Sailing Tall: Around the World on the Square-rigged PASSAT (1946-1948)

Author Max Wood served his apprenticeship on one of the very last commercial voyages of any cargo square-rigger. Sailing Tall is a piece of living history, in which he documents in great detail work practices and a way of life now totally gone by. It is also a vivid and honest account of the "true" sailors.

A natural storyteller, modest and good-humored, Wood tells it all as it really was: the exhilaration, the camaraderie, the constant hard work, the fears, the occasional terrors, the frequent boredom, the sexual frustration, the immense fatigue...and also the pride of being one of those determined few who, throughout the ages, have heroically challenged the awesome forces of nature for little reward but a spartan life.

These memoirs constitute an invaluable document of an extinct breed, as well as a moving portrait of a boy's coming-of-age, as Wood leaves his family and learns about the world and himself.