SECOND CHANCE

In 1973, somewhere off the Galapagos, Maralyn and Maurice Bailey's small sloop Auralyn was attacked and sunk by a killer whale. The Barleys soon found themselves adrift on a raft where they remained for 117 days until rescued by a Korean fishing vessel. To pass the time, they planned their new yacht Auralyn II and a trip to ""the uttermost""--around Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, in a general circumnavigation of South America, topped by a trip through the Panama Canal. Unlike Tristan Jones' trip across South America and through the Matto Grosso (p. 610), this is not an ""incredible voyage."" But for boating enthusiasts it will be a charmer, and the flashbacks from the Barleys' earlier experience adrift give the necessary man-against-the-elements boost to a story whose main villain is the jackanapes boatbuilder who sent them to sea in a sieve. The best pages are about gaucho life and the rabbit pest at the bottom of the world, and the people observed first hand--Indians, ranchers, fishermen. Much history and pleasant padding add heft to the book.