Oosterschelde's library

27 March 2014

Update by Maarten:
“The ‘Oosterschelde’ has two, well stocked bookcases in the saloon, symmetrically situated at both ends of the long dining table.  These cases contain a treasure of books, but were in desperate need of a spring-cleaning. I just completed this gruesome task, whilst above me people are hammering away rust, sandpapering wood and painting. My fingers were itching to dispose of accumulated trashy novels, such as ‘chic lit’, until Jacob stopped me with fear in his eyes. Apparently he had tried to take matters into his own hands before and was severely reprimanded for having the temerity to try throwing away books. So all I could do at the end of the day was to restore some order and straighten things out.
There is a huge stock of coffee table picture books about ships and sailing, always fun when you are coming off watch but do not want to hit your bunk yet. My favourite in this category is the book of pictures by Eric Newby that he took during The Last Grain Race. The original novel itself is missing in the library, but apparently Eric took with him on his journey a small modern camera with which he took amazing pictures.
Then there are the stories of explorations and travel at sea, some fictitious, but most of them soberingly real. There is the story of the first journey around Cape Horn by the Dutch Le Maire and Schouten in 1615, as well as the journal of Abel Tasman, who circumnavigated Australia. If you want something more voluminous, there is The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. In her history of circumnavigation the American historian Joyce Chaplin writes that the attrition, read mortality rate, of long distance seafaring in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were between 70 and 100 percent.
There is a graveyard full of travel guides, as well as numerous overlapping guides on birds and sea animals. It is difficult to see when the guide of the Chatham Islands will next come in handy, but prospective sailors who will join the ‘Oosterschelde’ on a cruise in the Cape Verde archipelago need not bother to buy a guide, there is one for everyone on board.
I would like to ask my readers what they would consider essential reading in the ‘Oosterschelde’ library. It would be fun to give it a facelift.  Major point of contention of course will remain what books to throw away. Time to appoint another committee I fear. My own candidates, presently missing, are as follows:
1) a bible
2) a compendium of poems about the sea
3) The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
4) a practical work about navigation at sea
5) a translation of the Odyssey”