Читать книгу Little Ship of Fools. Sixteen Rowers, One Improbable Boat, Seven Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic онлайн

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Our latest additions are a twenty-four-year-old British medical student named Liam Flynn, who rows recreationally on the English south coast, and a thirty-one-year-old Tasmanian woman, Margaret Bowling, who is reputed to be an organizational whiz and will apparently be assisting Angela with the command.

While I have been attempting to play down any symphonic goodbyes, I want to say that I have appreciated the good wishes that so many of you have sent my way. As of the moment I have received well over a hundred messages, some of which I can barely read for the depth of their grace and goodwill.

I am heading out optimistically and with great respect for my fellow crew members, for our builder, David, and for our captain, Angela. And of course for the ocean. As the writer Simon Winchester said of the Atlantic, “It is a gray and heaving sea, not infrequently storm-bound, ponderous with swells, a sea that in the mind’s eye is thick with trawlers lurching, bows up, then crashing down through great white curtains of spume, tankers wallowing across the swells, its weather so often on the verge of gales, and all the while its waters moving with an air of settled purpose, simultaneously displaying incalculable power and inspiring by this display perpetual admiration, respect, caution, and fear.”