Once is Enough by Miles Smeeton

Once is Enough by Miles Smeeton

This timeless classic is an exciting true story of survival against all odds.

'There was a sudden sickening sense of disaster. I felt a great lurch and heel, and a thunder of sound filled my ears. I was conscious, in a terrified moment, of being driven into the front and side of my bunk with tremendous force. At the same time there was a tearing cracking sound, as if Tzu Hang was being ripped apart, and water burst solidly, raging into the cabin. There was darkness, black boards, and I fought wildly to get out, thinking Tzu Hang had already gone. Then suddenly I was standing again, waist deep in water, and floorboards and cushions, mattresses and books were sloshing in wild confusion round me.'

Miles Smeeton and his wife Beryl sailed their 46-ft Bermuda ketch, Tzu Hang, in the wild seas of Cape Horn, following the tracks of the old sailing clippers through the world's most notorious waters. This is an exciting true story of survival against all odds, but it is also a thoughtful book which provides hard-learned lessons for other intrepid sailors.

As Nevil Shute writes in his foreword: 'It has been left to Miles Smeeton to tell us in clear and simple language just where the limits of safety lie.'

Norway, Nevil Shute, was born in Ealing, London, in 1899. He went to Balliol College in Oxford to study Engineering Science. Pursuing his childhood dream, he worked as an aeronautical engineer on the development of airships and, later, airplanes in the budding aircraft industry. He began writing in his leisure time and published his first novel, Marazan, in 1926, under the pseudonym Nevil Shute in order to safeguard his engineering job. He married Frances Mary Heaton in 1931, and the couple had two daughters.

During WWII, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, where he worked on secret weapon development. He continued to write after the war and eventually settled in Australia, where he died in 1960. Pied Piper (1942), A Town Like Alice (1950), and On the Beach (1957) are among his best-known works.