Voyages of a Simple Sailor (paperback)

As a young man, and living in New Zealand, Roger D. Taylor joins a square rigger as crew. A poor decision by the skipper puts the ship and crew in an impossible position. We know they are going to be shipwrecked from the outset, which only makes the slow death of a ship and the sickening angst of the crew as they anticipate their fate harder to read. But you can’t put it down.

In response to his narrow escape, Roger builds his own sailing yacht and decides on his own rules for how he will sail. The test of those rules is no less dramatic in the second story of the book, when he enters solo the 1974 TransTasman Yacht Race, and runs straight into a one of Eastern Australia’s worst ever storms.

But Roger is not finished with reinventing sailing. He rebuilds another yacht, the now famous Mingming, and enters the first Jester Challenge – an event which still runs today, and which has slowly acquired mythic status among sailors of small boats on vast oceans.

Carron River Verdict

Voyages of a Simple Sailor is the story behind Roger D. Taylor, renowned solo Arctic sailor and award-winning writer. We find here the ideals of youth, thirst for adventure, and a great deal of learning the hard way.

Voyages of a Simple Sailor is formative, of course. Also driven, compelling, utterly terrifying - and ultimately cathartic and wonderful.

Make time to read it in one go!

The Author

Roger D. Taylor is renowned for sailing small yachts, alone, with no engine, to far flung seas in the Arctic. He has been awarded the Jester Medal by the Ocean Cruising Club. For his writing he is a winner of the Prix Henri Queffélec and the Prix Albatros.

What you get

This is a quality paperback with photographs and a couple of nice hand-drawn illustrations - which become a hallmark of Rogers' later books.

Author: Roger D. Taylor

NEW paperback; 270 pages and 32 B&W images

Published by The FitzRoy Press

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