the ian nicolson omnibus

Here you have Ian Nicolson at his very best: stories and ideas pouring from his prolific pen and proving an excellent read for a winter’s evening or a summer’s sunny day. In “The Log of the Maken” Nicolson joins a Canadian and a Norwegian to sail the Maken from England to Canada via the Panama Canal. This unlikely crew complete their voyage successfully (but not before thieves almost strip the Maken in Las Palmas, Nicolson wins a television contest in San Francisco and all three lose their hearts in Barbados). Undaunted and perhaps even spurred on by his Maken exploits, Nicolson was in Vancouver when he decided to sail home to England. The story of how he hitch-hiked from the West Coast of Canada to the East, searched for and discovered a 30 foot bare-hull yacht, built and rigged her (The Sea-Saint, now known as St. Elizabeth) and his subsequent passage home, without a dollar to his name in “one hop”, is here recounted in admirable style. Finally, Nicolson concentrates on building his own yacht: the St. Mary. But he also points out: “Building a boat is like digging a hole in the road. Everyone reckons that they personally could do it better, do it quicker, do it neater and do it with less noise and less fuss”.