I was aware that in recent years Frank and Margaret Dye had sailed their Wayfarer in the USA and Canada, mostly on inland waterways, but had somehow got the impression that this was easy stuff compared with Frank's Norway and Iceland epics. I could not have been more wrong! In cruising from Florida in the south to the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes in the north there were several hurricanes, gales on a regular basis, fog, fog and more fog, fearful tide-races, stopper waves other horrors.

Margaret provides an interesting introduction to the book. She accompanied Frank on two stages of the series of voyages, which took place between 1988 and 1994. Not only were horrendous winds encountered, but torrential rain, exhausting heat and freezing cold with ice forming inside the tent cover. After reading this book I will never again dare to complain about British weather! The book is not only about the sailing; there are many interesting anecdotes about the attractive places and wonderful people that they met. Only very rarely did Frank accept a tow and then for short distances. There was a portage after Frank's tenth attempt to sail round Nova Scotia, and another over protracted rapids, but generally he sailed or rowed over fast adverse currents. What I found particularly reassuring were Frank's candid admissions that even he sometimes got it wrong, tangling lines and hitting things. Once when shooting under a low bridge carrying the half-lowered mast and sails, he was caught by a gust and lifted into the air. Fortunately Margaret grabbed him by the ankle!

My only criticism of the book would be that the tiny maps provided were too small and unclear to be of use, but then even my large atlas was inadequate. Perhaps the DCA Library could obtain large-scale maps to loan Len Wingfield