Fair Seafarer

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JAN 1, 2005

The romance of the sea had long lured Allen, a seasoned sailor and editor at Motor Boating & Sailing. So when she saw a magazine ad for a nonsmoking lady to help outfit a cutter and cruise the Bahamas, it seemed like a good way for "a dating-virgin three decades off the market" to get on with life. Shortly after meeting the skipper, who was a merchant seaman six months each year, "I'd not only changed my residence, bank, and dentist--but my name." Spunky, with a humorous quip for nearly every situation, the 53-year-old Allen spends the next six years as the Chief Mate's spouse aboard the M/V Endurance, spending about three months each year visiting exotic foreign ports. But, to call this simply a maritime adventure, captivating as it is, would do injustice to Allen's superb account of the Merchant Marine, its changing history, its men and, increasingly, its women. Her new husband warns her "this would be no row in the pond," that a modern container ship such as the Endurance "has one goal: to get boxes from here to there." The steady flow of ships leaving goods at one port, picking up containers for another, runs a strict schedule, with a small crew working overtime to make up for ever-dwindling manpower. Her account ennobles the efficiency of the modern merchant ships and reveals a very human side of their crew. But whether she is comparing the old clipper ships to today's current behemoths, describing the teeming human traffic during her brief shoretime in Asia or helping her Chief Mate with paperwork, Allen is continually engrossing, informative and fun.