Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days

From Forecastle to Quarter-Deck

By: John D. Whidden

Narrated by: Tom Perkins

Orphaned at five, nothing held Whidden back from embarking on sea life seven years later. Serving as an apprentice, he quickly proved his worth and earned himself a mate's position by his early 20s. Graduating to third, second, and first office, he ended his career in command of, and having part-ownership of, his own vessel.

This memoir, Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days, records a series of real events from his childhood impressions of rough and ready seamen to his thrilling and brutal experiences of war. His travels saw him spanning the world with stops at major ports such as Honolulu, Buenos Aires, Calcutta, and Liverpool. His life spans the changes in the shipping industry over the 19th and into the 20th century.

During the Civil War, Whidden was heavily involved in profitable island trading in the Bahamas to elude Confederate sailors. However, shortly after the close of the war, in 1870, Whidden left sailing as he found it being overtaken by foreign interests.

Public Domain (P)2018 Tantor

Good salty story

Well written and well read. Very good account of the times easy to understand for somebody who’s never sailed

A good Overview of a Remarkable Sea Career

However. the author could have made it much more interesting, if he had only given a few more details about his persona life, and his personal conversations with his friends and his shipmates.
But even with his somewhat impersonal style, of business like of writing, still, his sometimes remarkable accounts of his sea adventures, gives some very good insights, concerning life on those old sailing ships, and the amazing men who's once sailed them.

Youthful adventurers lead to mundane adulthood

Book starts strong with the wonder and adventurous spirit of a young man, but slowly evolves into the everyday mundane repetition of middle age. Whidden did live an interesting life, but nothing like Ross or Amundsen. The book begins with the glory days of sailing and adventure, but leads towards the end of the great sailing days when it became more than a business.

For a more exciting captain’s log, I highly recommend South by Ernest Shackleton.

Thoroughly enjoyed the narrator’s attempt of the Boston accent.

Decent book but bad narrator.

The book is decent but with few details and a feeling of hurriedness. The downfall I feel is the narrator who attempts a fake northern accent throughout the book that is very poor.