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Overview
High-spirited and passionate - at once a useful guide and a record of an extended love affair with small boats - Away All Boats is a blending of sparkling waterlands and vivid memories. Author of Striper and Fishing Came First, John Cole takes readers from the dangers of haul-seining for striped bass that challenge a wooden dory's limits in the surf to the excitement of searching the flats of the Florida Keys for tarpon and other game fish aboard a shallow-draft, high-tech craft perfectly matched to the task. Evocative of nature's miracles and realities (and the foibles of men who go down to the sea in "ships"), the writing is dry and witty, tender and perceptive. Alongside the hard facts and opinions about the selection, refitting, maintenance, and use of small boats is a series of wonderful stories about the author's explorations as a bayman and fisherman in the waters of eastern Long Island, Maine, and the Florida Keys. Each boat described serves to introduce a key chapter in the author's life and his taste for adventure. John Cole's first love is the skiff, rowboat, dory, or sharpie - any relatively stable wooden boat that can be easily and efficiently rowed - but the author also takes on larger craft powered by the internal combustion engine to indicate that every boat is designed to perform a limited family of functions. The trick, as we learn in these robust pages, is to find the boat you need (not always the boat you want), and Cole offers practical advice on how to go about it. The surprise is that a good boat doesn't have to be expensive; some are even gifts from the sea. As to basic equipment, the author keeps the advice simple: a compass, charts, a tachometer, an ammeter, an understanding of local winds and rides, and, with luck, an informed "weather eye" to minimize risks in open water.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Cole's obsession with boats began in childhood-- Emma was a 14-foot wooden rowboat from Macy's, owned by his grandparents. Here the author of Fishing Came First offers an engaging memoir about his life among boats. His first job after graduating from Yale was operating a launch between Stamford and the Fishers Island Country Club in Connecticut. For a few years he worked in and around Long Island Sound, first as a professional fisherman (work boats are described in loving detail) and then in a charter business with writer-naturalist Peter Matthiessen. Moving to Maine as a newspaper editor, Cole still made time for boats, including a Boston Whaler, a Hobie Cat and an Old Town canoe. Much later, he found himself in Key West, part owner of a johnboat. He notes that boating in the Florida Keys is not a casual pastime; it requires careful preparation, good equipment and precise orientation. Cole gives his assessment of small boats in a final chapter. Illustrations. (June)Library Journal
While this book charmingly recounts the variety of crafts Cole has owned over the years, it can scarcely be used as a practical reference for the selection and mainenance of boats, as the title suggests. The book begins by detailing Cole's boyhood days on Long Island (and his first boat, a flat-bottomed skiff) and progresses through his experiences with a series of boats, both power and sail, as well as a number of water venues, especially those of Maine and Key West. Cole only briefly mentions his homes, family, and career, focusing on his experiences with boats and fishing. This rather specialized item will be enjoyed by those who have done the things the author did and lived where he has. For purchase by regional libraries and those with a large boating clientele.-Robert E. Greenfield, formerly with Baltimore Cty. P.L.Mike Tribby
Cole shares his experiences in a book that is both a guide to small boats and boating and a personal narrative. He prefers boats propelled by oars--he loves to row--but covers those powered by other means, too, and shows that every boat, regardless of method of locomotion and material of construction, is designed to perform a limited number of functions. This unity of purpose in small boats gives Cole's book a feeling of order within which his love of small boats and preference for the marine lifestyle come across vibrantly as he imparts valuable information on small-boat selection, maintenance, and use. So you can read Cole's effort as either an adventure story or a guide to small-boat owning. Either way, the writing is crisp and engaging, the information and lore intriguing.Book Details
Published
July 1, 1994
Publisher
Holt (Henry) & Co ,U.S.
Pages
304
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780805027068