40,000 Miles in a Canoe (Sailor's Classics) - Softcover

Voss, John C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0071414266 ISBN 13: 9780071414265

Publisher: International Marine Publishing, 2003

Synopsis

40, 000 Miles in a Canoe Tells the story of Captain John C Voss, who, in 1904, completed a three-year journey across three oceans in a Native American dugout canoe converted to sail. Full description

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"I have found every word of Voss's concerning ships and the sea to be pure gold."--Weston Martyr, sailing author

On May 27, 1901, Captain John C. Voss, accompanied by journalist Norman Luxton, put to sea in the "Tilikum," a 38-foot dugout canoe. Joshua Slocum's best-sell, "Sailing Alone Around the World," had been published the year before, and Voss and Luxton's goal was to make a name for themselves by circling the globe in a vessel smaller than Slocum's "Spray." "Tilikum" was just 5 feet wide and drew a mere 24 inches fully loaded. Outfitted by Voss with a deck, a small keel, three stubby masts, a cockpit for the helmsman, and a tiny cabin, Voss's canoe was one of the oddest craft ever to attempt a deep-sea voyage. Her crew, too, was mismatched. Voss was a professional sailor who had been pushed ashore by the decline of commercial sail. Luxton, a nautical innocent, was along to record the voyage for posterity.

More than three years later, "Tilikum" arrived in England after a voyage of 40,000 miles--a journey fraught with perilous and exotic adventures on both land and sea. Luxton abandoned the boat in the South Seas, and his replacement was lost overboard in a storm. But Voss carried on, and in 1912 - 13 he wrote "The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss," the book that established him alongside Slocum as one of the greatest small-boat navigators of all time.

This volume in The Sailor's Classics restores in its entirety Captain Voss's account of his adventure in the "Tilikum," together with the more noteworthy of the two remaining narratives in Voss's original book, a voyage through a typhoon in the 19-foot yawl "Sea Queen." In the words of Jonathan Raban, "to possess thisbook is to have at your elbow your own compact fount of growling sea-wisdom, "the" classic primer on small-boat handling under all imaginable conditions." For sailors and armchair adventurers alike, "40,000 Miles in a Canoe" is an unforgettable read.

"It is the voice of Captain Voss that stops you in your tracks, like Coleridge's wedding guest detained by the Ancient Mariner; a gruff, bewhiskered, seadog's voice, rich in experience and personality. There's liquor on his breath, and a singular glitter in his eye."--from the introduction by Jonathan Raban

Captain John C. Voss is, without a doubt, one of the most colorful and controversial figures in 20th-century nautical history. During his lifetime, and for many years thereafter, he was labeled an adventurer, thief, saint, charlatan, even murderer. But one thing that Voss's friends and detractors alike agreed upon without reservation was his genius for practical seamanship.

This volume in The Sailor's Classics presents two epic, salt-encrusted sea tales from Voss's 1913 book, "The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss." "40,000 Miles in a Canoe" is the unforgettable account of his three-year voyage across three oceans in a Native American dugout canoe modified for sail. In "Sea Queen," Voss and his crew survive a monstrous typhoon in a tiny 19-foot yawl. This book is not just great storytelling, it is also the classic primer on small-boat seamanship.

About the Author:

Captain John Claus Voss said of himself, My seafaring life commenced in 1877, when I was quite a young man, and was spent in large sailing vessels, during which period I have filled all sorts of positions from deck boy up to master. It is unclear what year Voss was bornpossibly 1861, possibly earlierbut in the 1890s he left the sea for residence in Victoria, British Columbia, where he was listed as proprietor or co-proprietor of several hotels by 1895. By that time he was married with two sons and a daughter. His career in small boats began in 1897. His greatest voyage, in the Indian war canoe Tilikum, began in May 1901. After reaching England in 1904, Voss joined an expedition to Equador to search for gold, finally returning to Victoria in March 1906, by which time his marriage had ended and his former wife had moved to Oregon with the younger children. He married again in the spring of 1906, but his bride died in August of that same year. Voss went back to sea commanding sealing schooners until 1911, when sealing was banned by international treaty. Finding himself in Japan, he undertook the voyage of the Sea Queen described in this book. Later he fitted out yet another small vessel and vanished from Yokohama into the Pacific. Many presumed that he had drowned, but new evidence suggests that he spent his last years in the small inland California town of Tracy, where he drove a Model T jitney, or taxi, and is photographed with his daughter in 1920. He evidently died in Tracy in 1922. HOMETOWN: Victoria, British Columbia (deceased)

About this edition

• Publisher: International Marine Publishing
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0071414266
• ISBN 13: 9780071414265
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276