Taking a Little Sailing Ship: A View of the World from a Thirty-Foot Schooner

Carol Laing is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

The true story of a couple who sail around the world—from Squamish,
B.C., to Lunenburg, N.S.—in a 30-foot schooner called Sea Helen.

This is a lovely book, easy to read and written with great warmth. The
author pulls no punches with his philosophies, his likes, and his
dislikes. I got a very strong sense of his personality while reading the
book and had a few good laughs at some of his opinionated comments.
Ocean sailing is not romanticized in this account. The author is frank
about scarcity of funds, the inconveniences, and the fears of being at
sea—the festering sores, seasickness, navigational worries, and fear
of things that go “bump” in the night—and also about how good it
is to be back on land after a long passage.

Most commendably, Gehrig’s companion, Marie-José Hersier, is
portrayed as a gentle and gallant soul; he writes about her very
affectionately but without affectation. Gehrig’s style complements
long-distance sailing; some things he glosses over and others he
recounts in relative detail. Time and events merge together. My slight
criticism of this book would be that one is often left to guess at what
place is being visited next; what day, month, or year we are in; and how
long it took us to get there from where we were. Also, having been
spoiled by other around-the-world sailing accounts, I felt that some
photographs would have enhanced this book.

In all, though, this is one of the better books for the armchair
traveller that I have read.