The Untold Voyage by Roger Taylor

[steve yates]

Wow! Just wow!
Almost all of us will know of Roger Taylors vast seafaring experience, his numerous artic voyages in his junk rigged corribee Ming Ming and achilles 24 Ming Ming 2.

Well there was one artic voyage where he encountered something so awful that he deleted all pictures, tore up his logbooks and threw them overboard and never told a single soul about what happened up there. Until now, when he decided to unburden himself, write it down a d take the consequences.
It is written as beautifully as one expects from Roger Taylor, and is one hell of a story! My jaw kept dropping, and dropping, and dropping as I read it.
I’ll say no more except if you like reading, and like a good sea story, get this book!

 

[Boathook]

Purchased it today for my kindle. Another book to finish first though.

 

[Black Sheep]

Thank you, Steve, - I think it was this post that alerted me to Roger's new book. So I ordered it, and have just now finished reading it.

I have to agree with your assessment: Wow!

 

[Mataji]

I’m sure this book will provoke much discussion in the future. Agree, it’s a fantastic yarn. Puts me in mind of another well known sailing writer.

 

[AndreaFK]

That is not a story I expected. Very well written.

 

[zoidberg]

"The willing suspension of disbelief is the act of temporarily disregarding logic and crtical thinking to enjoy a fictional work. It's a term that's often used to describe the experience of reading or watching a work of fantasy, horror, comedy, or action.

The term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a British poet and philosopher in 1817, who believed that readers would suspend judgment if a writer could make a fantastic story seem realistic and include human interest."

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story” - Mark Twain.

 

[justanothersailboat]

Tricky to criticise this one without spoilers but I'll try.

I'm content that I read it but I didn't love it. I don't think it's his best writing and some of the many, many places he stops to say "bloody hell" felt a bit incongruous. There are also a few places he briefly switches from the time of the tale to the time of writing about it, which is a perfectly acceptable literary device, but I didn't think it was done well and it harmed the main narrative for me.

If it's fictional it's a bit melodramatic and a few bits didn't quite ring true enough for me to suspend disbelief, though that of course doesn't prove fiction. If it's real it raises some pretty awkward questions. I took the postscript as telling us it's a fact/fiction blend rather than purely one or the other. Some aspects of the story seem to me to come from the kind of speculation one naturally does when sailing alone - what would I do if / how would I manage some imagined eventuality... I don't mind that. If it were presented as standalone maybe I'd have been happier, but it's presented as part of a series which otherwise seems to be factual, and I'm a bit ambivalent.

 

[obmij]

Bought after reading this thread. Great recommendation.

+++SPOILERS+++

Definitely a bit of the Melville and the more hallucinatory parts of Slocum in there - but actually quite plausible nevertheless. I can't work out whether he's just playing the old codger with a tall tale to tell or if it is a genuine unburdening. Weird story to make up though..

 

[dgadee]

If I had known the contents I would not have bought it. Gave up early on. I am sure many - e.g. in war - could be just as descriptive. But they aren't - or at least the stuff I read.

 

[Daydream believer]

How can it be an untold story if you lot have all read it?

 

[goldenduck]

Wow! Just wow!
Almost all of us will know of Roger Taylors vast seafaring experience, his numerous artic voyages in his junk rigged corribee Ming Ming and achilles 24 Ming Ming 2.

Well there was one artic voyage where he encountered something so awful that he deleted all pictures, tore up his logbooks and threw them overboard and never told a single soul about what happened up there. Until now, when he decided to unburden himself, write it down a d take the consequences.
It is written as beautifully as one expects from Roger Taylor, and is one hell of a story! My jaw kept dropping, and dropping, and dropping as I read it.
I’ll say no more except if you like reading, and like a good sea story, get this book!

Am reading it at the moment and have Roger's permission to use a short extract in the August issue of YM. Extraordinary and haunting book