Once is Enough (The Sailor's Classics #6): (The Sailor's Classics)

In late December 1956, the 46-foot wooden ketch Tzu Hang sailed from Melbourne, Australia, bound for England by way of Cape Horn. Aboard were Miles Smeeton; his wife, Beryl; and their friend John Guzzwell. At that time only a very few small sailboats had ever rounded Cape Horn, and none had sailed as far south as the route the Tzu Hang followed from Australia, just north of the Antarctic iceberg limit. Mountaineers as well as sailors, the Smeetons epitomized the adventurous spirit of the postwar years. Raban's introduction to pays homage to this fine story and explores its genesis. Miles Smeeton had been an officer in the British army in World War II and was among the many British veterans who could not adjust to home and career after the war. Unlike so many others whose marriages fell apart, however, he found that his wife's wanderlust and love of adventure exceeded his own.

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Jonathan RabanOne. Preparations in MelbourneTwo. False StartThree. Through the Bass StraitFour. Across the South TasmanFive. Into the Southern OceanSix. The Way of a ShipSeven. This Is Survival Training!Eight. RecoveryNine. The Trek NorthTen. First Days in ChileEleven. Repairs in TalcahuanoTwelve. Still in TalcahuanoThirteen. To Coronel AgainFourteen. Not Again!Fifteen. There's a Wind from the SouthSixteen. EpilogueAppendix. Management in Heavy Weather

About the Author :
Miles Smeeton was a British army officer in World War II. After his retirement from the army, the Smeetons emigrated to Canada and bought a farm in British Columbia. Postwar fiscal restraints prevented them from removing their assets from the United Kingdom, so they decided to buy a boat in England, sail it to British Columbia, and resell it there. The boat they found was the Tzu Hang, and by the time they reached British Columbia they had decided to sell the farm and keep the boat. With their daughter, Clio, they voyaged from Canada to the South Pacific, and wrote about these experiences in a book called The Sea Was Our Village. From Australia, Clio was sent back to England to school, and the Smeetons, by this time experienced sailors and writers, undertook the voyage described in this book.

Review :
"Unique among books of maritime adventure." - Times Literary Supplement "They are the first people ever to return alive to tell the story of a boat being somersaulted....And they certainly make fascinating company for a reader with his eyes on the heights of human endeavour." - Sunday Times Jonathan Raban, Series Editor, says this about The Sailor's Classics: "After nearly two hundred years, the literature of small-boat voyaging is enormous. It is the function of The Sailor's Classics to recognize and celebrate the small number of truly important books in this library. Some have been chosen because the voyages they describe are themselves of unignorable merit; some because the sheer brilliance of their writing demands their inclusion. Most combine in equal parts serious nautical interest with literary excellence. These are books whose vigor has not dimmed with the passage of time, whose voice is as alive and meaningful now as it was on their first publication - the books that should be essential reading for every literate sailor. It is from the interweaving of discovery, emotion, adventure, peril, and repose that the pattern of sailing literature is made, and we shall do our best to honor each and every one in our selection of the best books ever written about life aboard small boats at sea.