Review
WL Rating
Black Wave describes the true story of a family that turned its back on suburbia to find adventure as they sail around the world. No doubt they found it. In classic “if there is a god, he’s got a wicked sense of humor” style, the family crashes into a reef at the trip’s apex. Stranded in the middle of the night on a South Pacific reef as their 55-foot catamaran disintegrates beneath them, the family struggles to stay alive while tending to their father who is pinned beneath the cat’s 80 foot mast. The story is told from two perspectives. Jean, the mother, emotionally describes how the family grew during their journey into a tightly knit unit that was ready to deal with the possible loss of their father. John, the father, has an Ahab-like obsession with sailing no matter how intense the conditions. While both authors’ hearts are in the right place, I definitely squirmed a bit as I thought of what their young kids (5, 8, 13 and 16 years old) must have felt as their boat sank during the night and their father bled out on deck. While you can definitely question the wisdom of putting a family into a series of potentially deadly situations (pirates, gale-force sailing, reef tragedies), you can’t argue that the family didn’t grow tighter. Even so, if you ever fantasized about taking your family on an around the world sailing trip (like I have), this book will either get your juices flowing, or cancel your plans entirely. Either way, Black Wave is a good book that’s worth a summer read. (May 2009)
Black Wave - Jean & John Silverwood
