The Improbable Voyage

Having half-recovered in an Amsterdam hospital from broken ribs and a collapsed lung, Tristan, together with his crew, sets off up the Rhine and experiences the most severe winter known in Europe for many years. Battling ice and cold, petty-minded bureaucrats and customs officials, Bulgarian gun-boats and Romanian frontier police, he charts his hazardous course up the Rhine and down the Danube. Flying the Red Ensign, the Stars and Stripes, and the Red Dragon of Wales, and playing bagpipe music at full volume, Tristan announces his passage in every town as he sails indomitably through eight countries to emerge triumphant, if penniless, in the Black Sea.

A memorable contribution to travel accounts of Central Europe behind the Iron Curtain, The Improbable Voyage offers a vivid portrayal of life along Europe's oldest water routes. But it is the people from all walks of life whom Tristan meets on this unlikely voyage and the adventures, both hilarious and daunting, that he and his crew experience along the way, that will enchant the ever-increasing number of devotees of this extraordinary sailor and writer.

The Improbable Voyage is the astonishing account of TRistan Jones' 2,307 mile voyage across Europe in Outward Leg. Continuing his round-the-world journey, Tristan traveled from the North Sea to the Black Sea via the rivers Rhine and Danube. Tristan welcomed each difficulty as a challenge to be met and overcome. Battling ice and cold, life-threatening rapids and narrow defiles, German bureaucrats and Romanian frontier police, Tristan made his way through eight countries and emerged triumphant, if battered, bruised and penniless, at the Black Sea. Tristan gives us a vivid glimpse of the quality of life along Europe's oldest water routes and behind the Iron Curtain.

Publishers Weekly

In this sequel to Outward Leg we find Jones preparing to take his ocean-going trimaran from London to Amsterdam and then through the heartland of Europe, via the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers to the Black Sea. Navigation will be more difficult than on the open sea, he tells us, because of heavy commerical traffic on the Rhine, the 62 locks on the Main between Frankfurt and Nurnberg (Nuremburg), submerged rocks and shifting sand bars. At the Nurnberg docks, ship and crew reach a dead end, trapped in ice and a web of bureaucracy. There is no water route to the Danube, and Jones needs a special permit to haul Outward Leg overland. His involuntary 10-week delay garnered publicity and sympathy for his cause (aiding the handicapped); his original two-man crew (from New York) departed, to be replaced by an engaging young German, Thomas. At the end of March they set out from Ingoldstadt on ``Father Danube,'' accompanied by the blare of bagpipes from a tape deck. It is Jones's boast that his trip marked the first time that a sea-going yacht has traversed the uncharted lower DanubeAustria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, to the port of Varna in Bulgaria and into the Black Sea. There are hostile border guards, gunboats, hazardous defiles and rapids; a few glorious days in Vienna and Budapest; relief at journey's end. Good adventure, vintage Tristan Jones. (May 18)