A Waterbiography
Robert C. Leslie
Read by Peter Kelleher
Robert C. Leslie (1826-1901) was an artist and writer who, at an early age fell in love with the sea, the sea of Sail, not of Steam. He describes the progression of this love from wave to wave and boat to boat. Leslie sailed during the Great Age of Sail before Industrialism had taken possession of Britain.
Leslie comments on the early days of single-handed small boat sailing:
"When I first began boating in the early forties [1840s], what is now called single-handed cruising was almost unknown among amateurs....people had a vague dread of it. Much of this has passed away, and hundreds of amateur boatmen, and even ladies, are now as much at home and really safer in a sailing-boat than they would be on the back of a hunter or bicycle."
Leslie writes of one of his favorite cruising grounds about 1850: "No railway in my time came within fifteen miles of Sidmouth, and the few enterprising visitors who reached there by coach from Exeter called it dull. It was certainly not a gay place, but most of those who resided there in that happy valley did so rather with a view to quiet, and among them it was rare to find any one disposed to tamper with the grave routine of country life there."
A Waterbiography captures a Lost Age.
(Summary by Peter Kelleher) (8 hr 5 min)
Chapters
| Ch 1 | 39:39 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 2 | 40:17 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 3 | 32:25 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 4 | 36:04 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 5 | 40:37 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 6 | 30:10 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 7 | 37:23 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 8 | 27:00 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 9 | 29:47 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 10 | 31:53 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 11 | 27:54 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 12 | 35:02 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 13 | 29:54 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
| Ch 14 | 47:49 | Read by Peter Kelleher |
Reviews
It's a shame about the reader
A LibriVox Listener
I think the reader is the same one that puts the congregation to sleep at church on Sunday. He is very pretentious and attempts to highlight his superior reading skills by carefully sounding out each word like a second grader. It's such a shame because the subject matter interests me. I made it about one minute into the reading. I will purchase the book and read it at home when I have time.
Fine and unusual
Ernest Sternberg
The other reviews are unfair to this book. This is a fine account of the beginnings of single-handed recreational sailing, just as the age of commercial sail was fading away in favor of steam. It is fascinating to see that the very concept of single-handed sailing was treated with suspicion and fear. The narrator is definitely competent and retains the listener's interest, though sometimes he has some technical problems and the sound briefly fades out.
sound effects = decreased intelligibility
Arran
The constant sound effects make it hard for me to understand the words.