This is one of my special books… it is a first edition and has been signed by the author, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. It was given to me on my birthday this year by H’s parents and it now seems that I owe them 2 lots of thanks… first for giving me a special book and the second for giving me such an excellent book!

The story flows so easily that it is actually hard to put it down. As with other books of this type, it details all of the hard-times and the good-times but what really makes this story different is the context and the person. The constant worries about his boat, Suhaili, and RK-J’s amazing abilities to render temporarily permanent repairs really keep you turning the pages and would even impress Dave!

Bearing in mind that it was also a race, the story really comes to an end just a bit too soon. It has the most memorable end of any book I have read though… Falmouth!! If you take into consideration that the book takes only a few days to read, yet the voyage was nearly a year long, you get a deeper understanding of the true scale of, what most certainly is, one of the greatest sea adventures of all time.