The Saga of Cimba

I read a lot of cruising narratives, many of which I plan to review here in time. I find many of these books both entertaining and informative, even if the writer has a different style of travel than I'm interested in or sails a type of vessel I'll probably never own. Most of the books of this type that I read were written in recent years, as cruising has become much more popular due to the availability of fiberglass boats, both new and used, and new equipment such as GPS receivers to take the hard work out of navigation. Before this new wave of modern cruisers appeared, the pioneers of modern singlehanded or family-style voyaging under sail had to either build their boats themselves or convert existing vessels, mostly built of wood, to their needs. Most sailors these days would stay ashore if this was still the case, but thanks to those who did it the hard way and wrote about it, the way has been made much easier for those of us with an abundance of boat choices at our disposal. Their successes and failures, described in the great books many of them wrote, have saved many of us from coming to grief through lack of knowledge. Most people who sail today and even think just a little about long-distance voyaging and cruising are familiar with the works of at least some of these writers like: Joshua Slocum, Hal Roth, Bernard Moitessier, the Smeetens, and John Guzzwell. But there are other, lesser known sailors from this era as well, and some of the best writings are easy to overlook. The Saga of Cimba: A Journey from Nova Scotia to the South Seas by Richard Maury is one such sailing classic that I myself passed up for years, even though I had noticed it from time to time among the more contempary narratives in the sailing section of various bookstores. It was only a few months ago, when I was lacking something inspiring to read, that I decided to pick up this book that was first published in 1939 and remains in print. Upon reading the first chapter, I found myself immediately hooked. This is one of those rare narratives that not only recounts a fascinating adventure, but does so with a captivating writing style that takes you right along and makes you want to find an old fishing schooner and follow in the author's footsteps. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the voyage recounted in this book is the time period in which it took place - in the 1930s - before World War II brought the remote South Pacific islands into mainstream consciousness and when practically no one set out to voyage half way around the world for pleasure on a small, short-handed sailing vessel. This was a time of almost limitless freedom for those few who could pull off such a voyage. The world was wide open to them and the rules and regulations and fees that we have to pay for docking and even anchoring in many places were unheard of then. One of the most difficult hurdles in the 1930s was simply finding an affordable vessel of suitable size and adequate seaworthieness

This is a book for sailors who love words, and readers who sail. Not an instructor, Maury spends his tale with the spareness of bare poles. Seamen will love the action - and the calms, mostly for the lovely lyric writing and the gift Maury has with print. Kin to the Maury who invented organized navagation charts for seaways, tides, winds, currents; this tale of the smallest fishing schooner to make 1937 ocean history reflects talent aboard and with the pen for Richard Maury. Best book I've read, sadly I couldn't enjoy it from land.

Having sailed for 40 years, I came across an old edition of this gem written in the 30's and was astounded by the economy of prose, yet the depth of feeling created by its author.It is a deceptively simple story, but packed with thoughts and observations which are thoroughly relevant today. And it is written in a style which came BEFORE the present supermediatic hyperbolic overstatement that characterizes most of what we read and hear today.It is an excellent gift, and an inspirational work, even if you are never planning to cross an ocean. It is in a word, a classic. (And it is wonderful to think about how these places actually were in the thirties, and to listen to proper nautical language and vocabulary which has been washed away by the advent of the jet plane and skidoo.. Bon voyage!

I suspect this is THE book that inspired otherwise sane and sensible people to abandon their career, family and fortune in order to sail off to the South Pacific.

The Saga of Cimba is a masterwork. I find this book as compelling, captivating, and yes even mesmerizing, now as when I first read it many years ago. It is one of very, very few which I can always re-read with unwavering pleasure and delight. Richard Maury has crafted a volume as close to perfect in terms of making the essential -nesses of cruising in small sail boats clear to the reader as any I have ever found. It's facinating to me that right through to the last page he never tells of himself, and only word sketches his alternating sailing companions very briefly. Cimba herself is the main character and Maury never loses sight of that fact. The Saga of Cimba is a book filled with the unpretentious magic of greatness.