and evolved a theory of how we could determine our position, and from there set a course for the most appropriate island(s). But the theory wasn’t in any textbook I’d ever read. I kept wondering if I was missing some essential reality. Would it work and take us to land? Or had I got it all wrong? But it was the best we could think of, and we pinned our lives on it.

Out there, as the weather eventually improved and we sailed on, we tried to trust our sextantless navigational thinking, but surrounded by the empty horizon day after day while our food and water diminished, we couldn’t help wondering if this was how it would all end? We made lists of things we would do if we survived, and as I write in the book, life assumed a new value.

Is there anything to be learnt from reading about the capsize experience of Julie and me in the book? Yes, probably. We ourselves applied knowledge gained from stories of other voyagers in crisis, and this probably saved our lives.

ooOoo

The drawing of The Aegre capsize above is by maritime artist and author John Quirke. I met John at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart, Tasmania, in February 2023. John was there to present at the ‘Meet the Authors’ Festival session, where he gave a wry and yet hilarious introduction to his latest book, ‘Quirky History – Maritime Moments most history books don’t mention’. (If you’ve ever wondered how the Somali Camel Corps captured a German U-boat in 1944, this is for you – available at all good book shops).

Quirky History by John Quirke

I was there myself spruiking my soon-to-be-published Aegre Voyage book. We got chatting and he offered to not only do the capsize drawing but also to feature my book in his regular column in the Australian magazine ‘Afloat’. You can read his review here.

img1454

Signed copies of the book, The Voyage of The Aegre – From Scotland to the South Seas in a Shetland Boat are available from this website here. It can also be purchased from Boat Books Australia, in the UK from Central Books, the Shetland Times Bookshop and other good bookshops, and in the rest of the world from Amazon.

Below, the author outside the Shetland Times Bookshop, Lerwick, Shetland.

Nick Grainger holding copy of the Voyage of The Aegre outside a bookshop.

The Aegre Voyage website update 3 September 2023

Now that The Voyage of The Aegre has been published I’m progressively adding more background about the voyage and the book to the website.

After all these years isn’t my memory a little hazy?

One of the questions I’m asked about writing the story of The Aegre Voyage 50 years after it happened is how I managed to remember so much. Isn’t my memory a little hazy?

Part of diary written after the mid-Pacific capsize 9 Sept 1974
Part of the diary written after the mid-Pacific capsize 9 Sept 1974

To answer this I’ve created a page about how I gathered materials and re-immersed myself in the story, how the book evolved and the assistance I was given. I’ve included an example of a letter home written on a long passage (one of many), old photos and a page of the log we kept after the capsize. See Writing the story after all these years.

The Cruise of The Kate

I’ve also added to the website information about an inspiring but little-known book today, The Cruise of The Kate by E E Middleton. Early in my story of The Voyage of The Aegre, I mention how I was influenced by Middleton’s account of a solo voyage around England in 1869 in an engineless flush-decked 23ft yawl.

In my opinion, it’s still as inspiring a read for the small boat sailor as when it was written 153 years ago.

The Cruise of The Kate

It’s an amazing story you can learn more about here and also see more pictures of The Kate.

To learn how you can buy the Voyage of the Aegre book please go here.

There are also reviews of the book.

Thank you for subscribing to my website. If you have any questions or comments about The Aegre voyage, please contact me. Nicholas Grainger

Publishing update 22 August 2023

The book: The Voyage of The Aegre launched in Scotland to positive reviews.

The Voyage of The Aegre book was launched in Lerwick, Shetland, during the Tall Ships Festival, 26-29 July 2023. See Shetland Launch to read all about it and listen to an interview with author Nick Grainger streamed by 60North Radio.

Nick in front of the Shetland Times Bookshop, Lerwick, Shetland

Following the Lerwick visit, Nick travelled to Scourie, the small village on the northwest coast of Scotland, the departure point of The Aegre, to tell the voyage story. A sentimental journey after 50 years. Read about it here.

Positive reviews have been coming in from yachting journalists and general readers, see Reviews.

Signed copies of the book can be bought from this website and shipped to most countries. It is also available through bookshops in the UK, including the Shetland Times Bookshop and through Central Books, and in Australia and New Zealand from Boat Books Australia. It can be bought in the US/Canada and worldwide through Amazon both in paperback and Kindle format.

The book website has been updated with a revised home page, a revised Privacy Policy, a Refund Policy and information on Billing Security

The initial print run of the book was relatively short so if you want a signed first edition you’d best order it soon.

People who emailed me before August asking me to reserve a copy, it’s here with your name on it. Please order through the website.

Thank you for your support.

Nicholas Grainger

Publishing update 12 July 2023

Details of the Lerwick book launch, a talk where it all began 50 years ago, and all about how we measured distance run at sea aboard The Aegre.

The Voyage of The Aegre book will be launched in Lerwick, Shetland, just before the Tall Ships Festival on Tuesday, 25th July, in the Lerwick library at 5:30 pm, where I will be ‘in conversation’ with local ocean voyager Andrew Halcrow. The Shetland Times bookshop will have copies of the book on hand for sale.

