Topic: Book Review
I have read the first two novels in the series. I found them reasonably good entertainment at the time, that is about a year ago. When I came to write this review I browsed over the other user reviews of the first books. I honestly could not remember some of the minor characters and incidents referred to, so I feel Stockwin fails the test of "memorable writing". I am one of the readers who feels that the character Kydd lacks depth and development, however that is my personal taste to desire such a thing, and it is perhaps part of the Age of Fighting Sail genre, that characters are rather one-dimensional. There are certain conventions to be followed, not neccessarily rigidly, in most genre fiction.
I am most disappointed when I read reviewers who give Julian Stockwin's books a lot of praise for authenticity, and then I find parts of the story that I do have some knowledge of, and they don't seem authentic. The worst instance I have seen of this was in "Seaflower". The navigational aspects of the book seemed quite sloppy.
In this discussion, "miles" means "nautical miles".
The movements of "Seaflower" seemed too fast to me. I was reading the paperback edition.
On page 309 Seaflower is to "strike south then East" and it will take "3 or 4 days to Barbados". If she went 300 miles south, then 1000 miles east, which is what I scaled off my National Geographic Map of the Caribbean, that would 1300 nautical miles. SF would have to sail at more than 12 knots to do it in 4 days. The theoretical maximum hull speed of a 70ft vessel is 11 knots. A modern yacht might manage that but an 18th century vessel loaded with men, stores, and heavy guns would not have a hope. 3 days is out of the question.
On page 308-310, she weighs anchor in the late afternoon, departs Kingston, and turns east before noon next day!! That is either sailing at 25 knots, or not going deep in the Caribbean to avoid the enemy, as was the stated intention. As a mere detail, the often-mentioned noon sight would establish that they were on the best latitude for the easterly course.
On page 311, dirty weather is seen ahead, that is to the east. In a tropical revolving storm,that would put the wind from the north, on the port beam. The captain orders "ease sheets, bear off to leeward, set course NNW". This means the fore-and-aft rigged sloop would have to gybe (risky in a heavy breeze), and sail very close-hauled to go NNW. Not impossible but difficult and pointless, as the storm will probably go that way too. And indeed, (p313) "they struck south then southwest into the reef-strewn west Caribbean". Did the Captain decide this? We are not told. It was not a good strategy I feel, with the storm centre to the north, they should go east, where there is most sea-room, the wind is on their port beam or astern, and it's where they want to go anyway.
They lose track of their position (very likely in the storm) and run up on an island(p316). "The tidal surge deposited Seaflower gently among storm-tossed coconut palms" - this is so poetic I will not begin to examine if it is possible or not, but will return to navigational incongruities.
Kydd is given the task of sailing the longboat with a VIP passenger to complete the mission. He knows his latitude. We are not told. He sails to the Spanish Main, the northern coast of South America, we are vaguely told it is somewhere near Barranquilla, and Cuerda Grande. This took one and a half days. The exact position is given to Kydd by a local inhabitant. Barranquilla certainly exists, "near half-way along the Carribean Coast" but I have not been able to find Cuerda Grande. The party confer. Port Royal is supposed to be 500 miles away, 3 or 4 days sail with the NE tradewinds on the beam. The small size of the boat makes the projected 130 to 170 miles per day progress wildly unlikely. I have found accounts of the open-boat voyages of Bligh and of Flinders in the same era and they managed 70 and 80 miles per day respectively. Kydd and the VIP decide to make for Barbados, expecting to take 6 days. To fit the situation so far described, this will be 700+ miles, at 120 per day.
Kydd intends to run along the 14degree latitude. Good idea, that is how a lot of navigation was done before chronometers became available. Much is made of the importance of longitude. They should have been able to manage quite well without it. Kydd changes course when he reaches 65degrees west, whence he will sail "a couple of hundred miles, say no more than a day of sailing" to the Windward Isles (p334). He's even quicker than I thought! The change of course is unneccessary, he could continue until he sees the islands (more about this below) and they should recognise where they are because they have been in this area before. When I read on p338 " The passage between the two islands was more than 25 miles; at their height-of-eye they would probably not even see them.", I had the jolt of disbelief that set me off on checking all these points. I remembered reading an account (Adrift, Steve Callaghan, 1981) in which Callaghan could recognise three large islands in the Leeward Isles from his tiny liferaft. Could not Kydd do the same?
According to my maps the passage between St Vincent and St Lucia is just 19 miles wide. The highest peaks of the islands are 30 miles apart. If the boat is exactly in the middle of the gap, the peaks will be 15 miles away. Inspection of Norie's Nautical Tables tells me that anything above 35 metres will be visible at 15 miles from a height-of-eye of 5 feet. The peaks are 950 metres and 1234 metres high!
To extend this idea, Barbados is 340 metres high, and comes into view at 39 miles. anything above 650 metres on St Vincent is still visible at 54 miles. So at that point, Kydd will be able to see both islands at the same time. Also, Barbados is 15 miles wide at a distance of 80 miles from St Vincent. Quite a large target navigationally speaking.
Stockwin appears to totally ignore the real geography of the area when he throws in a last-minute crisis, with the boat hitting an uncharted reef somewhere in the middle of the st Lucia/St Vincent Passage. The National Geographic Map shows the depth in the passage as over 200 metres. As another has commented, this problem is solved with ease. The Windward Isles squadron just happens to sail over the horizon at the right time to save Kydd & company. Stockwin tells us on his site that he loves to visit these locales to give his works authenticity. I am sure he enjoys himself but he has sold us very short with this book.