Sailing Ships'
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
War
With The Horn
Until Sir Francis Chichester sailed single-handed round Cape Horn in his Gypsy Moth IV, few people over rhe last half-century gave much of a I thought to that greatest of all chal- j lenges to mariners in the days of sail, i To a certain extent, Chichester deni grated the Horn and its dangers. Was i it such a challenge to the big square riggers when an elderly man could take it on in a 57 ft ketch? Just how ! great was his feat and why the sea men of old, who had rounded the Horn, were never tired of boasting about it, is told graphically and with great detail by that deep-sea adven turer Alan Villiers in The War With Cape Horn. First published in 1971 and now out as a Pan paperback, Villiers' book tells the whole story of the battles lost and won with the Horn. Many of the famous sailing ships tell their own stories in their logs many of which Villiers found by chance in an old aeroplane hangar in Middlesex. (The War With Cape Horn, by Alan Villiers, Pan, $1.50.)