Seamanship

Thoughts from a small boat in a big sea. Early in the year, Adam Nicolson decided to leave his comfy life at home on a Sussex farm and go for an adventure. Equipped with the Auk, a 42-foot wooden ketch, and a friend who at least knew how to sail, he set off up the Atlantic coasts of the British Isles: Cornwall to Scilly, over to Pembrokeshire and the west of Ireland, to the Hebrides and its offliers, St Kilda and North Rona, before heading on to Orkney, and finally to the Faroes, a 200-mile leap out into the autumn winds of the North Atlantic. But the book is not just a travel journal. Adam…