From Sailing Through Russia Into the white sea: John Vallentine is a semi-retired doctor from Australia with a dry, Aussie humour which he really needs, as one crazy nonsense after another gets in his way. Her expertise on Russia and its language proved critical to the success of the enterprise. She and her skipper considered the risks associated with this and decided to go for it anyway. It is half pilot book, half cruising yarn, with both authors and some of the occasional crew contributing to the narrative. Most of John’s and Maxine’s book appeared first on Vallentine’s blog, but it is now beautifully presented and bound, with noble images. I read the book at a sitting and was very late to bed. The Volga leads them far east of Moscow and, despite having their mast on deck for most of the time, the trip remains a captivating adventure. Tainui is the first western yacht to achieve this under her own colours. It’s below freezing, the wind is blowing 25 knots and we’re in a 2m swell. In 2013, with crew comprised of a rich variety of pier-head jumpers, friends and family, they take Vallentine’s Formosa 46 Tainui from northern Norway to the Black Sea via the inland waterways of Russia. The book in question is Sailing through Russia by John Vallentine and Maxine Maters. The fact those miles are logged off Arctic Russia and through the Sea of Azov is almost by the bye. This article falls into the latter category, because the actual sailing only occurs at the beginning and end of the voyage. Over the years, the result has been a mix of inspiring accounts, some in line with the original brief, others diverging, but all with tales to tell and lessons to be learned. Research, however, led me into a wonderland of nautical literature with so much to give that discounting it for lack of stormy seas would have been a lost opportunity. When the Great Seamanship series was planned back in 2004 it was about giant waves, dismastings, amazing rescues and the like.
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