THE CAPE HORNERS’ CLUB

Although my sea legs are shaky, there is a romance to sea voyages that even the most land-lubberly can understand.

Cape Horn: the name alone conjures up images of angry seas, careworn sailors, ancient shipping routes and adventurous exploration. To round the Cape puts you in an exclusive club and Adrian Flanagan is well qualified to write about this savage place, where waves and winds collide. He rounded the Cape westabout in February 2006.

Flanagan writes with vigour and understanding about the yachtsmen who have rounded the Horn, including Vito Dumas and Francis Chichester, the square-rigged ship British Isles that took 71 days before getting clear, and what rounding the Cape means to the modern sailor. Reading Flanagan’s book will give you goosebumps: the treacherous currents and rogue waves, the ferocity of nature and the fearlessness needed to face her. Cape Horn is the mariners’ Holy Grail.