To The Great Southern Sea

To The Great Southern Sea
by William Albert Robinson
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1st Ed. XVIII, 19-223 PP with 4 diagrams, plus 16 pages with 20 b/w photos. Fp: Varua's sails etched against a greying sky. Eps: Map on the voyage of the Varua. Cloth cover, device on front cover. Spine lightly sunned. Old water mark on lower corner of back cover, rear endpaper and 4 last leaves without affecting text. Very good reading copy. 22.2 x 14.5. A round voyage from Tahiti to the West Coast of South & Central America.
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Publication date 1956-01-01
Topics Sailing, Adventure
Collection opensource
Language English
Item Size 142.8M
Svaap is gone, wrecked, unattended in a storm, anchored in the lonely Galapagos. Robinson barely survived a life threatening medical emergency on that same remote island. WWII sidelined any cruising ideas he may have had. Robinson spent the war years designing and building small boats for the war effort out of his Massachusetts shipyard. Despite all this, he did not stop planning and scheming. In his spare moments he developed an innovative brigantine named Varua. At war's end, he closed down his shipyard, loaded up Varua and sailed into the sunset to make a new home in Tahiti. But this was only to be a temporary stop.

From his Tahitian home, he decided to really test his Varua design by sailing it against the fearsome Roaring Forties of the Southern Pacific. If he and Varua survived that challenge they would follow the Humboldt Current up the South American coast, returning to his beloved Galapagos Islands, then continue to Mangareva and finally completing the loop returning to Tahiti.

As Robinson wrote in his book, if he survived the challenges of the treacherous weather and the monstrous waters of the southern seas, he would bask in the "rolling enchantment of sun-sprinkled seas, new vistas, and fascinating landfalls."

It's classic William Robinson, "pitting himself against the elements and celebrating in nature."