Reading all Night

I used to read through the night all the time. Now, I usually stop at 2:00 or 3:00 am. Unless it is a really gripping one, of course. I do take books with me everywhere. Mostly I read at home, but I also read in the car, while waiting for Liping doing her shopping, while sitting at the dentist -- simply everywhere.

The books I got now are special, though. There is so much useful information about sailing in there, that it would get lost if I were to read it real fast. So what I am doing is reading three books at the same time, bit by bit, in order to be able to absorb. I just finished Bernard Moitessier's first book Sailing to the Reefs and it might make it to the top of the list as my all-time-favorite sailing book. That title is being held by another one of his, a world wide bestseller called The Long Way.

The other two I am reading are both trimaran books. I want to know just what has changed in the world of multihulls over the last 40 years or so. Especially in these older books you find a lot of stuff in what to avoid when buying a boat and all kinds of neat little tricks on how to fix things. Or how to keep eggs when the fridge has died and stuff like that. How to preserve your fish in "cans" using a pressure cooker. Most of this I know, since I have been reading books like that intensively since 1983, but once in a while a completely new technique comes up.

And there is no doubt in my mind that all this reading has prepared me far better for unexpected situations than other sailors who have spent the same amount of time actually sailing. Experience is best, but second-hand experience comes right after that.