cover image Gentlemen Never Sail to Weather: The Story of an Accidental Odyssey

Gentlemen Never Sail to Weather: The Story of an Accidental Odyssey

Denton R. Moore. Prospector Press, $29.95 (467pp) ISBN 978-0-9628828-0-7

Moore, an ex-Marine, lawyer and government official, resigned from his Washington, D.C., job in 1981 to sail around the world with his wife in a 41-year-old Concordia yawl. This account of their nearly five years of travel is the print version of a lengthy home movie, complete with details from the ship's logbook, mishaps on the high seas, tales of fellow sailors and difficult crew members and brief glimpses of portside life in places as diverse as Panama, Fiji, New Zealand and South Africa. Moore's prose is breezy and clear, and sailing enthusiasts or those wishing to duplicate such a trip may find the book instructive. Indeed, Moore shares his hard-won knowledge of seamanship and includes a fairly technical appendix on sailing tactics. The general reader, however, must plow through much narrative to reach any nuggets of interest, such as a visit to the French Polynesian island that was the setting of Melville's novel Typee and an observation, based on negotiations with the New Zealand Customs Service, that ``Kiwis dislike and therefore instinctively avoid confrontations.'' (June)