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Berserk My Voyage to Antarctica in a Twenty-Seven-Foot Sailboat
By David Mercy
Sheridan House
Any seasoned sailor or armchair captain of high seas adventures might scoff at the tale of David Mercy's novice ocean passage. Berserk My Voyage to Antarctica in a Twenty-Seven-Foot Sailboat is the classic story of the inexperienced, unprepared sailor blundering into harm's way. When these stories end in tragedy, everyone shakes their head and says: "he should have known better."
But what about when he survives? How do we, the readers—mere observers—feel when someone else takes that risk in the name of great adventure, which we have talked our own selves out of in the name of practicality?.
Mercy didn't embark on this journey because he was a sailor; he was a self-styled adventurer who had been to every other continent and was determined to see Antarctica, but not by cruise ship. After hitchhiking his way through South America, he stumbled upon a 21-year-old Norwegian in Chile who was about to face the Drake Passage alone. Within minutes Mercy talked his way aboard as crew.
Mercy is not the finest sailor or wordsmith, mistaking tacking for gybing (or "jibbing," as he writes it) and referring to his "VHS radio" throughout, but strangely this naivete serves to cement the grip his story fixes on you. Your disbelief is constantly discredited by his luck and your initial condemnation of his recklessness is threatened by a nagging instinct to respect him, just a little bit, for making it through alive.
Perhaps recommending this book is perpetuating a dangerous culture of disregard for the power of the sea. But politics aside, as a story it speaks to the innocent and the dreamer in all of us.
Sarah Nestor
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