Review: "All Hands on Deck," Will Sofrin

 

By Paul Carrier

Will Sofrin knew a thing or two about sailing when he landed a new job in Newport, R.I., in 2001. He had studied the restoration of wooden boats after graduating from high school, was an experienced boat builder, and had served as a deckhand aboard a racing yacht.

But Sofrin, who was 21 at the time, had never worked on a full-rigged ship, the type of vessel more commonly referred to by landlubbers as a tall ship. Yet that’s exactly what he found himself doing when he joined the crew of the Rose, a 500-ton reproduction of HMS Rose, an 18th-century English warship.

The opportunity presented itself because director Peter Weir needed a replica of a period frigate for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a movie inspired by the novels of Patrick O'Brian, which are set during the Napoleonic wars. (The film, which starred Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, was released in 2003.)

The Rose had been chosen to play the role of HMS Surprise, a ship commanded by “Lucky” Jack Aubrey in O’Brian’s series. (The fictional Surprise was modeled after an actual French vessel captured by the Royal Navy in 1796 and renamed the Surprise.)

The production team had big issues to sort out from the get-go. The first was that the Rose needed significant upgrades before it could leave Newport. The second was that the Rose — not the most seaworthy vessel afloat — would have to be sailed from Newport to San Diego. Oh, and one more thing. The trip would begin in the dead of winter.

Although All Hands on Deck is Sofrin’s first book, the author comes across as a natural storyteller with a welcome sense of humor and, not surprisingly, a spirit of adventure. At one point he describes himself as having been “a cocky little prick” during that time period.

The Rose began her journey in early January 2002 with what the book’s jacket copy describes as “a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs.” Or, as Sofrin puts it in the first chapter, "the Hells Angels of the sailing world." The mix of old hands and neophytes fell into three categories, Sofrin writes, including “cult-type sailors” who idolized “an archaic sailing lifestyle,” rebels who preferred a more modern approach and floaters who were “trying to find the best of both worlds.”

The experience of sailing aboard the Rose from Rhode Island to Puerto Rico, then through the Panama Canal and on to Mexico and California, is compelling enough. A brutal storm only a few days into the trip had at least some crew members speculating about the possibility of having to abandon ship, and Sofrin’s description of what happened makes an indelible impression. A brief excerpt: “Waves soon formed inside our sleeping quarters, rolling from one side of the compartment to the other, soaking bunks and gear.”

But Sofrin also provides context and supplementary information to flesh out the adventurous, sometimes terrifying, passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. That includes photos; a capsule biography of O’Brian; plainspoken translations of nautical terms; drawings identifying sections of the ship and its masts, yards, sails, rigging, etc.; and periodic comparisons between life aboard the Rose and HMS Surprise.

Sofrin notes that O’Brian once said the essence of his books “is about human relationships and how people treat one another.” And so it is with All Hands on Deck. The crew of the Rose included a broad “spectrum of personalities” who “lived together, worked together, laughed together, and took care of one another.”