When 23-year-old Michael Chapman Pincher enlisted as crew for an Atlantic voyage back in 1974, he had never sailed so much as a dinghy. Nor did he realise that the skipper of Gay Gander and his sailing companion were actually eloping together and leaving families behind.
The 37 ft long yacht which he boarded was a Rambler Class keel sloop, designed by Laurent Giles in the 1960s and owned by John Francis Kearney Farrell. Farrell told Michael that the plan was to set sail for the Canaries and to cross the Atlantic to Antigua by Christmas. The young man’s passage would be free in return for a contribution to rations.
Michael, son of the celebrated journalist Chapman Pincher, kept his own detailed log which he left back in the Caribbean. However, several decades later, a message on social media during the pandemic led to its return.
Long Lost Log: Diary of a Virgin Sailor
The result is Long Lost Log: Diary of a Virgin Sailor, described by Robin Hanbury-Tenison as “a great rollicking page turner”, while Dr Peter Boylan has said it is a “wonderfully entertaining tale” where “the naughty bits made the voyage such fun”.
Coincidentally, the book’s publisher, Antony Farrell of Lilliput Press, is son of the late John Francis Kearney Farrell, and he still has a copy of his father’s original log of that trip.
“Long Lost Log: Diary of a Virgin Sailor” (Lilliput Press, 16 euro) was launched at Howth Yacht Club, Co Dublin, this week, and its author spoke to Wavelengths below
Read WM Nixon's review of the book here
