The Temptress Voyages: SIngle-handed Passage, Temptress Returns

(Paperback)

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In a single volume, Edward Allcard's epic two crossings of the Atlantic in the mid-twentieth century in his thirty-four-foot, forty-year-old yawl Temptress. Single-handed Passage: Sailing six thousand miles in eighty days, Allcard makes the classic southern route trade-wind crossing westward, and not without incident - severe gales, thief-catching in Spain, avoiding a seductive blonde in Gibraltar, encountering sharks and shoals of flying fish, and narrowly escaping falling overboard to his death when knocked out by gear falling from aloft. Temptress Returns: Allcard's plan to dodge the worst of the hurrican season on his return voyage is not accommodated by the elements. Through gales and headwinds, and one terrible storm, he takes seventy-four days to reach the Azores from New York, arriving minus his mizzen mast, desperately exhausted, injured, and hungry. The next leg, to Casablanca, is enlivened by a female stowaway, before he makes a safe return to England. Whether describing the pleasures or the trials, the phosphorescent nights or the storms, the operation of his ship or his own introspections, Edward Allcard eloquently conveys his deep appreciation of the sea, and the escape from modern civilisation it offers him. AUTHOR: Edward Allcard was born in 1914, learned to sail when six years old, and had a lifelong passion for boats and the sea. Following apprenticeship with Clydeside shipbuilders he qualified as a naval architect before World War II. At the time of the 'Temptress' voyages he was in his early thirties. In later years he conducted a leisurely circumnavigation, and made a year-long cruise around Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn, all in 'Sea Wanderer', a boat he restored from a derelict hull acquired in New York for $250. In 1967 Allcard met his future wife Clare, 31 years his junior, and the following year they drove from the UK to Singapore in a Land Rover. In the early 1970s the Allcards, now with young daughter Kate, acquired the 69ft ex-Baltic Trader 'Johanne Regina', built in 1929. Over some thirty years they restored her while sailing between the Caribbean, Europe, the Seychelles and the Far East. In 2006, aged 91, Edward Allcard finally forsook the sea and moved with Clare to a house in the mountains of Andorra, where he died in 2017, aged 102. B/W photographs, maps, drawings

Author Bio

EDWARD ALLCARD was born in 1914, learned to sail when six years old, and had a lifelong passion for boats and the sea. Following apprenticeship with Clydeside shipbuilders he qualified as a naval architect before World War II. At the time of the 'Temptress' voyages he was in his early thirties. In later years he conducted a leisurely circumnavigation, and made a year-long cruise around Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn, all in 'Sea Wanderer', a boat he restored from a derelict hull acquired in New York for $250. In 1967 Allcard met his future wife Clare, 31 years his junior, and the following year they drove from the UK to Singapore in a Land Rover. In the early 1970s the Allcards, now with young daughter Kate, acquired the 69ft ex-Baltic Trader 'Johanne Regina', built in 1929. Over some thirty years they restored her while sailing between the Caribbean, Europe, the Seychelles and the Far East. In 2006, aged 91, Edward Allcard finally forsook the sea and moved with Clare to a house in the mountains of Andorra, where he died in 2017, aged 102.