I’ll be in Lerwick all week, then on Saturday 29th July, travelling to Scourie, on the west coast of Sutherland. Julie and I lived and worked in Scourie from February to July 1973 while local boatbuilder Bob Macinness decked The Aegre, and we conducted sea trials. We sailed away on 24th July 1973. Fifty years ago this month. I’ll be giving a talk on The Aegre voyage in the Scourie village hall at 7:30pm on Saturday 29th July. Iona Shaw, in Scouriemore, has copies of the book for sale. Half the proceeds from book sales in Scourie will go to the local school.

People in Scourie gave us a lot of help back in 1973, elderly local boatbuilder Bob Macinnes particularly so. He and I had many long discussions about our proposed voyage and every aspect of it, which is how he came to lend us a precious antique from his boatshed. Read about it in a new page I’ve added to the ‘Artifacts’ tab on the website about the book, titled ‘Measuring Distance Run at Sea’

Where to buy the book: in the UK from good bookshops and Central Books; in the US from Amazon. In Australia and NZ contact Nicholas Grainger

Publishing update 5 July 2023

The book is now available in the UK/EU, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and many other countries. A Yachting World magazine review of the book will be out in mid-July.

In the UK and EU, The Voyage of The Aegre book is now available through good bookshops and online from Central Books and other online stores. In bookstores, you’ll probably have to order it until stocks arrive.

In the US and Canada, The Voyage of The Aegre is available on Amazon. There are two versions available. They have exactly the same content. One is printed in the US and is available with a local P&P fee (or Prime) and a relatively quick delivery time. The other is the original edition printed by Gutenberg Press and published in the UK. To bring that one into the USA/Canada costs much more in freight and takes longer. Check the source, freight fee and delivery time to distinguish them. The small differences between the books are detailed below. The US version is not available in the UK.

All regions have access to a Kindle version on Amazon. For less than the price of two coffees, the Kindle version has all the content, the maps, diagrams and photos.

Sorry folks, in Australia, New Zealand and many other countries, while both the UK and US versions are now available on Amazon country websites, all currently incur international freight charges, raising the price and leading to longer delivery times. I will bring into Australia a limited number of the UK version in mid-August and mail them directly to purchasers in AU and NZ. Please contact me to reserve one. We may do a short print run in Australia if there is enough interest.

In Japan, the book is available through the wonderful Kinokuniya book store.

Small differences between the US and UK versions of the book.

  • Both are 6″x 9″ paperbacks with 271 pages and have the same content, including all maps, diagrams and photographs.
  • The UK version has cover flaps that open out to reveal charts of the Atlantic and Pacific with the course of The Aegre marked. The US version doesn’t have cover flaps but has the same maps one page in at the front and back of the book.
  • The UK version is on creme paper, the US version on white paper.
  • The UK version has a sewn binding, the US version has a glued Perfect Binding.

Both are lovely books.

If you buy the book through Amazon, please post a review after you have read it. This helps the profile of the book, and more people will see it.

Yachting World magazine review of the book

Watch out in mid-July for Yachting World magazine. The August issue, out mid-July, will contain a review of the book by yachting journalist, sailor and author Tom Cunliffe in his ‘Great Seamanship’ column.

For more on The Voyage of The Aegre see the book website.

Publishing update 23 June 2023

Good News! The Voyage of The Aegre book is now available. An eBook can be downloaded from Amazon. A Print on Demand (POD) version is coming.

Book on top of ocean chart

The book The Voyage of The Aegre – From Scotland to the South Seas in a Shetland boat – has been printed and will very soon be available from the UK distributor Central Books.

An eBook (Kindle) version has been created and is available from Amazon now.

A POD (Print on Demand) paperback version will soon be available in North America.

Full details on the The Aegre Voyage website.

Publishing update 14 June 2023

Printing progress, eBook, Yachting World review, Book tour, and navigation charts that survived.

Printing of the book of the voyage of The Aegre is complete. Yes finally!

The book will soon be in Central Books, the distributor in the UK, and available from them online. Bookshops will soon be able to source it from Gardners (book wholesalers). More details of where and when you can buy a copy in the UK very soon.

eBook

For readers outside the UK (and in), an eBook and paperback will soon be available on Amazon. Details coming.

Yachting World review

Well-known sailor and journalist Tom Cunliffe has written a review of the book, which will appear in his ‘Great Seamanship’ column in the August edition of Yachting World magazine, out mid-July.

Talking about the book

In late July and early August, I’ll be in the UK to help promote the book.

  • Lerwick (Shetland), 25-28 July (during the Tall Ships Festival)
  • Scourie, Sutherland (where we sailed from), 29-31 July, with a talk on the 29th of July.
  • Falmouth, 1-4 August.
  • London, 5-9 August.
  • Other places to be confirmed.
  • Back in Australia, I’ll be talking at the Wooden Boat Association Victoria meeting on 20th September.
Charts added to the book website

Luckily for us aboard The Aegre, a number of our navigation charts survived the capsize and swamping of The Aegre mid-Pacific. I’ve added examples of them to the Artefacts section of the book website with notes explaining them, including a tattered Pacific Pilot chart of the South Pacific, a sister of the one we used to plan and track our course to Samoa after the capsize. Also, the chart of our approach to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas (after sailing 4,200 miles from Panama) with my position fixes still showing, and more.

