The Sea Survival Manual
By Frances and Michael Howorth
Foreword by Steve Callahan
What this book offers is not an A-to-Z compendium on survival in extreme conditions, life rafts or desert islands. While it does offer many words on this subject, the book has a “holistic approach,” as Steve Callahan writes in the foreword, suggesting that survival at sea is more about total preparedness to begin with. If one is an informed sailor – someone whose familiarity with the rigors of maintaining a boat in the marine environment breeds an ability to make quick, sound decisions – one survives.
Chapters include all the usual suspects, from life rafts to grab bags, GMDSS and other radio protocol to medical training. But American readers will especially benefit from the British approach, the soberness that is a benefit of the long maritime history in a country surrounded entirely by forbidding coastlines.
Sheridan House; 240 pages; $26.95.
