Reading the Glass

November 28, 2022
Nautical history, memoir, and meteorology come together in this well-crafted debut from sea captain Rappaport. He digs into the science of sailing and expounds on the complex weather phenomena sailors encounter, explaining how kites and balloons helped discover the jet stream and detailing how a microburst (a powerful downward gust of wind) sank the Concordia in 2010. Discussing the innovations that have influenced life at sea, he relates how British naval officer Francis Beaufort developed a scale for wind velocity in the early 19th century that’s still in use today, and highlights the contributions of Croatian engineer Milutin Milankovic
, whose calculations linking Earth’s orbit and ice ages offered new insights into the climate. The author holds an obvious reverence for all things sailing, as when he recounts that in spite of GPS technology being able to remotely detect his ship getting pushed off course in the Pacific, he remained at the mercy of unpredictable currents, an experience that connected him “with all the others who have crossed this ocean previously.” Rappaport’s focus on science over adventure is a welcome departure, and evocative prose ensures it goes down smoothly (“A cloudy puff of north wind meets us like a drink of cold beer”). This will deepen readers’ appreciation of life at sea.

Starred review from February 1, 2023
The challenges of life at sea. Rappaport, who has been a sea captain since 1992 and teaches at the Maine Maritime Academy, makes his book debut with vibrant accounts of sailing around the world. Central to his spirited, informative narrative is weather. "Like pilots, roofers, and mountain climbers," he writes, "mariners are by default obsessed with the weather, immersed in it as part of their daily calculus." Aboard the tall ships he helms to train students, weather updates come in the form of "nonstop streams of data from satellites, weather buoys, and balloons," but all these technological supports do not substitute for "a live person sending information about pressure and wind velocity at a specific location." Rappaport explains the deft choreography of daily life on a ship as well as the myriad variables that affect a journey. "The world's great sailing routes," he observes, "are less paved highways than patterns of occasional convenience, spun from the overall chaos of the atmosphere." He provides clear explanations of technical terms, some familiar (trade winds, El Ni�o, jet stream) and some likely to be new to land-bound readers, such as cold tongue, loop currents, bora and mistral winds, and the difference between sea smoke and summer fog. The author also offers a taxonomy of clouds, sails, and instruments, and he is equally informative about the development of weather reporting and the history of sailing. His voyages have taken him to the South Pacific, Greenland, New Zealand, and Mediterranean ports, and he has braved the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties, a "subantarctic expanse of frigid westerly winds" named for the latitudes they occupy. The success of any voyage, Rappaport admits, depends on knowledge, preparation, meticulous attention to detail, and luck. "For the most part," he writes, "real tales of heavy weather involve simple endurance--low-grade misery, a constant queasy vigilance in anticipation of some cascading mishap." Fascinating journeys with an expert guide.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from January 1, 2023
Weather matters to anyone venturing outdoors, but a sailor's life depends on it. Veteran captain Elliot Rappaport knows firsthand how winds, storms, and currents affect boats, from the smallest dinghies to great ocean liners. Here, he uses his considerable literary gifts to turn meteorology into a living science. Rappaport appreciates how today's vast networks of satellites, weather buoys, and constant flow of data logged by ships worldwide have improved forecasting. Having sailed just about everywhere, from Antarctic waters to the tropical Pacific to the Bering Strait, Rappaport explains the genesis of storms and the sorts of profound wave actions they generate as air masses perpetually move over the face of the globe, always obeying the laws of physics. He deftly lays out the unique weather and sailing conditions of the Mediterranean, where winds from the Alps clash with the searing breezes produced over the Sahara. Graphics help show the workings of El Ni�o and its role in climate change. While sailors will relate at once to Rappaport's prose, this book is a must-read even for landlubbers, as we are all affected every day by the weather's enabling and disrupting of the sea routes that move food, petroleum, and manufactured goods across the world.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.