Visit the Navigation charts page in the Artefacts section on the website to see them.

Publishing Update 25 May 2023

Publishing update as at 25 May 2023. plus Before the Voyage: the Boat’s story, and all about the Dream Ship

Good News – the book is with the printer.

The book is finally with the printer. All being well printing of The Voyage of The Aegre book will be completed by mid-June. Then we’ll start sending out advance copies for review. On track for the launch and publication in late July.

The Aegre departing Ardmore, NW Scotland
The Aegre departing Ardmore, NW Scotland
Cut it to 250!

At first writing, The Voyage of The Aegre book had about 350 pages. ‘Too long!’ said the first publisher to take a serious interest. ‘Cut it to 250’. It was hard. It wasn’t a matter of re-arranging a few paragraphs. 100 pages had to go. It was a blood bath. A rewrite, then another. But the book is the better for it. However, lots of good stuff ended up on the floor. For instance, I’d written supporting notes on every chapter (a good 30 pages) and added appendices (another 30 pages), and then in the harsh light of the editing room, I had to accept that some of the stories I’d included just weren’t central, but a diversion, and they had to go too (30 pages of them), which together with thorough editing left 261 pages.

But all was not lost. I resolved to publish selected chapter notes and appendices to the story on the book website as background for the ardent reader. Here is one.

The Boat’s story

This is all about the boat, The Aegre, before Julie and I bought her. It’s quite a story, told in previous owner Andy Bryce’s own words, with characters like Big Jim from Swona, the Laverne, and many a pint after a hard day’s sail across the Pentland Firth where the tide can run at 16 knots, and on a good day the wind is merely a full gale.

I started this backgrounding with the story of the Nelly Bly – now I’ve expanded ‘About The Aegre’ into six pages. Don’t miss them.

Another lesser-known but inspiring read :
The Cruise of the Dream Ship by Ralph Stock – 1921

One of my favourite cruising books, the one I pull out on a cold wet Sunday afternoon ‘cos it always makes me smile.

Stock writes of his wartime dream in the trenches of France, to sail away to the South Seas on his own boat. A fanciful and extraordinary idea in 1917 for a man of relatively modest means. But somehow he makes it come to pass, and heads off with his sister Peter (sic) and good friend Steve, aboard a 47ft Colin Archer sloop built in 1908. With no paid hands but a piano below. Across the Atlantic and much of the Pacific. Common today, but not so in 1919. His writing is a delight to read with his dry English humour. I’ve created a page on the website under ‘Lesser know inspiring reads’ which is under the Artifacts tab. Here: The Cruise of the Dream Ship.

Publishing Update 10 May 2023 + Not in the book…

Publishing update re the Voyage of The Aegre book; Storm sails for The Aegre; Not in the book: The story of Nelly Bly; Dinghy cruising in 1963, a little gem; and more on curraghs.

Publishing update – The Voyage of The Aegre

Book cover of The Voyage of The Aegre

The book, The Voyage of The Aegre, is about to go to Gutenberg Press in Malta to be printed. We’re on course to launch the book in Lerwick, Shetland, in late July 2023, during the Tall Ships Festival. It’ll be exactly 50 years since Julie and I set sail from NW Scotland, heading south in our little Shetland boat.

Storm sails for The Aegre

Bob Macinnes, the Scourie boatbuilder, inspects our new flax storm sails. March 1973. The story behind them is in the book.

Bob Macinnes inspects the flax storm sails made for us by Kip Gurren in Orkney

Not in the book: the story of Nelly Bly

Julie and I bought The Aegre from Andy Bryce in NW Scotland in 1972. He’d had her built in 1966, based on his experience with another Shetland boat, Nelly Bly. I’ve added the story of Nelly Bly, as told me by Andy Bryce, to the website as an introduction to the ‘About The Aegre‘ page.

Small boat cruising books

On a recent Dinghy Cruising Facebook page, readers were asked to nominate their favourite small boat cruising book. This got me thinking because I’ve got a few that are gems. Books like Lone Voyager – The story of Howard Blackburn who sailed across the Atlantic alone, twice, in the late 1890s; The Wind Calls the Tune – the story of the 20ft Nova Espero sailed by Stanley Smith and Charles Violet across the North Atlantic from Nova Scotia to England in 1949; and the 1938 Pocket Cruisers by Francis B. Cooke which I found for $4.00 in a small New Zealand 2nd hand bookshop. And lots more. To share them, I’ve started another heading under Artifacts on the website. The first little gem I’m looking at is Dinghy Cruising, by Ian Nicolson, published back in 1963. See Lesser known inspiring reads.

More about curraghs

Following the curragh story in the last post, an old friend wrote to me about his 94-year-old neighbour in NZ who had written about curraghs in the very first edition of ‘Afloat’ magazine in 1994. I’ve added his notes to the bottom of the curragh story on The Aegre website.

Book cover of The Voyage of The Aegre
Verified by MonsterInsights