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CLOSE TO THE WIND by Peter Malone

CLOSE TO THE WIND

The Beaufort Scale

by Peter Malone & illustrated by Peter Malone

Pub Date: May 1st, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-24399-8
Publisher: Putnam

For young tars in training, Malone offers an informative, if loosely organized, excursion into several nautical matters. Between notes on the 12-stage Beaufort Scale—developed in the early 19th century as a quick comparative gauge of wind speed—and carefully detailed paintings of a British frigate and her crew under sail in increasingly rough weather, he tucks in a fictional midshipman’s account of an Atlantic Ocean crossing, along with explanatory comments on topics from shipboard jargon to navigation in the Age of Sail. Closing with a spread of additional notes on wooden ship construction, and a capsule biography of naval hydrographer Francis Beaufort, this not only makes pleasant browsing, but could introduce such more detailed outings as Patrick O’Brien’s The Great Ships (2001), or Philemon Sturges’s Down to the Sea in Ships (2005), illus by Giles Laroche. (glossary) (Fiction/nonfiction. 9-11)