10,000 MILES TO BOSTON

This is the hopelessly pleasant, compellingly unimportant log of the small, heavy, ketch-rigged yacht Miru's voyage from New Zealand to Boston. Neill Arrow, a muscular punster, tells of his Australian boyhood, military service during World War II, and then of his sudden passion for sailing. Of sailing he admits himself a gifted amateur, with no pretensions to nautical techniques for moving small vessels over vast ocean stretches. Master of the Miru is Tom, who knows less than Neill about sailing and is accompanied by his wife Lydia and his two small children. With another lad as helpmate, they set forth on a reverse Kon Tiki course, across the South Pacific to Peru to Panama, through the canal to the Caribbean, up to Miami and then to Boston. As they go they attract more and more attention while getting stronger and stronger resistance from the elements. The narrative tends to lack highlights because of the brevity of its many chapters. In fact, the scenes at sea pale beside the shore adventures: with South Pacific natives; vice in Panama City; on the lecture circuit in Boston; and finally, back to sea, Winning a yacht race back in New Zealand. It is brashly inconsequential, with no sense of the sea as such--an amusing diversion.