It has been a long while since I’ve given myself the time to read a book, and despite having Roger Taylor’s latest musings on pre-order, I have only recently taken it upon myself to work my way through the sizeable text. In keeping with something I started doing years ago, and have shamefully neglected of late, here’s my book review of Mingming & the art of minimal ocean sailing.
It was with considerable disappointment that I closed the book. When I pre-ordered the book months ago, I presumed, given the title, that Roger had moved on from travel accounts and entered the realm of the how-to. I was, without too much thought, presuming the book would be a Corribee based guide to doing great things in a small boat. Oh, how I looked forward to wading through diagrams and statistics, much like the famed Heavy Weather Sailing. The book is not as I presumed, but that was most certainly not the source of my disappointment in that closing page. Once again, I was left cursing Mr Taylor for not writing more. How addictive those pages had become, night after night, following his progress around the Atlantic and neighbouring seas. The book is lengthy and I read slowly, so it took a week to read, but by that terminal sentence I was hooked and craved more. More words, Roger, damn it! Why couldn’t you have crammed another two adventures in there. Perhaps three, or four! Five would surely have been possible if you’d given up work?
It perhaps holds some extra endearment to me because Mingming is a Newbridge Corribee, just like my own Kudu, and although brandishing an altogether different rig, I could read his description of the interior, then gaze up from the pages and see it in the flesh.
Mingming & the art of minimal ocean sailing isn’t a how-to guide. It follows a similar format to Taylor’s first book, Voyages of a Simple Sailor, in that it’s a beautifully told account of various singlehanded ocean adventures, but if you read between the lines, it contains all the how-to information one could reasonably expect to gain from a book. As I read the pages I began to accumulate a list of technical questions, and began wondering if I could be so bold as to email him for the answers, but without fail each of my queries was dissected, analysed, and elaborated upon as the pages were turned. In fact, my mind was indeed firmly settled on a particularly controversial aspect of heavy weather sailing, but I fear I’ve been convinced entirely the other way on the matter now. I shan’t say what, since I’ll write about that another time, but it’ll suffice to say that he makes a very good argument.
Mingming & the art of minimal ocean sailing is a true classic adventurer book, and in places deeply thoughtful. There’s a particular passage involving an imagined encounter with a Blue Whale which was the most moving piece of text I’d read in a long, long while. I’ll leave you to find it for yourself.
So, my verdict, if not already obvious enough, is go buy this book now. I promise it won’t disappoint.
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In 2006 when Dee – this is a bit of a mouthful – sailed around the world solo nonstop against the prevailing winds and currents, I followed her on the Aviva website. Nearly everyday at work I’d visit the site and read the updates, listen to the podcasts and perhaps a watch a video if there was one. I found it fascinating and was hooked on her own adventure.
Who is Roger Taylor? I had no idea when I stumbled accross this book. The Queen drummer? Well sure yeah, that’s one Roger Taylor, but this Roger – Roger D Taylor – is somebody far, far more interesting.
